All posts by Neil Bell
Below are all of Neil Bell's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
B White 5USA is on Freeview, Freesat, Virgin and Sky so I don't know why you have difficulty watching it. This site is just a forum where people who are having problems can ask for help but if you don't say how you are trying to watch 5USA its difficult to focus on what your problem might be. You don't say how netflix pesters you - is it emails or pop up ads or what? Again if you don't say no one can help.
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Sam Mott Could you confirm that you have at least a dual LNB with a separate cable run to your Freesat box? Each sat tuner requires an LNB connection so e.g. a Sky plus box and a dual tuner freesat box would require a quad LNB and 4 cables. Only TVs or set top boxes with satellite tuners will work with coax connections from LNBs
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Sam Mott although you do say you have a fully functioning SD Freeview box so presumably you have an aerial and a signal? In which case have you tried replacing the SD box with the new HD box. That would show you definitely if it is a Freeview and not Freesat box. If that works you could try a splitter on your aerial & run a cable from the splitter to the new HD box instead of from the LNB.
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Scott Tyldesley I don't think a standard size dish will be big enough. I live in London and have a 1.2 metre dish pointing at Astra 3A 23.5 degrees East which works perfectly on HD & SD Czech channels on my Panasonic receiver but sometimes its a bit iffy on SD channels on my old Fortec Star Passion +. I think that this may be because the HD channels broadcast on a Europe wide beam but the SD channels are more closely focussed on the Czech/Slovak Republics. As to angles you can find precise details on line depending on your post code but as a rough guide its a bit to the right of the English channels on 28.2 East and a bit to the left of the German channels at 19.2 East. If you have a receiver with the CZ channels already tuned in it will be easier to find and better than a signal meter.
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Elaine Could you just clarify that we are talking about Freesat here? We don't normally use splitters for satellite receivers but often do for terrestrial (Freeview) aerials. With satellite receivers it is more normal to use a dual or quad LNB on a dish which would give 2 or 4 outputs for separate tuners. Have you tried swapping the receivers round as this might help identify where the problem is. Also if you can reach the dish easily and you have a dual LNB you could try swapping the cables round again to help identify where the problem is.
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Robert As long as your set top box is a satellite (Freesat or free to air sat) receiver and there are no trees blocking the dish then "yes". If its a terrestrial (Freeview) receiver then "no"
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My older Sony Bravia does rearrange the Freeview channel order on a prompted retune but my newer one and my Panasonic boxes don't so I don't have a big problem with the order & I'm certainly not tempted to pay Rupert Murdoch to sort it for me! Being retired I just waste 10 mins reordering them. I sometimes switch to a regional variant of the local news (on Sat) when BBC 1 HD goes off line briefly in the morning (interesting to see what is happening in Glasgow, Belfast or Cardiff) but otherwise I keep BBC 1 London SD next to BBC 1 HD on the newer Sony Bravia and the Panasonic STBs so that I can switch back & forth easily. I have all the BBC channels first followed by all the ITV channels followed by the Channel 4 & 5 variants with the rest in alphabetical order and finally the national regional variants of the BBC & ITV so I can find my way round & I leave the shopping rubbish where it ends up. I do find that I watch much more BBC and less commercial TV than I did before so I probably see more German & Czech adverts (on Sat) than British ones these days and I probably miss out sometimes but you can't watch everything can you! By the way Nick I agree that the quality of the pictures on NHK HD are pretty good but I can't say I've been divinely inspired by their programmes. Still whatever turns you on!
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Nick I should be more patient & open minded. Maybe I need to nominate 1 channel each week and spend more time watching it at the expense of one of my more usual channels. I had a 10 minute look just now at NHK World HD and it was an interesting programme about geikos and their training. Mind you I'm not certain how this furthers the argument about where SD & HD versions of channels should be juxtaposed.
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Thursday 9 May 2013 6:20PM
Tony Riz Forget the Bulgarian reference (Senior moment - they broadcast on Astra 3A at 23.5 degrees East) but Polish channels certainly broadcast on Hotbird if you can't wait till Saturday when I'm home!