All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
John: The Digital UK Planned Engineering Works page now says:
Rowridge Transmitter and its relays - 25 August 2011
Some viewers may experience disruption to services during essential switchover engineering work on Thursday 25 August between 00:00 and 06:00 and 09:30 and 11:30. Digital UK apologise for any inconvenience.
Services that will be disrupted:
TV Analogue services - BBC2, ITV and Channel 4.
TV Digital services - Mux B
Radio Analogue services - BBC Radio 1,2,3 and 4 (between 09:30 and 11:30 only)
Digital UK - Planned Engineering Works
DUK are often not giving much notice, because they're relying on being told by Arqiva, who seem to give very little notice (if any).
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Iain Nicol: Your box must be one of the many that stores the first channels it finds, rather than waiting to see if it finds better signals elsewhere.
There is a very large overlap between the Belmont and Emley Moor transmitters, and you're on the edges of it. No changes have yet been made to Emley Moor. The prompt you got must have been coming from Belmont - perhaps one of the multiplexes was from there originally.
See Digital Region Overlap for a list of possible solutions, but the only real solution is either to tune manually or replace the box with one that tunes the best-quality services and/or allows you to select the region to store.
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terry: At that postcode, the two transmitters are pretty much bang in line.
Does the TV actually have the Freeview HD logo on it, the packaging or the manual? Does the manual list DVB-T2 alongside DVB-T in the specifications? If not, it's probably only "HD Ready". See What does "Full HD Ready" actually mean? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice for the difference.
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Mike Braithwaite: you'd be using the Lancaster transmitter near, as you say, Nether Kellett. All six multiplexes transmit at the same power level from this transmitter, so you should be looking for any other piece of equipment using C22.
If the aerial has a damaged or missing reflector, that can affect its response at the lowest frequencies. See http://wrightsaerials.tv/….pdf for a discussion of what can happen if the reflector is too short.
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Briantist: Can you recall if this 4,800 homes figure was gross coverage - all homes that could possibly use this transmitter - or non-overlap coverage, homes that cannot use any other transmitter? I thought it was gross coverage.
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Jack: Because that's the amount of airtime they have leased.
We often talk about 'slots' of capacity, one channel's worth of data. At any instant, the bitrate of a service can vary to allow this service to encode something more complex, or other services can borrow from this one, but on average, there's space for about 9 services on Multiplex C before switchover, probably 11 after switchover (as Arqiva A). There can only really be 45 channels running at the same time, not the 100 or so that your box will list. Many of them time-share the capacity.
Based on what starts up and shuts down when, it's believed that Food Network shares a slot with Big Deal, from 5am to 6am, Create & Craft, from 6am to 6pm, and ADULT smileTV3 from 10pm to 5am. For Food Network to extend its hours, they would need to negotiate to swap slots with someone else, or get smileTV3 to reduce their hours.
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Mike: 9 is very good. You do not need to max out the signal strength - what is important is that the signal quality stays at a very high level. I'd leave it alone, or possibly even take out the booster.
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joyce hadley: I'd look for a break in the cable, a loose connection, or a damaged or misaligned aerial. If it's been raining, check that all outside boxes are weatherproof and that cable insulation is undamaged. If cables can move, rubbing up against brickwork or tiles, the insulation will get damaged and allow water in, which increases the signal loss in the cable.
You're clearly missing a lot more than a single multiplex.
You're close enough to the transmitter that you probably can pick up enough signal just from a length of cable rather than from the full aerial.
If you have a booster, check that the power supply is still working and there isn't a blown fuse. You shouldn't need a booster at this distance from the transmitter, so you could try just bypassing it.
There's a possibility that your TV will decide to tune in signals from a different transmitter. Some TVs and set-top boxes just store the first version of the channels they come across, regardless of the strength or quality. The Wrekin, Bromsgrove and Lark Stoke transmitters all use lower frequencies than Sutton Coldfield, so these would be found first. See Digital Region Overlap for how to fix this. Most TVs do go on to store the versions found later in the scan, but some don't.
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Mark Heselden: The 'Transmitter Engineering' posts are automatically generated by submitting trial postcodes to the BBC's Reception webpage and reading Digital UK's Planned Engineering Works page.
The BBC's Reception page only tells you about events that are happening or have happened. They are reports of faults that occurred, detected through automatic monitoring or through viewer reports. If they say 'DSO related' it means that they had been notified about the work.
DUK's Planned Engineering Works page shows future works, but is often not updated for relatively short breaks, and frequently the notice given is incredibly short - a few hours.
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Wednesday 24 August 2011 7:19PM
mr b smith: Are you using the Waltham transmitter or one of its relays? This transmitter no longer transmits BBC Two analogue. Next Wednesday, all the remaining analogue channels from this transmitter will close down for good.
You can no longer tune in a VCR in the same way after switchover. You need to use a set-top box to decode the digital signal, and have the set-top box select the channel you want to record at the time you want the recording to start. Check your VCR's manual for how to get it to record from a SCART input. If it can't, or you can't work it out, you need a set-top box with an RF modulator, which you can then tune the VCR into.