All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Scott: Overlaps are likely to get worse with full power, not better. There is nothing to fix. Digital would actually require 100 times less power than analogue to cover the same area, if propogation - the way the signal travels from the transmitter to you - was consistent. Unfortunately, it isn't, it changes with weather conditions, so they have to use far more power to allow for that variation - about 20 times more power.
This means that for at least some of the time, the distant transmitters will come in loud enough for your box to detect and store.
Unfortunately older equipment wasn't designed to compare the quality or signal strength of whatever it finds, or to offer you the choice of what to receive. It just stores the first version it finds at the channel numbers advertised, then might store any other copies somewhere else (typically 800 onward).
You either have to tune in manually (and turn off any automatic retune feature), find a way to block the transmissions that you don't want (e.g. reduce signal levels with an attenuator, use a grouped rather than wideband aerial, add a filter) or replace your box or TV with one that actually asks which region you want to store.
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Iain Davies: That is strange, that it's broadcast free-to-air but not in either EPG. Perhaps STV are having trouble getting ITV plc to agree to share or regionalize channel number 178 on Sky and 119 on Freeview - I notice ITV1 HD isn't actually available at 178 in Sky's web version of the EPG if you set it for Scottish West. Or, perhaps Sky are yet again being glacially slow in adding the Freesat EPG data - Lyngsat shows it as a Sky transponder rather than Freesat.
STV HD *does* have a backup satellite feed for Freeview HD as it's on a BBC multiplex - this backup feed, of all FTA channels and services carried on BBC Freeview multiplexes, is carried on Intelsat 907 at 27.5°W, on 11495V.
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pat bottomley: There are both SD and HD Freesat boxes. Even the HD boxes still have a SCART output to connect them to an SD television, so you can upgrade in stages. Many of the channels on Freesat are still SD anyway, and most 'HD' channels still broadcast a significant amount of SD output, resized to fill the whole screen. I believe only BBC HD is actually all HD content at present.
If your TV doesn't have any SCART sockets, and you're tuning it into your Sky box's RF output, you will need a separate RF Modulator as I don't think there are any Freesat boxes that include one.
If you don't want to pay for a subscription any more, you can just stop subscribing - the Sky box will continue to work as a 'Freesat-from-Sky' box. See Compare Freesat and Freesat-from-Sky TV | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice for the differences between the channel line-ups. Many of the channels on fSfS but not Freesat require the Sky viewing card to decrypt, so keep it in your box - you might have to buy a new viewing card in future if Sky change their encryption. If you have a Sky+ box, the recording and time-shifting features will stop working (Sky want a minimum £10/month payment for these features).
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Michael: It's your petition, you decide what's in it.
Ofcom was designed to be a soft touch. They can regulate content, they can regulate terrestrial transmission, but they can't actually regulate satellite transmission.
Most of the channels *choose* to be part of the Sky subscription packages. They receive some revenue from doing so. We're really concerned with those 'free-to-view' channels on fSfS but not on Freesat ( Compare Freesat and Freesat-from-Sky TV | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice ).
Many channels would find it more expensive to broadcast free-to-air, because there is only - currently - room for them on the Europe-wide beams, not the UK-only beam on Astra 2D. Their suppliers would want to charge more for content.
However, Sky are hogging several transponders on 2D that could be used for FTA services without incurring extra costs.
I think the proper venue is to suggest that the Competition Commission investigate Sky for exercising significant market power. It should perhaps be more like broadband over a BT line, or electricity or gas supply, where subscription providers make deals with channel providers to provide the channels to the public at the lowest cost to the consumer/highest revenue to the channel, and the infrastructure is either in a separate company (equivalent to National Grid/Transco) or a tightly-regulated separate division (like Openreach, an arm's-length part of BT).
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DavidHufton: The only non-BBC channels sharing a BBC multiplex are Sky Sports 1 and 2, if your region hasn't yet switched over, or ITV1 HD and 4hd if it has (STV HD rather than ITV1 HD in Scotland, or S4C Clirlun rather than 4hd in Wales).
If you provide a full postcode we can offer more information. At some pre-switchover transmitters, the BBC main multiplex (Mux 1) is on lower power than others; Multiplex B (the second one) is often lower than Mux 1, 2 and A.
