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All posts by Richard Worthington

Below are all of Richard Worthington's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

R
Malvern (Worcestershire, England) Full Freeview transmitter
Sunday 11 September 2011 8:46PM
Malvern

Briantist,

First a thanks for all your previous advice - sure much appreciated by all !

I have a media center and following the 7th Sept switch-over a few of the channels (BBC1, Channel 5 etc) have been dropping out/blocky especially in the morning. I've a couple of questions ...

1) During the 7th-21st period will the transmitter be having work done on it/reduced power for any reason ?

2) Did read previously the power at Malvern was going to be increased in this switchover - is this still the case ?

Many thanks in advance,

Richard
WR14 1QJ, Aerial in Loft, Windows Media Center, Windows 7, Dual Black Gold BGT3620 DVB-T cards

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R
Malvern (Worcestershire, England) Full Freeview transmitter
Friday 23 September 2011 6:56AM
Malvern

Brian WR5,

I've got the same issue/problems you have with Windows 7 and dual BlackGold BGT3620 cards with the signal being reported as 60%. Suspect it is something to do with the signal being too strong - the aerial is in the loft and I'm only a few hundred yards from the Malvern transmitter (though just round the end of the hill so not direct sight). There are a few clues ..

1) when looking at the channel source some channels have both the main frequency and the 166 MHz offset (i.e. 8 sources are quoted not the expected 4)
2) Other TVs in the house all at 100% strength and quality
3) When scanning for new signals media center picks up channels right at the start/lower channels so picking up either distant signals or potentially shadows of main signal
4) I have experiemented with attenuators in the past that didn't have much effect
5) I have a distribution box in the loft that suspect might be an issue if the input signal is way too strong - will try taking this out and see the effect

I plan to have a good session over the weekend to try and resolve the problem and will let you know how I get on !

Cheers,

Richard


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Brian,

Yip - I've got two dual tuners hence expect 4 sources but do get 4,8,12 or 16 on various channels. I had a session yesterday to try and resolve the problems. I bought a variable attenuator from Maplins (Blackpole) and set the power of the signal to around 90% using a TV to show the power/quality. I then had various rounds of setting up the TV signal in media center (MCE)- did notice it would detect (or not detect) different channels on different scans in an inconsistent way. Eventually did get a good scan that detected the channels as expected - I think MCE does strange things if it has channels already so I suggest doing a scan and when it's complete you have the option to delete channels. Do this, reboot and then rescan and this seems to solve the scanning issue.

I also invested in a new graphics card (PNY GT430 Nvidia PC World £59.99) that had hardware video processing since did notice PC was struggling decoding the HD signal.

So by the evening was getting all the channels without any problems and recorded/watched BBC1 and ITV in HD with no problems.

Now this morning am getting interference on BBC1 and ITV1. This got me thinking since had noticed before I had problems in the morning but seemed to be ok later on in the day which led me to think about interference from a source. With a bit of googling came across this

TV Interference Advice, Solve TVI Problems | TVI Filters

Since so close to the Malvern transmitter and close to the fire station this is potentially a problem. I've ordered a filter (via ebay for £10 but this has the details http://www.garex.co.uk/AK…htm) so will let you know if this makes any difference.

BTW you can use 'Sitefinder' Mobile Phone Base Station Database to see if there is a Tetra transmitter close by - I stuck in your postcode and there is one on Williamson Rd so depending on where you live could be an issue.

Will let you know how I get on with the filter !

Cheers,

Richard


(WR141QJ)

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R
Malvern (Worcestershire, England) Full Freeview transmitter
Sunday 25 September 2011 12:20PM
Malvern

Rich,

Suggest trying the "deleting" approach in my previous post and see if that works

"I think MCE does strange things if it has channels already so I suggest doing a scan and when it's complete you have the option to delete channels. Do this, reboot and then rescan and this seems to solve the scanning issue. "

I did try pulling out the aerial until the scan got to 50% (to get the higher channels) but that didn't seem to work though that was before I deleted the channels first so might be worth a try if the above still doesn't work !

cheers,

Richard

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R
Malvern (Worcestershire, England) Full Freeview transmitter
Friday 30 September 2011 7:20AM
Malvern

I've also lost all the HD channels at Malvern on both media center and my TV so suspect some issue with the transmitter ?

Richard

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