All posts by Richard Sutton
Below are all of Richard Sutton's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.jb38:
Many thanks for the very quick advice.
Using the Humax which has be easiest manual scan procedure I unplugged the aerial and ran an auto scan. No signals were picked up any channels were blank. I then did a manual scan on each mux starting with the lowest C21 and working through towards C34. On each mux the expected number of TV channels were discovered - expect for C29 which only discovers one channel which is ITV.
If I then go to live TV the channels up to ITV working fine but there is no entry for Channel 4, Channel 5 or any of the other stations which are supposed to be on C25. The only way I can get the missing stations is to do a manual scan of 25. The stations all then re-appear but with the poor quality associated with C25.
ITV is fine because that's still on C29.
Any further advice would be much appreciated.
Richard
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jb38:
I'll continue to play around with this Mux 29 issue but I've just done a Google search and found this:
On 2 February there are changes to ITV reception for the Oxford and Ridge Hill transmitters | Freeview
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to say what has actually changed on the Ridge Hill transmitter earlier this year but that is exactly when my problems started. Before that change my preferred ITV mux was C25 and C29 was weaker. Now C25 is poor at my location and C29 is much better but only seems to carry ITV.
Whatever they have done to this transmitter has done me no favours. Indeed, I wonder whether they now broadcast only ITV on C29 and the chart above is incorrect?
Richard
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jb38:
Thanks for all the info. At least it shows I'm probably not going mad and something has changed in the way that Ridge Hill directs its signal.
I've spoken to the Freeview technical help desk. I'm not sure how technical they are but they say that C29 is still broadcasting the same TV channels as C25 and that if I can only get ITV on C29 it must be because there is something wrong with my system and, because all my TVs and Humax have the same symptoms, it must be a "common" problem like water in the aerial cable.
I asked how could this be possible because C29 is in the middle of the frequency range of all the Muxes I can receive and I can receive ITV on C29 perfectly. I asked if it was possible for a fault to be so specific that one station can be received on a mid-frequency mux but all the other stations on that mux to be blocked? They said that it was difficult to understand but that all the stations were on C29 as normal.
I now have all my devices tuned to ITV on C29 and Ch4 and Ch5 on C25 as that's the best I can do until someone suggests something new to try.
This is really strange but I'm not a broadcast expert so am well out of my depth with all this.
Richard
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I should also add that the only reason I've been persuing this is because if we want to want Channel 5 we have to use C25 as it's not available in HD. We can, and usually do, always watch ITV and Channel 4 in HD and the HD muxes are fine.
If I could get Channel 5 on C29 I'd be happy but that seems not to be possible.
Richard
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js:
Yes. I don't know if this helps but that's exactly what happened with the Toshiba TV. When I scanned C29 it picked up only ITV exactly the same as the Sony TV and the Humax FVP-4000T but it put the new ITV on number 800. I then did the aerial unplug and rescan and a fresh manual scan and this time it put the C29 ITV into 3 as expected.
The Sony and the Humax seem to be smarter than the Toshiba and seemed to understand that the new ITV on C29 needs to replace the old ITV on C25. However, since those early experiments they've all been unplugged and rescanned as suggested by JB38. ITV is the only station on C29 that is ever picked up.
I'll do the factory reset today with the Sony and see what happens.
Many thanks for you help.
Richard
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js:
Thanks for helping me with this guys.
OK, I did afactory reset on the Sony HD TV which means that after a few minutes it started by asking me for the language, then country etc. When it asked whether I wanted to do an auto tune I said no. I then did a manual tune for C29 scanning Up followed by a manual tune of C29 scanning Down. Each time is scans for a 15 seconds or so and then says "1 services found on CH 29" - ITV.
The listing at the side of this dialogue say Prog 001, 002 No Service Started. 003 CH29 ITV. Prog 004, 005 No Service Started. If I scroll down all the Progs below 005 they all say No Service Started.
When I go back to normal TV, ITV is playing "The Mummy Returns" and if I Prog + or Prog - it just flickers and goes back to ITV.
If I go into System Information it says:
Frequency 538.172 MHz
Signal Quality 100
Signal Strength 100
Pre Viterbi flashing 2.00ish to 3.50ish e-4
C/N 54
UEC 0
Post Viterbi 0
5s 0
AGC 157
I've no idea what any of that means of course!
Richard
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PS I'll just leave the Sony as it is with only C29 ITV scanned in case you want me to try something else. In the meantime we can watch live TV through the Humax.
Many thanks
Richard
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R
Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview traMonday 7 December 2015 9:27AM
Evesham
jb38:
Thanks for the feedback on those Sony figures.
I'm using the Humax over ethernet so the wifi is not enabled. The Humax is below the Sony Smart TV and both the Humax and the TV use ethernet. The BT wifi router used for our laptops and smart-phones is not nearby. The various ethernet and coax cables are quite close but that's inevitable as, for example, the Humax is only a small box and the ethernet and coax inputs are only a couple of inches apart. However none of the cables run parallel to each other and are not cable-tied together.
The mains-powered booster / splitter in the loft space is fed by the coax which goes up to the arial on the roof which is on a very high pole. This is a bad signal area and without the booster we stuggle to get a watchable picture from any transmitter. Over the years I've tried Sutton Coldfield, Lark Stoke and Ridge Hill but settled on Ridge Hill a few years ago because the various on-line guides suggest it will be best for WR11 4HQ even though we don't have line of sight to any transmitter. I'm tempted to get Mark, the aerial man, back again to align us back to Sutton Coldfield which is a "simpler" transmitter although at 50 a time it's not something I like to do very often!
Having said all that, I don't think the cabling etc is the problem because the Toshiba Smart TV is at the other end of the house and does use the wifi but shows exactly the same issue with C29 and no problem with any of the other muxes. It is connected to the same booster in the loft so I'll have a go at removing the booster and using the straight signal down the coax which goes to the Toshiba. I'll leave the Sony and Humax disconnected in the loft to maximise the signal to the Toshiba. I don't think the picture will be very good but I will be able to see if it picks up all the C29 stations or not.
Once again, thanks for persevering with this!
Richard
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Briantist:
Many thanks Brian. That shows that something significant appears to have happened to C29 on Ridge Hill but I can't understand what.
If you read my posts you will see that the Freeview technical person says that C29 is still broadcasting the same channels as C25 i.e. ITV, Ch4, Ch5 etc but I think they are wrong and they have switched off everything except ITV on C29 and have someone re-directed or de-powered C25 so that my reception is now poorer on C25 but I can't use the improved C29 other than for ITV.
There must be someone senior within Freeview who can actually give me the truth about this. Do you have an email address or phone number by any chance?
If my analysis is correct I will revert back to Sutton Coldfield after 4 or 5 years on Ridge Hill.
Richard
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Page 1
Thursday 3 December 2015 5:25PM
Evesham
Any help with Ridge Hill would be appreciated.
Our reception in Evesham WR11 4HQ has always been poor but recently even worse on mux 25 (ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) so I was playing around with the manual tuning on our 2 HD TVs and HD Humax. I have discovered that the signal quality on mux 29 which is supposed to carry the same TV channels is much better than mux 25 - 95+% rather than 80%.
However, when I do a manual scan on mux 29, all three devices only show one TV channel on mux 29 which is ITV. I have now tuned all three devices to mux 29 and ITV is perfect but, of course, Channel 4 and Channel 5 still show some picture break-up because they are still on mux 25.
Is there any reason I can't pick up all the channels shown on the website on mux 29?
Thank you
Richard