All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Roger: Since all indications are that your signal should be really good, it sounds like you have a problem with your aerial. Start with checking the basics, such as the aerial lead from the back of the TV. Ultimately, you might need to call out a professional.
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MikeP: Its a shame that not all manufacturers make all their equipment with T2 tuners - the bulk of the sets you see at supermarkets (unless they are one of the four big brands) do not have them. Its relatively easy to get another box (receivers have started to appear on the market again), but its an extra cost, an extra hassle, and fairly pointless.
However, I suspect that the bulk of TV's will either have T2 tuners, or have T2 equiped boxes attached (or at least the possibility) within a couple of years, such is the churn in the market. But I would warn anyone buying a TV, etc to make sure that it is Freeview HD equiped - if its seemingly too cheap, there is normally a good reason why!
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David: If your getting 'no signal', then your either getting nothing or a signal so low that the tuner isn't bothering with it.
You may not feel David's excellent advice is applicable, so here is another one. Your aerial is attached to your TV by a thin (6mm?) cable which is exposed to all weathers, and is constantly under pressure from the wind, rain, etc. Eventually, somethings got to give, and perhaps a small break or crack in the waterproofing on a connection appears. Thats OK when its dry, but during the night moisture condenses and gets into that small crack, and kills the signal. In the morning, the moisture dries out and you've got your signal back again.
Check the signal strength - if its really low, then the aerial system is marginal (but perfectly fine) until some thing happens. Your just 11km from Crystal Palace (assuming thats the transmitter your using), so you should be getting a stonkingly strong signal.
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Graham F Lewendon: I find the national far more useful than the local. Our 'local' news really isn't local at all - its an entirely different region. If I want to find out what my weather might be, the best I can do is look in the bottom right hand corner of the screen when the weather map is up, and guess.
And since we need both national and local weather forcasting, I'm not sure it saves much money.
As for the idea that there should be some sort of gentlemans agreement over news coverage, that seems unlikely to work. Although broadcasters have organised 'pooling' in the past for certain events, I cant imagine any media organisation not covering any event simply because someone else was doing it, and I'm not sure I'd want just one organisation's coverage anyway.
As for wall to wall coverage - if you've got 24 hour a day news channels, you've got to fill them with something! Even if its speculation about speculation. If you want a different news agenda, try the World Service or BBC World News - its often refeshingly different.
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Sue Hewitt: You might like to have a word in their ear, so why not contact them, rather than this website, which has nothing to do with the channel at all....
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John Dunmall: In addition to JB38's excellent advice, you could see if your TV's actually have a sat. receiver. About six years ago, a fair number of Panasonics and the occasional LG had Freesat tuners. Although these pretty much disappeared about four years ago, about 2 years ago most LG's and Sony's got (and still have) generic sat. tuners. OK, so not a Freesat EPG, but perfectly useable.
If you've bought a mid or high level Samsung in the past couple of years (so a 3D TV), then there is a decent chance you have a Freesat tuner (or even two) built in.
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David Anderson: Ok - do you know what the model number of the Tv is? That will give us a chance to see what other connections its has.
I assume that you've used HDMI for the Freesat box, and you could then use the single scart for either the DVD or the VCR. The reason why the model number is important is that 3-4 years ago you might still have had RCA phono's as imputs, as well as a scart. If you do still have them (yellow, red and white), a cheap convertor/cable will allow you to attach it to a scart. If you've got a newer one (I havn't seen a Samsung plasma for a year, but I assume they are similar to LED models), then the scart switcher is the easiest way to go. Having said that, your likely to get iinterference and its not a great solution (I've got one).
Frankly, I wouldn't have bought the DVD player, and I'm not sure its really worth using the VCR. Most customers of mine seem to have a VCR under the TV, but they simply dont use them any more. If you've got personal tapes, etc, then you can get a convertor kit for less than £15 and digitise them with your PC (tapes tend to degrade, and they will look pretty ropey on a large HD TV).
I would have advised you to buy a blu ray instead of a DVD player. They play everything, are smart, and of course use HDMI rather than scarts (there is a reason modern TV's have lots of HDMI's, but only one scart!). Its the new year models, so a bit pricer than the 2014 models were some months back, but you could still do well for £70 with the Sony 1500. Or have a look in your local Richer Sounds - still some 2014 models around for less than £50. DVD's are an old technology, and I've long pointed out to customers that spending £30 on a dvd player makes little sense in relation to buying a blu-ray. You've also been unlucky - most DVD players these days actually have HDMI's as standard.
As far as the 4 way block works - plug in both devices via scart, etc, and then the blocks scart lead into the scart socket in the back of the TV - power up at least one of the devices, and select with the button for that device on the block.
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robbie mullaney: It sounds like a stupid question, but are the two aerial systems entirely seperate, and are you sure that the TV's are being fed independently?
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Ian Jones: You should be getting avery good signal on all channels. Best guess - somethings up with your aerial system. Normally, BBC channels are the strongest, but if you've got a loose connection, frayed wire, etc, then that mux might be the one that suffers.
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Thursday 23 April 2015 9:50PM
John P: If you have the BT service, as far as I'm aware, you can still watch it online, us the app, etc. As far as other boxes are concerned, I suspect the only other way your going to get it is using a BT PVR (which is basically a Humax). Of course that is Freeview, not Freesat.