All posts by H J Hill
Below are all of H J Hill's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
COM7 DROPOUTS (see earlier message on p116 at 5:12 pm)
Now Arqiva know they have a problem, they should publicly acknowledge it.
There will be people spending money trying to fix their aerials etc in the belief that it couldn't possibly be a transmission problem as it has gone on for so long.
Arqiva checked their logging equipment only because I supplied day/time/Freeview-channel data of the dropouts.
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Of course, the utterly barmy thing is the introduction of even smaller scale, community, stations on Freeview. The ones in major centres (e.g. London) will thrive*; the rest will be amateurish stuff put out by people who want to be on the telly.
It's a legacy from Jeremy Hunt's days in CMS and his stupid question "why can Birmingham Alabama have 8 local stations and Birmingham UK have none". The question was based on a false idea: the 8 stations are affiliates of national US networks; a bit like Westward and Tyne Tees were in the ITV (and we know what happened there). ITV has long been crying poverty over regional news programmes and was actively campaigning for licence fee monies to fund it.
(* And, I'd wager, will become players for national distribution in a few years time. Commercial (local) radio has made the template.)
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COM7 DROPOUTS - UPDATE
COM7 DROPOUTS - UPDATE
COM7 DROPOUTS - UPDATE
For newcomers: this affects the following: Freeview: 64, 71, 106,107,108,109, 110, 111, 134
BBC News HD: BBC Four HD: CBeebies HD: Ch4+1 HD: Ch4-seven HD: Aljazeera HD: Community HD
Jewellery Maker: Motors TV: Aljazeera Arabic (these 3 in Std Def)
Further to my post on p116 - Tue 9 December 2014 at 5:12pm:
I have had an update email from Arqiva today (Fri 19 Dec) at 16:07.
They know they have a problem but they cannot find what is causing it.
They are still working on it.
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@Will
On Sunday evening (28 Dec) I had trouble with several of the multiplexes (e.g. the one carrying Yesterday and Aljazeera English (SD); and the one carrying HD BBC1 BBC2 ITV1 etc) and COM7.
As best I can determine, several multiplexes are on reduced power. This causes my (reasonably new Panasonic) TV to give "No Service"; but the PVR (also Panasonic and the same recent age) delivers everything. My old Sony (not HD) is also coping with the reduced power.
I'm resisting the temptation to rescan the Pana TV for fear of losing everything.
Anybody would think Winter Hill was a local relay serving a couple of villages and some cow sheds, it's so unreliable.
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Losing Weak Multiplexes - this may be of interest.
I live in a part of North Yorkshire served by Winter Hill, which is 50 km away with decent line-of-sight. The 100 kW multiplexes (on UHF 49, 50 and 54 to 59) come through strong and robust. Those on UHF 37 and 31 are weak due to: (1) their lower radiated power; and (2) their being off the 'bottom end' of the bandwidth of my group C/D aerial.
UHF31 (com7 - BBC News HD; BBC4 HD; CH4+1 HD; AlJazeera HD; etc) was the problem and would go missing. The TV signal strength meter would show some signal, but the signal quality meter would show nothing. The blank TV screen would display "No signal".
The problem turned out to be radio-frequency interference radiated from an HDMI cable between the PVR and the TV. The aerial and HDMI sockets are adjacent at the back of the TV. The aerial coax was picking up interference from the HDMI cable. Unplugging the HDMI cable (at either end) and stopping the digital 'chatter' along the HDMI cable, never failed to restore good com7 reception.
The solution was: (1) to replace the HDMI cable with one with seriously good screening; and (2) to replace all aerial coaxial cables around the back of the TV* with WF100 double-screened coax. (* wall plate to PVR and PVR to TV). All multiplexes are now 'solid'.
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I cannot see any reason why the demise of BBC3-HD should affect the radiated power on com7 (UHF31). I have searched (in vain) for information as to whether the radiated power of the currently low-powered multiplexes will be raised when everything is moved into the UHF22 to 45 region of the radio spectrum in 2019.
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The UHF58 problem of high strength but zero quality suggests radio-frequency interference pickup.
I had a similar problem with UHF32 and 37. It turned out to be the HDMI cable between my pvr and tv. Even with the pvr on stand-by there must have been information going up/down the HDMI which radiated and was being picked up by the aerial lead. (The HDMI sockets are adjacent to the aerial socet on my tv). I solved the problem with better screened RF coax cables from the wall plate to the various tv/pvr items; and a better screened HDMI cable between pvr and tv. The thin, flexible aerial cables (as sold in shops) are badly screened, in my experience.
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Page 2
Tuesday 9 December 2014 5:12PM
DROP OUTS ON COM7 - IMPORTANT NEWS
DROP OUTS ON COM7 - IMPORTANT NEWS
DROP OUTS ON COM7 - IMPORTANT NEWS
Today (~5pm Tuesday 9 December 2014) I have received an email from Arqiva.
They "have now identified an intermittent issue at Winter Hill. Engineers have been on site today, but have been unable to isolate the root cause at this time. Work will continue . . . . ".
I was beginning to doubt my sanity with this issue. It has taken many weeks of complaining to Ofcom, Channel Four Corporation, and the BBC. It shouldn't be this difficult. And it shouldn't be up to the viewer to keep tabs on the transmitters' outputs.
As for the Dropouts on COM7; is there a possibility that they'll all be over by Christmas (but isn't that what was said about World War 1?) !!!!