All posts by jack
Below are all of jack's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Is there some reason talkingpictures (TV channel 82 on mux channel 39) is not transmitting any
CRID's ?
This appears to be causing severe issues with my recievers.
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Hi Chris - thanks for the info.
The CRIDs are now back on.
OK lets hope the engineering fixes this one. I've pretty much lost COM7 most of the time already.
(I heard thats going off totally next month - seems quite wrong to me)
But to talking pictures:
Sadly there is still something not right with that specific channel (as that one was the only
one with no CRID's I'd hoped that was it)
The channel is either doing something - or not doing something it should - every 60 seconds roughly
is my guess. This has been going on for about 3 weeks. Could even be codec related maybe
its just an odd one.
It causes my 3 PVR's to crash (hard crash corrupting 2 hard drives so far) every 60 seconds if that
channel is tuned in. (Only talkingpictures(82) - nothing else on that mux or any other does this)
PBS America for example is fine. By about every 60 seconds I do mean consistently without fail.
Removing the drives and formatting under linux was needed for 2 of them - both produced
the same unusual error message under e2fsck ("The system was last booted in the future - by less than
a day") or words to that effect.
A coincidence that 2 drives were corrupt in the same manner - perhaps - could be a red herring or
maybe there is something slightly out of sync somewhere.
I havn't done comms for many years (decades) but maybe they have some cross channel or IP issues
off the top of my head. It also seems to be Sutton related as far as I can find out. Apparently
the Mendip region is ok - I don't know if thats relevant to anyone.
Sadly I've never had reason to study freeview in any detail.
I did buy a new attenuator to try but that doesn't help - One of my machines is on a different aerial
and doesn't use the amplifier as its a backup anyway so that rules out everything I can think of
my end.
I guess I'll just have to wait and see... again.
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Hi Chris
Yes it is odd to say the very least.
I'm not so worried about the recordings (hard drives cost money - recordings are repeated)
The mendip users I mentioned use the same humax devices as myself which is why I checked
in case it was a design consideration given that I have 3 of them all doing the same thing.
Unfortunately I don't know anyone else around here that uses them anymore.
FWIW all 3 are still crashing every 60 seconds if I leave them on talkingpictures and nothing else.
While looking into this I have discovered that mysterious MUX (UHF 26) I've seen for over a year
now does in fact have channels on it that are wiped out when UHF tuning gets higher up and
overwrites them suggesting I am getting a strong signal from a transmitter I shouldn't be seeing
(too strong to attenuate away without losing other MUXs)
For the record the channels I see on it are (SD):
BBC red
BBC Four
CBBC
Cbeebies
BBC Parliament
BBC1
BBC2
BBC4
BBC3
BBC News (chan:231)
BBC Parliament (ch 232)
Red Button (Chan 250)
RB1 (Channel 601)
As I write its signal strength is 30-33% and Q at 100%
But no sign of talking pictures on 26.
The above channels presumably picked up from sutton correctly dont seem affected by the above.
Manual tuning or pulling the aerial until UHF 39 is reached removes it from the signal list
but has no other effect (I'm still crashing!) To be clear this isnt a recording/disc drive issue.
If I remove the disc drive from the PVR and tune in the boxes still crash just the same.
The boxes don't have to be doing anything except showing talking pictures. (No USB use etc)
The only thing that seems to make sense is if someone locally is transmitting some sort
of periodic strong signal every 60 seconds or thereabouts - or is deliberately hacking the
freeview frequency though I can't imagine why. I do seem to remember this same
fault happening years ago - I think it was the music channel then - I wouldn't watch that so just
ignored it. Presumably that just went away somehow.
Sadly I don't have access to the incoming digital data or spectrum analyser or anything.
I am becoming very curious though... I liked the content on talkingpictures.
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Thanks Chris
Its good to know about the Wrekin.
No the issue is only with talkingpictures - no other channels exhibit this.
However since I last posted UHF 40 (BBC1 HD etc on 626Mhz ) all channels on that mux are now
producing very occasional random pixelation. A different problem which may be due to the work
you mention above - it is very sparodic - maybe once every couple of hours. Nothing I'm concerned
about.
We don't have anything else I'd expect to be an issue - not even any old UHF TV games
or anything like that. Now that you mention it - perhaps someone around here does but
I'd not expect a cyclic 60 second error. This seems a very "programmed" response whatever
is causing it - some sort of timer broadcast maybe - frankly I'm at as much of a loss as you
with this.
But yes everything this end has been throughly checked repeatedly.
whatever is causing the crashing is coming from outside. Just having 1 box on was a good idea
to try but I have tried that.
I have some ideas on looking for stray signals - so I'll just put this in my "hobby" box
and see what I can come up with for a while.
Thanks for the phone number I'll check that out too.
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HD still unwatchable as above
Been fine for 3 years or so -
Low power and Q drop to zero every 3-4 seconds
Whatever the engineering was it didnt fix this.
(Multiple receivers)
SD still seems fine.
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Page 2
Saturday 15 January 2022 3:49PM
Hi
Just an update
I thought I'd mention I had occasion to re-tune last night and noticed
that mysterious C26 entry has vanished. I did discover it IS freeview format and West Midlands
region sourced. The signal was the SD picture type but no channels were listed.
Very odd.
COM7 is still all over the place. Nothing suggested or I've tried makes it reliable.
I'm seeing signals of 80-83% on all others now (amplified) except the local one
COM7 is still bouncing 63-68 power and random total dropouts on all
the receivers. Removing the amp or shorting the VHS doesnt fix it but thanks
for the straw to clutch Chris.
PS
I will stream TV/movies the same day I get my brain replaced by a cabbage.
Nobody seems to think or care about long term consequences. Sad really.