All posts by Chris.SE
Below are all of Chris.SE's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Peter Artilison:
You clearly haven't got a clue what you are talking about and you don't even remember clearly.
Firstly the 700MHz clearance programme was completed back in August. (Mainly the Granada area and parts of N.Wales & the Borders being the final areas to finish the changes).
Mendip (and a few of it's relays) changes were complete over a year ago in June 2019. The relatively small number of people that needed to have a change of aerial from an old Group C/D to a Group T/Wideband were able to get FREE in-home support from Freeview so the aerial change cost them nothing.
Susam Smith:
As for your blatant and ill-informed advertising of an aerial company, the changes are now history, were carefully planned and advertised in the local press and on-screen pop-ups, as stated above it's complete and was complete in this area over a year ago. No further changes are planned, so you are also posting inaccurate and incorrect information.
And just to put it into context a bit better, this isn't just "OFCOM making money" as you assert, the 700MHz clearance was a Europe wide programme subject to European Broadcasting and International agreements.
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Tracey:
Don't worry about the double posting, it's not possible to delete it anyway. If for some reason you don't find this post, I'll copy it to the Mendip page.
This could be one of those tricky to answer posts without more information, whilst it isn't the "best" of cables it may be perfectly adequate and no-one would want to advise the unnecessary expensive replacement of cable.
Also, how much benefit there would be replacing this particular length might depend on what length there is from the aerial to where it enters the house. Additionally there would be some loss from the "joint" which might cancel out the gain from a different cable. Also the actual loss in this 15m run isn't that great, so if your signal is that marginal, there could be other things that need attention.
I note you've given a postcode in your post, but the one you entered into the prediction checker is slightly different , it ends 8EH. Since Freeview made changes to their site, the prediction links here don't work, but no matter. I've looked at both postcodes in the Freeview Detailed Coverage Checker and there's only a marginal differences for Winter Hill (mainly the PSB2/D3&4 and PSB3/BBCB HD multiplexes). You shouldn't have any problems with reception in normal circumstances (assuming your aerial is adequate and been installed correctly). Now, to a few specifics.
Whilst you should get perfectly good reception from Winter Hill, the Coverage checker shows that you could also get signals from two relay transmitters as well as Emley Moor in addition. That said, it does require clear line-of-sight. One other quick guide to how good the signals are, the checker says you should get the Local Manchester multiplex with the Local station at LCN 7 and programmes such as the Sony Channel at LCN48, Sony Movies Christmas at LCN50 etc. Are you getting these?
For which channels are on which multiplex, see Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview
That information might also help identify if your problems are related to specific multiplexes by which channels you have problems with.
Because your problem relates to really heavy rain, my immediate reaction is 5 possibilities. Water getting into the aerial & coax connections, maybe the aerial has moved direction in high winds, marginal reception as maybe the installation isn't quite adequate, or trees fairly nearby on the line-of-sight and when in leaf and very wet will disrupt the signal, or lastly, not tuned to all the correct channels.
We'll discount the first for a moment as you've said it's a newish installation less than a year old (there could be some warranty coverage if you have any receipts).
The last is easy to check, the 3rd and 4th will have a similar effect on signal strength.
Although (if) the aerial is correctly pointing at Winter Hill, it's still possible to pick up signals from other transmitters under certain circumstances.
For Winter Hill it should be pointing at a bearing of 299 degrees (that's 29 degrees N of due W, in other words slightly N of WNW) and the rods should be horizontal. The rods would be vertical for the relay transmitters and one happens to be in virtually in the same direction as Winter Hill, the Glossop one is virtually due N.
Check that there aren't trees in the direct line-of-sight (if the aerial is higher than any trees they shouldn't matter).
To start checking what sort of signals you have and the UHF channels you are tuned to for the multiplexes, you need to enter the TV's tuning menus. Look for Signal Strength or Manual tune or similar (not automatic tune).
For Winter Hill the UHF channels are C32, C34, C35, C29, C31, C37, C55, C24 (that's in the multiplex order BBCA/PSB1, PSB2/D3&4, PSB3/BBCB HD, SDN/COM4, ArqA/COM5, ArqB/COM6, COM7, Local - L-MAN).
Also look for what the tuning section is giving for Signal Strength and Quality, make a note of them for each.
If you find any of those are tuned to a different UHF channel that could explain the problems.
The aerial can sometimes pick up signals from another transmitter on what's called a side-lobe. It might have done so because the local transmitter signal is very strong at your location, or when you last retuned Winter Hill signals were low or off-air due to maintenance (or even interference) so it picked up the next strongest.
If you find it tuned to the incorrect channels, this is probably best resolved by manual tuning. But first, unplug the aerial and do an automatic tune which should clear all previous tuning as nothing will be found. Then plug the aerial back in and do a manual tune for each of those UHF channels.
If you found all is correctly tuned, post back with those Signal Strengths and Quality figures for each multiplex.
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Tracey:
Hi, don't worry about the double posting, it can't be deleted anyway. I replied to your other post at Get to see your Freeview predictions map | free and easy
If for some reason you can't get to it post back here and I'll copy it here.
