All posts by Norm De Plume
Below are all of Norm De Plume's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Neil,
This was known about before the switchover; it was being talked about by Mike Dimmick on the 28th June, for instance. I think that it isn't the engineers' fault, but the fault of the people providing the information about the switchover.
To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that Briantist hasn't updated the info at the top of the page to show the true existing channels or the final timescale. It would save a lot of people being very confused because they just want to know what channels to search for and they don't have the time or knowledge to go back through 10 pages of posts about MUXes, modes, powers etc.
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Stephen,
Try swapping devices between rooms, if they are being used in different rooms. Pr swap the aerial leads around - some devices are more sensitive to signal loss than others and looping through another device rarely improves the signal level. Consider having custom leads made up with quality wire - it's generally cheaper than buying new leads and the improvement is worth it.
If all else fails, wait until June 27th 2012 when there will be yet another retune and your Film4 signal should be readily received.
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Was there an outage yesterday?
I lost Film4 and Dave (ArqA and ArqB) yesterday around 6pm, both from Sudbury and Tacolneston. This was experienced on 2 different TVs and with separate aerials.
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N
Sudbury Arqiva multiplex B changes 16 November - retune requireFriday 13 January 2012 1:43AM
Stowmarket
Philip - as a single-post-spleen-venter, you probably won't ever come back, but if you do there is a splendid irony in you complaining on a technical website about geeks being rampant. Anyway, if you had asked more nicely and actually given some useful information, some of the geeks on here would probably have given you some helpful, free, voluntary support to make the best of your existing system.
By the way, your losing access to Film4 was as a result of the marketers and the finance departments: the geeks were just told to make it happen or they'd be sacked. You probably didn't find out about it in time because of middle management failures which were then covered up by the PR and advertising departments. If there was another financially-approved way for you to have Film4 and for Dover to not be affected, the geeks would have made it happen.
So, in summary, "Stuff the consumer" may be the motto of Freeview, but that's despite the efforts of the technical teams.
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Dan,
You need to direct such comments to the people who actually control Freeview. This website is just here to help people make the best of their TV service and is run on a voluntary basis.
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David,
Sudbury isn't up to full power on all channels, unlike Tacolneston which is now full power on all channels. This is due to the proximity of Sudbury to the Dover area and the need to wait until they have switched over.
Either they should wait until June 27th, or spend time on tweaking the simplest parts of their system, i.e. make up good quality leads from quality cable and bin any cheap leads bought from DIY stores etc.
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@david,
You probably changed your location when you were checking the location of your friends. Just set it back, there's no problem.
Updates are only sent out once a day so as to not 'spam' people's inboxes if they are getting updates from multiple busy topics.
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Bob James: There is a lot of engineering work going on in your area, so it may settle down in a few days.
However, what you describe does not sound like a "box that doesn't support the 8k mode" problem and it simply sounds like you are receiving TV signals from multiple transmitters (Staines is in the middle of Hemel, Reigate and Crystal Palace). If you can find out the frequencies that the box is tuning to for BBC2 on '2' and BBC2 on '814' then tell the box to retune and unplug the cable when it is scanning past the bad frequency and plug it in again afterwards. This process is a bit fiddly but can work well with a bit of perseverance. Even better would be if the Alba box supports manual tuning when you just tune in the channels that you want - your MiL probably doesn't want to pick up the remote and accidentally tune to Gay Rabbit, for instance.
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Bob James: it looks like digital TV on Midhurst is the only one that is disrupted at the moment so there's probably not much point waiting to see if it sorts itself out.
You should really type your MiL's postcode into the postcode checker in the top right of the page and you will then be shown the nearby transmitters that she is likely to receive. The page for each transmitter shows the channels that you will need to tune to or to avoid.
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Saturday 10 December 2011 5:43AM
Neil, in November, as part of the switchover for Tacolneston transmitter (the next one North of Sudbury) the carrier on Sudbury for Film4 etc. was moved to a higher frequency. This frequency, is difficult to receive for many aerials and receivers and, just to put the tin lid on it, the power is also very low. The reason that the power is low is so that it doesn't interfere with the Dover area.
Once Dover have finished their switchover, on 27th June 2012, a different frequency will be allocated which is both easier to receive and the power will go up to the full level.
So, you have a quandry - either put up with missing channels for the next 6 months, or invest money in upgrading your system, despite the fact that you've probably already had to do that once already.