All posts by Mike Dimmick
Below are all of Mike Dimmick's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
chuck: The Humax boxes must be in standby to perform the automatic update check at the scheduled time.
You can go into the Updates menu and do a manual check for updates at any time that it's being broadcast. See Welcome to HUMAX [Global Website] for details. They are broadcast on the BBC's mux 1, so you have to be able to receive BBC One at the point that you check.
This update was released in July 2011 and has already been broadcast several times. You may already have it.
| link to this comment |
Glanville Carleton: See Digital Region Overlap.
Many Freeview boxes simply tune in to the first version of the services that they find. Of the transmitters you could receive from, Belmont (Yorks/Lincs) uses the lowest frequencies and will be found first. You either have to get a new box that will ask which region you want, manually tune to the transmitter you want, or find a way to get the box to ignore the transmitter you don't want.
Since your best bet appears to be Sandy Heath, which is only a couple of channels away from the unwanted services from Belmont, you might try adding an attenuator when retuning, to bring down the signal levels below the point where the box can decode them. Then unplug the attenuator when you use it normally.
| link to this comment |
chuck: Pretty much the same applies to the 9200T. Its update is running next weekend, but the current firmware is even older, dating from May 2010 - it has been repeated every few months.
| link to this comment |
Janie: I believe the Sky box in the bedroom would drop down to 'free-to-view' mode. You wouldn't be able to watch subscription channels, but you'd be able to watch all the channels listed at Compare Freesat and Freesat-from-Sky TV | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice . You'd no longer be able to pause or record programmes on the bedroom box, if it's a Sky+ box.
Or, you could just unplug the Sky box and plug the Freesat box in, in its place. You'd lose the few channels that are in Sky's free service but not on Freesat - again, see that link for the comparison.
| link to this comment |
Maureen: To get BBC iPlayer content on your Freesat box, it needs a connection to the Internet. The best way of doing this is to connect an Ethernet cable from the box to your home router. Or, you may be able to use WiFi if the Freesat box has that built-in, or if the manufacturer sells a 'dongle' that adds WiFi capability to the box.
'Homeplug' is a brand name for data carried over the house's wiring, meaning you don't have to run another cable. The capacity depends on how good the house wiring is, and they can cause additional interference on DAB and FM radios.
| link to this comment |
Briantist: Brougher Mountain may not be planned to broadcast COM9, but Divis certainly is! Looking at the template at the back of Arqiva's 600MHz Reference Offer for Layer 9, it doesn't seem that C36 is as heavily restricted in the direction of Brougher Mountain as it is to areas to the south-west and west-north-west.
http://www.arqiva.com/cor….pdf , page 121 has the template for Divis.
It looks like the practical antenna for C36 from Divis may well broadcast only to the north and east, though: it's specified as four tiers of two panels rather than the 8 tiers of four panels used for layers 7 and 8.
The question is, what other transmitters is that template protecting? Presumably it protects some radar stations in Ireland, as Ireland doesn't have any sites using C36 in the GE06 frequency plan. If Divis would cause too much interference (albeit at 100 kW) I would assume that Brougher Mountain would also be a problem.
Brougher Mountain is in the Layer 7 and 8 sets at 10 kW power, so I'd have to assume that 2 kW on C36 just isn't allowed. Other transmitters have been planned for reduced power on Layer 9 compared to Layer 8, for example Llanddona is listed at 20 kW for Layer 8 but only 3.2 kW for Layer 9. (Again, there's a huge bite out of the permitted template to the west.)
Happy to be corrected if you have a source.
| link to this comment |
Mick Bull: It may be that the cable is relatively old and of the 'low-loss coax' type. This traditional type of cable isn't actually very low-loss, and it picks up a lot of interference.
It's now recommended that systems use 'satellite-grade' cable such as Webro WF100, which has a dense copper braid over copper foil screening. These are much less likely to pick up interference.
The aerial itself can help - an older cheap aerial typically wasn't matched to the cable properly. The signal on the cable is supposed to be 'unbalanced', but the aerial elements are balanced. If connected directly, the cable ('feeder') picks up interference. To convert from one to the other, the aerial should include a balun (balanced-to-unbalanced transformer). This can be a printed circuit or a few turns of wire, and is pretty cheap, but the cheapest aerials didn't include them. These aerials are often known as 'contract' types as they were usually bulk-bought for fitting on new housing estates, but some installers would also use them for individual jobs.
A balun, and a feeder pickup test, are now required to pass the CAI Benchmark test, so they are usually included in new aerials.
| link to this comment |
sadekali: PARAS - Professional Aerial Riggers Against The Sharks has some thoughts on who to contact if a communal aerial or satellite system isn't working. The first person to ask, if you're not sure, is whoever you're paying rent to.
| link to this comment |
Norman Ansell: Digital UK's trade view suggests that the percentage of locations covered within your national grid square will - after all changes are made across the country - go down from 94% to 92%, for 99% of the time. For 50% of the time, it actually increases from 97% to 98% of locations served.
The 'Good' threshold, for which the planners consider the square to be served, is 70% of locations for 99% of the time. So really, it's not that significant.
| link to this comment |
Tuesday 31 January 2012 3:19PM
Dave Lindsay, saintee!: Digital UK's postcode checker (which seems to be the most reliable source of information much of the time) says Perth BBC A will move to C39 some time in 2013, presumably before Angus ArqB makes the move from C61 to C49 (also shown as 2013).
The STV North Ofcom DSO Details document hasn't been updated since 5 January 2011. I wouldn't rely on it. The red markings inidicated that they are *likely* to change, not that they would *definitely* change. For regions that switched over later, like Yorkshire, some channels that were marked in red did change, and some didn't - though it's not necessarily true that all such changes in those regions have already been made.