All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Elaine: Check your signal strength.Your 19km from Winter Hill, which sounds like too much signal (especially if you have booster, etc). Search for 'too much of a good thing' on this site.
| link to this comment |
paul reynolds: If you have a power cut, then nothing should work, including your TV. If you have a booster in the roof, and power has been restored, then possibly its failed. If you don't, then logically, there is no connection between the power cut and your loss of signal, since, as you point out, the Hannington transmitter seems to be working fine (ask a neighbour to check).
Almost certainly you have a problem with your aerial system. It might be as simple as a broken cable in the roof, but if the transmitter is fine, how can it be anything else?
You can go up yourself, or pay someone 55 quid, but it sounds like the problem is somewhere in the loft.
| link to this comment |
carolyn george: Check your signal strength! I sometimes get the same problem, and its the signal suddenly going down to about 30% or way up to 80 or 90% - both end up looking the same. Strangely, I'm getting both problems a bit at the moment.
Since you've had everything checked, I doubt the signal is too low. Now the transmitter your on is very low power, but on the other hand, your very very close 2km. So it could be your jusdt getting too much signal, and that causing the problems.
| link to this comment |
Nick: 'Matey, you are completely out of touch. I get my news and informed opinions from the internet. I take active parts in forums. I watch DVD's. I walk the dog. I don't need TV now and nor do a lot of people. They have better things to do and more money to do it with. Sitting in front of the box for 3 hours after work is very 1980's. '
So your sitting in front of a screen for 3 hours instead. Reading forums and 'informed opinions'. Of course these 'informed' opinions tend to mirror your own, hence your frequent posting of links to the dreck that is 'Order, Order'. In fact this sort of internet use, by which we chose to view and absorb only the things that we tend to agree with has a name - 'Filter Bubble' The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think: Eli Pariser: 9780143121237: Amazon.com: Books
Now part of that is due to commercial interests (always wondered why the adverts for something on a website seem to be very relevant to you? Because they are designed to be), as the book lays out, but also because we are prone to confirmation bias. In fact often the more certain personality types are shown evidence that contradicts their worldview, the more they will reject it.
So the internet is not the real world - its simply a version of it that we often make for ourselves.
I love facts - because (unlike Order, order), facts have a liberal bias (as Stephen Colbert put it). So I actually googled the post of 'editorial assistant' for the BBC. Here is a job description -
Assistant Editor, BBC Worldwide | Jobs and careers with BBC , and her pay would be as a Grade 3 BBC employee - http://downloads.bbc.co.u….pdf - so 20k-29k in London (which really doesn't go far in London, just ask anyone who lives or commutes to there), and 16k-25k outside London (so if your in the SE, but outside LOndon, your really stuffed). In other words, although a BBC employee did indeed write a letter with a question for Corbyn to ask at PMQ's (and he really should stop doing that, since its a bit of a gimmick), she was writing in a personal capacity, and she's pretty junior and not that well paid (hence the question about affordable housing). Storm in teacup.
It took me less time to research that than type it. The internet can indeed by useful, unlike the comments after that item, which were frankly a bit unpleasant.
'And haven't you noticed how many minority groups are forced down our throat by the BBC, a far higher ratio than in actual life. This is all part of the PC suppression of the population, so the left get less opposition as they try to complete their agenda.
What happened to good, old fashioned family entertainment? '
Which minority groups would this be, exactly? And who exactly is suppressing the population by political correctness? Family entertainment? My wife loves 'Call the Midwife' and 'Great British Bakeoff', which is broadcast on the BBC, but of course that should be shut down. I wonder how many agree?
| link to this comment |
MikeP: Put it this way, if Nick didn't keep writing idiotic nonsense, I wouldn't feel the need to correct it.
People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
| link to this comment |
MikeP: And I'm entitled to disagree with him (and use facts). Comment is free, but facts are sacred.
| link to this comment |
MikeP: But the one thing neither you or Nick have supplied are ...facts!
But thanks to the governments public consultation on the BBC - which Brianist urged us all to fill out about 6 months ago BBC future: make sure you make the deadline , we actually have some real data, and your not going to like it.
Frankly, the government made it as difficult as possible to respond to it - they initially hid it away, and tried to limit the amount of time available (I did it the last day before it closed). Fortunately, it got some publicity from 38Degree's, etc (including this website), and it ended up with almost 200,000 responses. The actual survey was long winded and repetative (almost as if they want ed people to give up...), and took a good half an hour to go through.
Many of the questions were worded in a very loaded way. For instance, How should we pay for the BBC and how should the licence fee be modernised? uses the word 'modernised' - thus implying that the licence fee is somehow outdated. Not all the questions were that subtle. And it was fixated with goverance - which is something most people (including me) apparently didn't give a toss about, apart from a) nobody want the government anywhere near the BBC, and b) most people don't rust Ofcom either.