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peter tankard:
IIRC they changed to one of the better antenna at Orfordness not so long ago, onto the 350ft. main antenna instead of the 160ft. standby one. I believe they've applied to OFCOM for an increase in power over the present 1kW. I thought I read that the interference after dark will be likely from Slovenia and/or Spain.
They have their own website if you haven't visited - Radio Caroline
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Ted:
There's a bug somewhere in the software. I've noticed other transmitter pages sometimes have had stuff missing. Only the site owner can correct these things and he appears to be too busy at present.
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Ted:
My apologies, I think there's a misunderstanding here. When you said "list" I assumed you meant the channels listed at the top of this page which has omissions. I did not interpret your post as meaning you had no signal for ITV.
I don't know if you have any other programmes missing such as Channel4 or Five or ITV2 etc as these are on the same multiplex as ITV. If those channels are present, it's nothing to do with signal and may be just your set has got its memory confused and the ITV channel has not been stored correctly.
The transmitter is not listed for Planned Engineering, so a transmitter fault is least likely.
Whichever, the best solution is normally to unplug the aerial and carry out an automatic retune which should clear all previous tuning as nothing should be found. Then plug the aerial back in and ideally carry out a manual retune for the UHF Channels for your transmitter which are C40 for BBCA/PSB1, C43 for D3&4/PSB2 and lastly C46 for BBCB HD/PSB3 if your set has an HD/T2 tuner.
If you can't do a manual tune, just repeat the automatic one.
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Francis Byrne:
Hmm. Does the Saorview predictor include results from NI transmitters, or do you have to rely on the aerial man?
The K Group aerial - if it's just for Limavady - may be "future-proofing" if at anytime in the future changes get made to move the channels down the band, but other wise a good Group B might be better because that might have slightly better gain at the higher UHF channels in the group. As I said though it will depend on whether the aerial is just for Limavady AND which K Group it is.
The problems you are describing are right across the UHF channels used by Limavady, which is leading me to think that reception either is marginal or there is unlisted transmitter work.
NB. For which channels are on which multiplexes, see Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview
Also note that is due to change on 4th.Nov. with the LCNs 24-55 all going up an LCN and BBC4 Scotland going to LCN24.
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Tracey:
Hi, sorry I didn't spot your previous posts until now.
First lets deal with these aerial elements. The "squashed X" profile tends to be aerials with higher gain for the number of elements.
Vertical or Horizontal - If the squashed part of the X is horizontal, in other words it's wider than it is high, that's horizontal.
You said your rods are vertical - did you mean that?
Are the surrounding aerials at the same sort of height as you?
The fact that you are high up means you are generally likely to have a good line-of-sight, may have a stronger signal than those lower down (but not absolutely always) and the signal is less likely to have too may fluctuations.
Those strength, quality and BER figures you've posted are very good, BUT I'm staggered they are as good as that if your aerial rods really are vertical, they should be horizontal for Winter Hill. If the polarisaton is incorrect that could explain the variation in severe weather. (On a side note, the strength figures aren't necessarily definitive, different sets may give slightly different figures, but what it indicates is there is adequate signal, the fact that the Quality is 100% and the BER (Bit Error Rate) is zero shows the signal is excellent).
As far as the UHF channel data on the Winter Hill page, I'm afraid the site owner has not updated it all correctly with all the 700MHz clearance changes (there are many other transmitter pages similarly incorrect I'm afraid, but in a lot of cases there are fairly recent posts listing the correct information). The channel numbers I quoted in my previous post are the correct ones and if you hover your mouse over those numbers (which have the C in front of them) it tells you the frequency for the channel. Also where a channel number is shown with a + or - , the frequency is offset by 167kHz - and a lot of sets round the figure so you might see eg. 585.8 instead of 585.833 BUT IF a channel had an offset + or - the hover doesn't show the offset frequency!! Hope that hasn't got too technical for you, if you want me to explain it more clearly if you haven't followed that, let me know.
Another aside, there's another "local" multiplex for Manchester, the G-MAN/GI multiplex (you may have spotted on the Freeview Channel Listings page) that's on C27. The Coverage Checker doesn't predict any coverage of that one for you - but, you never know, the checkers aren't always right!
So if you can come back on those points, we should know what's needed next!
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Francis Byrne:
Hi. Considering the transmitters you are going for then obviously the Group K is the correct one to go for, a Group B would likely lose ch22 & 25 or at best make then unreliable and the problem of combining two aerials would likely lose more than it would gain.
I'd guess the cleaner signal/noise ratio is down the the more modern masthead amp (does it have as much gain or more than the old one?).
Unfortunately less reliable reception is more likely these days as there is more frequency sharing (not just UK/Eire but Europe etc.) never mind all the extra interference coming from the significant increase in electronic devices of one sort or another.
What sort of signal strength and quality figures is your set showing in its tuning section for all the muxes?
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Wednesday 28 October 2020 9:20PM
Francis Byrne:
Can't find any reports of any transmitters problems and it's not currently listed for Planned Engineering.
Is your aerial still ok in the severe weather?