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 Donaldson:
What about the relay transmitter at Wellingborough which carries the D1 multiplex which should give adequate coverage in Northampton?
I've just posted this on the Daventry DAB page -
Whilst it could be the Daventry transmitter, there is a relay at Wellingborough which would provide coverage in Northampton, so this doesn't necessarily fit with reports there. I'm thinking this could be a synchronisation issue.
Whatever, we are making our best guesses, and in view of the lack of detailed information about commercial multiplexes, my advice is, as I've previously suggested -
PHONE the Radio station you are having reception problems with and tell them, tell them there are other reports around the area and ask them to contact the transmitter people to check out the problem.
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Steve Donaldson:
I've just posted this on the Daventry page -
Whilst it could be the Daventry transmitter, there is a relay at Wellingborough which would provide coverage in Northampton, so this doesn't necessarily fit with reports there. I'm thinking this could be a synchronisation issue.
Whatever, we are making our best guesses, and in view of the lack of detailed information about commercial multiplexes, my advice is, as I've previously suggested -
PHONE the Radio station you are having reception problems with and tell them, tell them there are other reports around the area and ask them to contact the transmitter people to check out the problem.
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Rod H: Robert Anning;
See my post above. PHONE the station(s) you are having a problem with.
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paul:
The list of transmitters having Planned Engineering is not untypical. There are obviously fewer in the winter because mast and antenna work are frequently impractical in adverse weather conditions.
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David nicholls:
I did advise you in reply to,your first post on this that it was multiplex 11D and which stations you mentioned were DAB+ and which were not DAB+ on the multiplex, just in case any of your radios were not DAB+ capable.
As I also said two replies before your above post that it could be a synchronisation issue (as the problem is too widespread to be just the Wellingborough transmitter).
From past experience I've also advised on what is probably the quickest way to get the transmitter engineers to look at the problem - PHONE the stations that you are having a problem with, and also mention that there are problems over a wider area - as far afield as Leamington Spa!
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Steve Donaldson:
As usual, an excellent analysis. However, I couldn't decide about what the power actually used was, some of those OFCOM documents have been found to have errors before now. Some other sources suggest the total power is 300W!
It's highly unlikely that signals from Sandy Heath contribute anything in the main Northampton area (but may reach the golf course according to its coverage map here - the only one I could trace at the time), hence the relay transmitters, as Daventry is the only other one that it seems can otherwise cover the area.
But because of the widespread nature of the problem, I still think that this could be a synchronisation problem rather than a transmitter being "off-air", all these possibilities are our best guesses.
As mentioned previously, getting engineering attention to this is often best achieved by contacting the stations people are having problems with - they don't like not having listeners!!
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Rod H:
You can't tell which transmitter you are tuned to (unless you live in a location where there is only one transmitter or you are very close to it, a lot of areas that aren't sparsely populated will get signals from more than one transmitter).
This is because National DAB transmissions - that's BBC National, Commercial D1 and SDL all operate as SFNs - that's Single Frequency Networks. So if for example you are in a car travelling from one area to another , the set automatically switches to the strongest signal without you having to retune.
Some Local multiplexes for larger urban areas have more than one transmitter and so operate as SFNs.
Because they operate as SFNs they have to be synchronised otherwise you get hotspots and NOT-spots where you'll get poor/no reception as signals from more than one transmitter can cancel each other.
If you got through to UCB, I'd try again and tell them there are reports appearing on specialist web-sites over a wider area from Leamington Spa to Northampton, can they get the transmission people to take a look. It sounds like they need to be convinced that it's not just you having a problem.
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Rod H:
Meant to include, the reason I don't think it's as simple as a transmitter down, is because there would be hundred of reports from people that live close to that transmitter who would only get weak signals from other ones.
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Sunday 13 August 2023 10:24PM
Steve Donaldson:
Whilst it could be the Daventry transmitter, there is a relay at Wellingborough which would provide coverage in Northampton, so this doesn't necessarily fit with reports there. I'm thinking this could be a synchronisation issue.
Whatever, we are making our best guesses, and in view of the lack of detailed information about commercial multiplexes, my advice is, as I've previously suggested -
PHONE the Radio station you are having reception problems with and tell them, tell them there are other reports around the area and ask them to contact the transmitter people to check out the problem.