All posts by Michael Perry
Below are all of Michael Perry's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Hazel Wragg
Assuming you have a current Sky subscription, you can use Sky Go to download and view a number of their programmes. Have a look at Sky Go and Sky Go Extra - Watch TV from Sky on your mobile, tablet or laptop and then you can decide whether you want to sign up for the service.
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To the contributers above asking for specific content, please note that this website is an independent site aimed at helping people with reception problems and similar questions. For your purposes you need to find the official website of the broadcaster concerned.
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Rog
Birmingham has been well recognised as the main city (only countries have capital cities) of the WEST midlands for many, many years. Nottingham has been regarded by a great many as the main city for the East Midlands. Almost all who live within the geographical area commonly recognised as East Midlands (mainly Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, parts of Lincolnshire, parts of Northamptonshire and parts of south east Staffordshire) would not consider Birmingham as having any cultural of even ethnic relationship with them. I lived in Nottinghamshire (Vale of Belvoir) for many years and certainly did not want West Midlands nes stories replacing those relating to the East Midlands. Neither did many of my customers in the East Midlands coal fields want anything to do with weat midlands notions.
The problem you are describing has nothing to do with politics, more to the terrain that affects signal reception, and always did in analogue days so it is nothing new at all.
I, for one, would not like to see only a 'Midlands' region at all, we need to keep the separation of services. What would someone in Stamford, Lincolnshire want with 'local news' from Telford? Most do not want that degree of blanket coverage, that's why the providers separated out the East and West services many, many years ago.
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Steve P
I agree that they should not close terrestrial TV broadcasting for many reasons. Not least of which is that not everyone wants to have internet access, the internet cannot cope with current demands very well and carrying TV services will make that worse, many people who are not technically comfortable don't see why they will be forced to change, analogue TV and radio worked very well - and MW and FM still do.
You second point I disagree with. There is no call for anyone to be rude or abusive on a technical forum. Those of us who contribute using our knowledge to try to assist others having difficulties with their TV reception are doing it as we want to help. Being rude to us or making unwarranted remarks about any person is not acceptable to most people. So I think the warning is justified, particularly as some people have been particularly rude to people who know what they are talking about.
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Will
Winter Hill has not had any reduction in radiated power. What is more likely is that atmosperic absorption increased reducing the received signal strentgh to a level below that at which your equipment can decode the signal content. It happens a lot as the weather affects how UHF signals pass through the air and it is more noticeable with digitally encoded signals. Some TVs or boxes are more sensitive so suffer less from this variation but others are not as good at managing weaker signals.
The transmitter power output does not vary significantly unless they are performing planned maintenance which is usually announced in advance unless there has been any equipment problem. No such problem has occured with Winter Hill, else thousands of viewers will have been complaining very quickly.
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Mrs Oblington
60% quality is on the lower edge of what may be acceptable so could give problems. Signal strnegth is imprtant too and should be between 60 and 80% but a higher figure for quality is preferred.
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It's interesting that on Saturday there was a letter in the Daily Telegraph (I read others as well) from someone who claimed to have worked on the plans for the switch from analogue to digital and saying how wonderful it has all been. In the latest copy of Computer Active (I read others as well) is a report that much of the country cannot get even 10 Mbps and that some 13% claim not to want anything to do with internet services.
From our jpoint experience on this website we see that digital reception is not as consumer-friendly as analogue was. We've had complaints here of serious reception problems of a type that never happened in the 'old days'. We also have news that Ofcom think it's a good idea to flog off the UHF spectrum to mobile operators purely for profit reasons and not to improve TV reception at all. If 13%, if that figure is correct, will not have internet then TV coverage will fall below the level found in the late 1950's! Is that a forward step?
The 'division' between getting East or West midlands is a sore point for people in places likem Coalville, just to the west of Leicester. The Waltham signal is poor in many parts of the town so Sutton Coldfield gets used but they always wanted, and I presume still do, the East Midlands service for news and local events. So geography has been 'against' them for many years (I was Senior Engineer in Oadby and Loughborough for some years, so have a good understanding [I hope] of viewers concerns in that area).
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Groby
As has been stated previously on this website by many contributors the Licence Fee is to permit you to use your TV receiving equipment. It does apply to the provision of BBC services and some of the commercial services which are deemed to be Public Service Broadcasting (PSB). Those are, in general, transmitted on the PSB multiplexes. The services provided on the COM multiplexes are purely commercial and have to reach enough viewers to warrant the considerable expense of using the smaller transmitters such as Lark Stoke. You are not being 'short changed' as you don't pay for the additional services via your licence fee, rather the costs incurred are added to the product price of the goods and services provided by the operators and advertisers.
So it is entirely fair for everyone who wanted to operate equipment to watch 'live' TV broadcasts all pay exactly the same.
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Wednesday 24 December 2014 10:03PM
Having observed the many comments on several parts of this website, I am suspicious that many parts of the country are being affected by atmospheric effects that are making reception of Freeview difficult, if not impossible. Many are saying they have lost either certain channels of whole muxes. In my own case in Trowbridge I have a new log-periodic aerial and a new LG TV set yet we have recently suffered loss of some signals, most notably Com7 on Channel 33 from Mendip. (As always, I have checked the whole system and with neighbours and those that have HD sets also report losses and problems!)
So I'm wondering whether the transmissions for DTV are less robust that were the 'old' analogue signals. A thought for discussion, hopefully of a somewhat technical nature please?
Happy Christmas to everyone.