All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Briantist: You could use something like Gravatar instead: Gravatar - Globally Recognized Avatars . I admit my identicon is pretty boring, just a few purple triangles in the corners.
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Bruce Dorward: It could also simply be a fault at the Border news studio meaning that they couldn't actually put the programme out. If this happens ITV normally will find a different region. Having said that, the programme is online at
Full Programme Repeat | Border (ITV Lookaround) - ITV Local
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If you were watching ITV1 +1 you would expect to get Granada, as ITV have only got enough time-delay equipment and monitoring for six services - the licence for your region is for 'ITV1 +1 Granada Border', and the content comes from Granada as that serves several million more people than Border does. They only have room for six time-shift services on satellite, which may explain the limitation on Freeview.
I believe Border is also low on the list of regions to get an HD upgrade, and you should expect to get Granada news on ITV1 HD (logical channel number 51) until the rollout is complete. It may also be up to the BBC to sort out enough versions of the HD multiplex to carry it.
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Rich: Many of the North Norfolk relays exist only to provide the 'correct' local news to viewers otherwise covered perfectly well by the Belmont main transmitter in Lincolnshire. If you provide a full postcode we can check whether this is possible.
The transmitter sites, masts and aerials are owned by Arqiva but they are simply contracted to transmit the six licensed multiplexes. The commercial multiplexes are SDN (owned by ITV plc) and ArqA and ArqB, owned by a different division of Arqiva. In turn they're operating on a commercial basis and would have to increase their prices a lot to cover the increased costs of transmission. It's expected to be about a 70% increase in costs to transmit from all relays, even if frequencies could be found, which they probably couldn't.
Digital UK know the answer to that question, as an organization, but I'd expect it wasn't in the call centre's script.
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tony: First, make sure you do a full retune - also called first-time installation, full reset, factory reset, virgin mode, default setting. It may be under the Software Update menu rather than under Installation or Tuning. Some boxes won't store channels that they think they already know about, you have to clear the existing channel list. You'll need to do this again on the 23rd.
Check whether your box is on the list of equipment that is known not to work with 8K mode - http://www.digitaluk.co.u…ment . If you haven't retuned for a long time it could also have a problem with a larger Network Information Table - see http://www.digitaluk.co.u…tnit .
There are also some boxes which have a bug meaning they can't pick up transmissions in 8K mode when there is a negative frequency offset. The box will say 'T810' on its sticker somewhere. See Unofficial Vestel PVR Information (UK) - T810 Freeview Recorder and Unofficial Vestel PVR Information (UK) - Digital Switchover for more information on those.
Assuming you didn't have any trouble with BBC Two analogue before switchover, it's unlikely to be single-frequency interference. It could be that the total signal level received is now too large, though, now that the new Great Yarmouth transmitter has started up.
If the BBC channels are stored - after doing the full reset - but are too weak to actually use, your box may have tuned into Great Yarmouth rather than Tacolneston. There may be a working set up at 800 or so in the channel list. In that case, see Digital Region Overlap for thoughts on how to sort this out.
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Bill: Yes, the Ravenstonedale transmitter is 'Freeview Light', it only carries the three public service multiplexes, so you wouldn't expect to get Dave or Yesterday.
The predictor shows a poor chance of getting reliable reception of the commercial muxes from Caldbeck. The PSB muxes offer a good chance of reliable reception. You could try it, but you might need to have a particularly large aerial installation.
If you do this, Digital UK show that your reception of the commercial multiplexes from Caldbeck will get worse after the Bilsdale transmitter switches over next September, for about a month before Divis (Northern Ireland) switches over. Once that's done, Caldbeck's commercial muxes can go up to their full output power, restoring roughly the same (still poor) prediction.
It may be easier to go with satellite, although Dave and Yesterday are both Sky-exclusive subscription channels at present.
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gordon: No further power increases are planned. The COM multiplexes are intended to be half the power of the PSBs - they are not required to equal the PSB coverage.
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Alex: This TV is on Digital UK's list of equipment that has a problem with the larger Network Information Table - http://www.digitaluk.co.u…tnit . That document provides a phone number to contact Sony.
Other posts on forums suggest that you should be doing a retune by pressing a '?' button, which may be on the TV itself.
There is a manual retune guide at http://www.digitaluk.co.u….pdf .
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billy: The overall multiplex bitrate of BBC A is higher than Mux 1 was, but the BBC are required to clear Mux B for HD. They have to cram the services from Mux B - BBC Four/CBeebies, BBC Parliament, and the national radio stations - onto BBC A as well as those that were previously on Mux 1.
For the next two weeks, those services are still carried on Mux B as well as their new home on BBC A, so may appear twice in your channel list.
Overall, the bitrates for each service are expected to be about the same as before switchover, or a little less. CBeebies/BBC Four usually runs about 4 Mbit/s, BBC Parliament about 1.5 Mbit/s, and the radio stations something like 1.5 Mbit/s.
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lm: I'd still argue that it's a communal facility provided for the tenants by the building management, and some part of your rent or building management fees should be going towards its upkeep. See PARAS - Professional Aerial Riggers Against The Sharks for thoughts on who to speak to and what to say.
You certainly shouldn't expect to pay for this yourself.
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Tuesday 8 November 2011 11:26PM
Brian: Contact your landlord or management agent. The signal levels are expected to be sufficient for a very good chance of reliable reception at that postcode, which means that probably there's too much loss in the building's distribution cabling.
They will have to be prepared to recalibrate and possibly retune the system at switchover anyway, depending on how it's constructed.