All posts by Chris.SE
Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Will have to look and see what rubbish they had on BBC2 at the time with that abysmal bit rate !
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Robin Bettridge:
After some whinging, OFCOM have now actually published the revised licence. Once the centre frequencies have been auctioned and 700MHz clearance has been complete, Arqiva may be given 3 months notice that the frequencies are required, or if not before, COM7 will close on 30/6/2022.
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vera wilson:
If you happen to come back reading, your predicted reception of COM8 (the multiplex that previously carried Forces TV) was somewhat variable at your location. It's still variable on COM7, the new multiplex it's now on, but fractionally poorer than it was, so you may get signal breakup from time to time.
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Stuart Blackstock:
As per several posts last night, Sandy Heath is listed for Planned Engineering with "Possible weak signal" and it did in fact go off-air last night for the essential engineering. This is likely to happen again whilst the work continues.
There's also some Tropospheric Ducting around at present affecting various parts of the country at different times which may cause interference/temporary loss of signal and may continue periodically for a couple of days.
Try "Auto Tuning" but select "Skip" as soon as it starts. This should clear all previous tuning.
Then repeat the auto tune and allow it to complete. You might possibly have to repeat tune if any multiplexes are off-air or suffering interference at the time you last tried.
If you are still having problems, post back.
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Martin Wheller:
It could be a combination of some tropospheric ducting that's around and the engineering, unfortunately. Did you try the retune method I suggested to Stuart?
If your neighbour has signal, you may have some issues with your installation. I suggest you check all you coax plugs, connections, flyleads etc, unplug connectors check for corrosion or other problems and reconnect them. Flyleads can be a common problem, try swapping them. See what signal strengths (if any) and quality you are getting for any multiplexes shown in your TV's manual tuning section if you can, this might indicate potential issues with your aerial or downlead. Also check that your downlead looks undamaged and that your aerial seems intact and pointing in the correct direction.
Problematic connections, water ingress etc. can seem to affect reception of just an individual or several multiplexes.
Having done all the above, if you still have problems, if you can, take any booster/splitters out of circuit and plug the aerial lead direct to one tv outlet and see what you get.
If you provide a full postcode, we can look at the predicted reception in your area, you may be in a "borderline" location.
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linda henstock:
The BBC are digging up some old sports events from time to time, I'm not sure exactly what Tennis they may do as I haven't been checking the listings thoroughly, but keep an eye on it. I've noticed that there is some Wimbledon 2019 on the Red Button (LCN601) on Sunday afternoon, and Wimbledon 2008 on Monday evening, check the guide.
Sometimes there's Tennis on Freesports LCN64 in the EPG if you can receive it at you location, not everyone can get it.
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John:
OFCOM have updated the Arqiva licence for COMs 7&8 to be consistent with the forthcoming auction of the 700MHz frequencies (date TBD). Whichever MNOs (if any) buy the centre frequencies in which these two muxes reside, then they may give 3 months notice for closure, or there's an endstop date of 30th June 2022 whichever is sooner.
See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/….pdf
The recent decision to close COM8 was a commercial one made by Arqiva -
Quote -
"The initial licence period comes to an end in June and Ofcom has issued revised licence terms reflecting the fact that the services may have to terminate at short notice if the spectrum is needed for mobile data services. Given this uncertainty, and through discussions with the channels on Com 7 & 8, Arqiva has taken the decision to rationalise the services onto one multiplex.
The Covid-19 crisis has caused some uncertainty over the precise duration of the licence for some of the channels using Com 7 & 8. This has meant that there was not enough demand to make it financially viable to maintain two multiplexes.While channels are closing and we do appreciate that this may cause concern, a lot of work has taken place to ensure that viewers will still have access to the same content via main channels and on demand services."
In practical terms, the earliest COM7 would be likely to close would most likely well into 2021 or later. The 700MHz frequency clearance has to be completed (postponed because of Covid-19), currently suggested to be early 2021 and the auction has to be held. Encoders to use SDL on the centre frequencies need to be developed (and installed) as well as handsets. It's not going to happen in a hurry.
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Neil Robbins:
There are no multiplexes closing in the Truro area, the Redruth transmitter group serving West Cornwall, or any in of the East Cornwall or most of West and South Devon, areas - Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross, Stockland Hill, Beacon Hill, & Plympton transmitter groups. The temporary multiplexes COMs 7&8 (that were HD but carried a number of SD channels as well) all closed in these areas with the 700MHz Clearance programme during 2019.
This was primarily for technical and financial reasons as the Multiplexes needed to move to UHF channels 55&56 and operate as SFNs.
UHF C55 & C56 are in what's called the Centre Gap" allocated for mobile SDL and usage of these frequencies is not expected to be required for some time. The multiplexes are transmitted from only 25 Main Transmitters serving around 70% of the country. Initially OFCOM wanted to close them by June this year but Arqiva wanted to push the date later and no definitive date was agreed. Many websites (and this one) never corrected the information saying they were closing in June 2020.
In March, OFCOM announced the details for the auction of the 700MHz band (and 3.4GHz etc) for 5G use, the date of the auction TBD. All this was dependant on the 700MHz clearance (except C55 & C56) being completed in May. Because of the Covid-19 situation, the remaining clearance programme was suspended in March. At this time it's suggested that it'll be early 2021 before it continues.
Recently, OFCOM got round to updating the Arqiva licence for these two multiplexes to bring it into line with the proposals they'd suggested for the auction. Whichever MNOs (if any) buy the centre frequencies in which these two muxes reside, then they may give 3 months notice for closure, or there's an end-stop date of 30th June 2022 whichever is sooner.
See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/….pdf
As it so happens, leading up to this, Arqiva made a commercial decision to close COM8.
Quote -
"The initial licence period comes to an end in June and Ofcom has issued revised licence terms reflecting the fact that the services may have to terminate at short notice if the spectrum is needed for mobile data services. Given this uncertainty, and through discussions with the channels on Com 7 & 8, Arqiva has taken the decision to rationalise the services onto one multiplex.
The Covid-19 crisis has caused some uncertainty over the precise duration of the licence for some of the channels using Com 7 & 8. This has meant that there was not enough demand to make it financially viable to maintain two multiplexes.While channels are closing and we do appreciate that this may cause concern, a lot of work has taken place to ensure that viewers will still have access to the same content via main channels and on demand services."
See 22 Jun 2020 - Important channel broadcast changes | Freeview
(COM8 will be off-air by the end of the month).
In practical terms, the earliest COM7 would be likely to close would most likely well into 2021 or later. The 700MHz frequency clearance has to be completed (postponed because of Covid-19), currently suggested to be early 2021 and the auction has to be held. Encoders to use SDL on the centre frequencies need to be developed (and installed) as well as handsets. It's not going to happen in a hurry.
The nearest transmitters to you that transmit COM7 are Wenvoe, Mendip & Rowridge.
HTH.
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Owen:
Unfortunately the site owner has not been able to keep it up-to-date with all the 700Mhz Clearance changes as us contributors have posted a few times.
Sandy Heath's channels are C27, C24, C21, C33, C36, C48, C55 in the order PSBs1-3, COMs4-7. Also note C35 is a Local multiplex for Cambridge from the nearby Madingley transmitter, which you may or may not receive depending on your location.
For a list of which channels are on which multiplex, see Channel listings | Freeview
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Wednesday 24 June 2020 5:54PM
C Cross:
We'd need a full postcode to check which transmitter(s) and multiplexes you might receive at your location and what the predicted reception was like.