In general, higher frequencies travel less well than lower ones, in air but particularly along cables. Aerials generally have higher gain at higher frequencies within the group, which offsets this a bit. There is also a phenomenon called Frequency-Selective Fading which can mean some frequencies are more affected by reflections than others - those reflections can either add to or subtract from the signal, depending on the distance of the reflective surface from the normal path.
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jillian tullis: TV3 *is* on satellite, but it's encrypted - you need a Sky Ireland subscription to decode. However, the Republic's public-service channels then appear at 101-105, with UTV not in the programme guide at all (it is free-to-air, so you could add it back with the Other Channels feature).
Check Coverage Map | SAORVIEW to see if you could receive TV3 from a terrestrial transmitter. If you want to receive channels from the Republic, it's recommended that you get a Freeview HD box as they are going over to HD-only transmission much more quickly than we are.
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Rosie: You're in an overlap area between Tacolneston and Sudbury. Does your aerial point north-east to Tacolneston or south-west to Sudbury?
Digital UK's predictor reckons that you will ultimately get best results from Tacolneston, after it switches over in November, but you should be able to get good results on the Public Service multiplexes from Sudbury right now. However, the commercial multiplexes are likely to be unreliable.
The analogue channels are probably coming from Tacolneston, which suggests that the aerial actually points to Sudbury. There were no changes in February that should have affected your reception. It sounds like there's some ongoing deterioration in your aerial system - perhaps rainwater penetrating the cables. The power increases in July probably gave a short respite, but it has continued to deteriorate. Unplug the aerial cable from the back of the TV and check whether it's wet! If so, all outside junction boxes and connections need to be checked, and, if cables have been able to rub up against brickwork or tiles, you may need the cables replaced.
Do check that the aerial looks intact and does seem to point the right way.
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Les Nicol, Briantist: Sky are required by law to carry the BBC's channels in their EPG, but I don't think there's anything saying that they have to do so for free. Sky in fact charge a healthy whack: http://corporate.sky.com/…ct09
EPG listing charge: £21,000 per TV channel per year, £16k per radio channel per year. The BBC list 11 TV channels excluding the 20 regional variations of BBC One and Two, and 18 radio channels. That's £231k for the non-regional plus £420k for the regional slots, and £288k for the radio stations, £939k total.
Then there's a 'Platform Contribution Charge' which seems to be set on viewership. For the BBC:
BBC News Channel £994,310
BBC1 £4,771,505
BBC2 £1,261,600
BBC3 £994,310
BBC4 £310,055
CBBC £342,130
Cbeebies £737,715
BBC Alba, BBC Parliament, BBC HD and BBC One HD presumably pay the £92k 'Other Television Channels' charge and the 18 radio stations the £6k charge. Total £9,887,625.
Then there's the regionalisation of BBC channels, which probably falls under section B4.2 as of course these channels don't all use the same channel numbers in the Republic of Ireland EPG as they do in the UK, or don't appear in the RoI EPG at all. BBC One appears at 101 in the UK but 141 in the RoI, BBC Two at 102 in the UK but 142 in RoI, BBC Three 115/229, BBC Four 116/230 (and that's petty, because 115 and 116 are not allocated). BBC HD is at 169 in the UK and 143 in RoI - BBC HD used to be 143 in the UK but this is now BBC One HD, which isn't in the RoI EPG.
BBC Alba, BBC One HD, BBC News and BBC Parliament aren't in the RoI EPG so that would probably fall under B4.2. Only CBBC and CBeebies are at the same channel number in both, 613 and 614 respectively.
The BBC are probably paying Sky in the region of £11-12m for EPG services.
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Jason: When you use the Digital UK postcode checker, ensure that it actually does say that the prediction is for the Sandy Heath transmitter. In Stevenage, it's possible that it will give you predictions for Crystal Palace.
If you provide a full postcode, I can interpret the trade version of the predictor for you.
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Saturday 27 August 2011 5:00PM
Kathryn: if you got HD channels before the 24th of August, you got them from Emley Moor, not the Sheffield transmitter. If the new house has an aerial pointing at Sheffield - with elements going up-and-down rather than side-to-side - then you were lucky to get the HD channels at all, as the aerial is designed to reject signals from the other polarization and from a different direction.
The Sheffield relay transmitter exists because Emley Moor doesn't cover the city fully. Check what your neighbours are using, or wait for the Emley Moor switchover to complete on the 21st of September.