All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Linda Dale: The BBC's reception page at BBC - Reception problems is showing a fault currently exists, reported at 9:58am. This site only scrapes that page every few hours so hasn't updated the top of the page yet.
Usually this is down to power supply faults at the transmitter, or a problem at an upstream transmitter (since Leek just rebroadcasts what it receives off-air from Sutton Coldfield). No fault is shown at Sutton Coldfield.
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Anne: The signal levels may need adjusting for digital - they could now be too strong. Talk to your landlord or agent, and check with your neighbours to see if they have the same problem.
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Ed: Strong signals on one channel can desensitise the receiver, making it less able to see weaker signals on adjacent channels. Mux 2 is directly adjacent to the high-power BBC A. If you have an amplifier or booster, try removing it. If not, try adding an attenuator. If you're using a communal system, get them to check the levels and adjust the system.
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Kent Smith: typically mast-head amplifiers actually run on a much lower DC voltage, typically 12V. The power supply for the amplifier converts from 240V AC to the DC voltage.
It's still not a great idea to work with it with the power on, though!
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The Channel Islands final installer newsletter isn't linked from the Almanac pages any more, but it is still at its original location: http://www.digitaluk.co.u….pdf
St Peter Port and Torteval are fed from Les Touillets, everything else is direct from Fremont Point.
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Those constantly getting retune messages should probably contact the box or TV's manufacturer.
I'm aware that some equipment might do this if it picks up signals from more than one transmitter. You could try doing a manual retune - unplug the aerial before doing a full reset (first time installation, factory reset, full retune, virgin mode, default setting), allow it to complete its scan (not finding anything), then manually tune in C23, C22, C28, C29, C32 and C34. If you don't have a Sky Sports subscription through BT Vision or Top-Up TV you can skip C28. If you have an HD box (and I sincerely hope this problem doesn't occur on them!) you can try tuning in C31 as well.
If your box doesn't offer manual tuning, try starting the reset process with the aerial plugged in, then unplug the aerial when it gets to about 28% through. If you can see it listing the channels found, unplug when it sees the services on Mux C (PICK TV, Dave, Really) and leave it until it completes. You can find other tips on how to handle this at Digital Region Overlap.
I did read from a poster on Digital Spy's forums that Crystal Palace was carrying service information last night for both pre-switchover Mux 1 and post-switchover BBC A. I hope that isn't the cause of the problem.
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jo kaye: See Digital Region Overlap. It's probably picking up Dover and/or Bluebell Hill as well as Crystal Palace.
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Ian Porter: Mux 2 at Guildford has moved to C49 (formerly Mux 1, now replaced by BBC A on C43) to get out of the way of Hannington ArqA - which can now finally broadcast to the east!
This is a temporary change until 18 April, when all services at Guildford will be moving to new frequencies (and unblocking the other two restricted services at Hannington).
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michael: "old box" - is this a Topfield? On their boxes, and some others, it was possible to disable the MHEG interpreter, which some people do to stop the BBC red button overlay graphic popping up. Of course the red button text doesn't work either!
The 4seven logo behaviour should be consistent with any other channel that is currently off-air. For example, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBeebies and CBBC have an MHEG program that generates a message listing the channel numbers for other BBC services, when the time-shared capacity is being used by the other channel.
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Wednesday 4 April 2012 11:59AM
Ben Ward: Chances are that you now have too much signal. Along with the retune last Wednesday, two of the multiplexes quadrupled in power. Too much signal causes the signal to be distorted when it's amplified, either by external amplifiers/boosters or by the gain control or mixer circuits within the box or TV. Error correction can handle a certain amount of distortion, but too much of it and there are too many errors to be corrected.
Different boxes can handle different amounts of signal before distorting it too much to be decodable, and different boxes have different levels of sensitivity to quiet signals.
I'd start by removing any amplifiers, and if that doesn't sort it, add some attenuators to bring the levels down.
Digital UK predict 100% of locations in your grid square should have at least 99%-reliable signals. This is usually a good indicator that signal levels could be too high.