Now the Telegraph got quite stroppy at the claim by 38Degrees that 177,000 of its members replied, or as the paper puts it 'consultation into the future of the corporation was hijacked by a left-wing campaigning group'. BBC charter review consultation hijacked by left-wing campaign group - Telegraph
Except thats a claim - there seem to be no figures to say exactly what happened. Frankly, I say good on them for getting the word out, but if anyone else had been interested, they could have filled it in too.
As for ' this claim: Lord Tyler, a Liberal Democrat peer, said they were a one-click rent-a-mob whose modus operandi involves filling up someone's inbox with a lot of half-constructed half-truths - firstly, it involved a large amount of work to fill in the survey, so hardly 'one-click', and its Paul Tyler, so who cares?
I'm sure its critics will reject the survey out of hand, but since '90% of politics is showing up' (President Jeb Bartlett), anyone could have replied to the survey, including all the tin foil hat wearers on the internet.
The report itelf?
'The most important issue for respondents was content, with 150,744 (81%) indicating that the BBC is serving its audiences well or very well. - Public supports BBC and its independence from government | Media | The Guardian
'Almost three quarters of responses (74 per cent) indicated that the BBC's content is sufficiently high quality and distinctive from that of other broadcasters.
'Three quarters of responses (76%) to the government consultation suggested that the BBC has been doing enough to deliver value for money.
How should we pay for the BBC and how should the licence fee be modernised? the majority of responses 60% (110,863) replied saying: No change needed. Just 15% (27,951) argued for reform and 4% (7,144) for a universal household levy.
Overall, when asked is the expansion of the BBC's services justified in the context of increased choice for audiences?' almost 69% (126,826 responses) said: Yes expansion justified.
'A large majority of responses (73% or 134,778) indicated that the BBC should remain independent from one or more of government, parliament and Ofcom. '
Somewhere, James Mudoch is crying....
Its true that not everyone agrees - certain interested parties have put their oar in. Local newspapers winge (the fact that the internet now exists and that most local papers are rubbish seems to have escaped them), and ITV is moved to victimhood.
The government has come up with its own report (via a consultancy), which makes great play of the above moaning, while ignoring all the public submissions. - Culture secretary to call on BBC to abandon 'soft' web news and stop dumbing down - Telegraph . The report is in fact Whittingdale's own personal views made flesh, plus the concern trolling of its rivals. I suspect that the figures contained in it for rival's increased revenue should the BBC scale back in some areas are little more than wishful thinking.
I'm sure that you and Nick will totally reject this survey as flawed and skewed. However, if you can find any better polling data, lets see it. I can point to this:
BBC - Tomorrow's BBC: Vast majority of public support BBC providing same or greater range of services - BBC Trust
and this:
Public 'support BBC cost-savings but do not want services to be axed' | Media | The Guardian
and this:
Radio Times poll shows massive public support for BBC and licence fee
People actually seem to like the BBC when asked, whatever 'the internet' might say. Thats a fact, whatever possible interpretation anyone might attempt.
One other thing - if people don't want to discuss stuff, why keep on replying?
| link to this comment |
Nick: Oh God, why do you do this? Seriously?
Ok - Why are BakeOff and Call the Midwife not family entertainment? And why just for women? The Daily Mail thinks Bake Off is:
'The Great British Bake Off is a byword for perfect family entertainment'. Ok, so they are a bit worried about Mel and Sue's double entendres, but overall, it works (14.1m viewers thought so).
Morcambe and Wise (who, I have to admit, I never found all that funny) are not repeated in peak time on Christmas Day now, unless its by Channel 5 (because they are a really cheap channel). I suspect Midwife will get repeated a lot, but not having a crystal ball, I have no idea what will be shown on TV on Christmas Day 30 years from now. Do you?
'I loved the Generation Game and Noels House Party.'. I watched Generation Game in the 1970's, but I always hated House Party. It might have been 'family entertainment', but I thought it was crud.
Don't even start on about Trump - but do watch John Oliver talking about him - its on You Tube, and very funny. The stuff about Trump University is jaw dropping.
Family entertainment isn't going to entertain every family, or every member of it. I'm willing to watch Strictly, but its not something I'd go out of my way to watch - but lots of other people like it. Same with X Factor, etc. Different folks, different strokes.
At last, the government is going to close the Iplayer loophole (which only exists because the BBC introduced a technology which now everyone else has copied) - good. If your watching it, you should be paying for it. I suspect that any workaround is beyond most people.
And the reason why the BBC is shorter of fund than it would be is simply because the government has frozen the licence fee, made it shell out for lots of stuff which it had nothing to do with, and then cut its revenue still futher by getting it to pay for over 75's licence fees - something that had been decided on by government, not the BBC. As a result, I'm helping to pay my parents licence fee, even though they dont' really need the help.
| link to this comment |
Thursday 25 February 2016 10:10PM
paul reynolds: No. Hannington should be restored very soon, and unless its very easy to swap it back again, just leave it alone. Besides - despite what the advice is about a weak signal, do you have any actual problems picking it up? If not, dont bother.