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All posts by Chris.SE

Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


Steve Hill:

I only mentioned Welsh relays because of the direction aerials will tend to be pointing. They're all low power of course, but with tropospheric propagation, it's amazing where signals can come from, and of course there are several high power transmitters around the country & abroad using these channels. I haven't done any serious dxing in recent years, but many moons ago when we still had B/W 405 lines band 1, even using an indoor aerial I was getting eastern bloc signals (not stable enough for a good picture for more than a moment or two) but the interference remained for some time!

There's some other more local transmitters using some or all of the same channels, here's a few just for example -
Bath, Bristol Montpelier, Portbury, Hutton, Portishead, Porlock, Brushford .......
One of the slightly higher power Welsh ones is Aberdare.
Whilst they're low power, with the sort of conditions we've had lately, interference could be coming from anywhere! Apologies for probably telling granny how to suck eggs!

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I'm obviously mixing you up with someone else, apols.

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All:

Be aware a retune event due to at700 clearance will take place on 31st July 2019 after which the COMs 7&8 multiplexes will be no longer available.
See Changes to the Freeview channel line-up in Cumbria, south west Scotland and the south Lakes | Freeview & Digital UK | Channel listings
Put your postcode into Digital UK - Coverage checker to see predicted reception at your location.

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Also note, if you wish/need to do a manual tune the UHF channels are -
BBCA - 25, D3&4 - 28, BBCB (HD) - 22, COM4(SDN) - 23, COM5(ARQA) - 26, COM6(ARQB) - 30.

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Just to add, if you want Caldbeck Scotland, the UHF channels are-
PSB1/BBCA - 27, PSB2/D3&4 - 24, PSB3/BBCB (HD) - 21.

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A reminder -

Clacton is no longer a "Light" transmitter as of 1st August 2018, it now broadcasts the 6 main muxes.

PSB1(BBCA) - UHF32; PSB2(D3&4) - UHF34; PSB3(BBCB HD) - UHF45; SDN - UHF40; ARQA - UHF43; ARQB - UHF46. 400W for each Mux. Aerial group K, Horizontal.

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Lee Maidens:

Could you be a little more specific please? Location/postcode, have you previously received the Carhampton relay and what sort of signal did you have? Put your postcode into Digital UK - Coverage checker to see what the predicted reception is.

Steve Hill:

I assume the antenna at Carhampton visually looks as though it should radiate eastwards - ie no missing aerials/panels? Also this isn't the first time I've heard/come across the BBC checker conflicting with the Digitaluk checker.

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Jeremy:

I doubt you'll get a direct reply from Brian, he rarely seems to post on these pages these days.
If you are referring to True Entertainment and Sony Movie Channel+1, Sony have moved these and other True TV channels to local multiplexes. See the posts on the previous page here on July 18th. You'll need to check if you can receive the local multiplex from Belmont.
See also True Entertainment | free and easy for more information about the changes.

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Steve Hill; & Norman D Landings:

Hmm this is definitely a mystery. The suggestion about the woods is worth looking at. I thought I would try and do a bit of research on the situation prior to the problems, and trying to locate the right kind of historic information was not easy.

Steve, did this start on Jul 17th?

I note that on the Digitaluk checker it notes a reception change on the 17th July, but I cannot find out by how much it changed! These events are usually due to other transmitters changing to the same UHF channels on that date. I listed some of the other transmitters using the same channels but none of these changed on the 17th, in fact they were all using those channels previously and the only change that most & Carhampton had was on the 5th June when the PSB3/BBCB (HD) mux had the channel offset removed.

BUT oops, I didn't mention & missed one very important tx that did move to the same UHF channels on the 17th and that's Kilvey Hill, also using vertical polarisation. And it has 2kw power, whilst that's not huge I reckoned just being the other side of the channel it could be enough to be an issue. When I look at it's predicted coverage map it does show coverage all over your area at Carhampton, Old Cleeve & West Quantoxhead albeit a poorer signal !! I'm thinking oh dear Arqiva & OFCOM have fouled up here!

Steve, from the postcodes you gave, the bearing for Kilvey Hill is not vastly different from Carhampton and i reckon it could be sufficiently within the beam angle of the antenna pointed at Carhampton!
Can you experiment and see if a) you can pick up Kilvey Hill by careful aerial pointing, and b) by angling the aerial further away from Kilvey HIll's bearing (ie. anticlockwise - more southerly) if you can then get Carhampton ok.

I'll be interested on your thoughts on all this.

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Allan McDonald:

This is the DAB radio transmitter page. If you are referring to DAB reception there may be interruptions due to engineering work primarily related to the DTV retune event (31st July) as per the engineering works note at the top of the page.
If you are referring to TV reception, you need to retune, see Barskeoch Hill (Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland) Freeview Light transmitter | free and easy

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