All posts by Stephen Phillips
Below are all of Stephen Phillips's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.jennifer - plug your full postcode into the top right and it will say what you should get. Or just post it if confused and I will look!
To retune you will need "Menu" on your tuner remote, then find channel selection and do a "Replace all" or an "New Installation"
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Hi Stuart O who is not my old mate "Sid"!
Height is alomst everything in TV signal reception. Direction being the rest! You could get a steerable aerial for your choices, though I would simply go for Winter Hill to get NW News. Can you not get any Welsh signals?
Don't know hy they would use both H and V at Garth Hill, but presumably it stops some conflicts with other signals in the areas served.
You can put H and V on the same mast; and have more or less any degree of directionality you want, from 360 degrees to a very narrow pointing. It all has to be jiggled to fit lots of conflicting signal round messy geography. N Wales must be awful - look at the cellphone coverage (lack of)
One point. IIUC, with digital transmission you can have multiple transmitters working together on a single frequency, and the clever electronics works out what is happening. I presume this will in time lead to less/no need for differing polarisations - but would welcome a more expert comment.
I think you are correct about "spare" and that the 34/35/36 is noted as a wider space. Whoever selected it probably did not think you could get Lichfield signals.
It reminds me of the introduction of C5 when they were going to use whatever was the then common VCR frequency, and sent teams of engineers to retune VCRs. But refused to do mine because I am 100m beyond their coverage line! But in a far better place to get the signal than the people lower down they were happy to deal with.
Instead they sent me an inline filter to STOP C5. So I retuned my VCR myself!
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UK digital TV reception predictor
may interest you. NB I have given you a 100m high aerial!
Your actual postcode seems not to be listed on Wolfbane or on Digital TV Tradeview. I think that is because you are in a dip between hills.
UK digital TV reception predictor
is more realistic. Field strength below 30 is very iffy.
http://www.wolfbane.com/ukdtt.htm
shows Tx at different heights (mAOD) eg Winter Hill 734/712/682/650
103.00 + Winter Hill 62 100k 734 59 100k 712 58 100k 712 54 100k 682 61 100k 650 55 12k5 650 CD H SD660144 438*
(LL145HD)
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If you are close enough - and you are - you will get a usable signal with a bent nail. Or even without one.
I have a house in London. I had been abroad for some time when a new tenant asked me where the TV Aerial sockets were. It took me some time to realise that there were none. 2 miles from the hugely powerful Crystal Palace TV's just worked. Presumably the "Antenna" was the internal lead from the back of the ae socket to the circuitboard!
Afraid I have no idea of the detailed considerations of transmission you first asked about. I suspect only a few people involved in planning it will know at that level of detail, though when Brian returns he will know far more than I do!
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Thanks Mike. My knowledge of transmission stopped at SSB, so I have some catchup to do! This is good
Quadrature amplitude modulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turning to reception; just had a play with the kitchen TV (first floor; set-top loop Ae only, clear view through trees to the Wrekin 30 miles away). Chs 53 and 57 are better, but 31 worse. But added back my evil booster which makes all usable. Only snag is you stand in the way when at the main food prep place!
Have retuned proper TV with rooftop to get Sutton Coldfield Analogue - only 17 degrees different direction, so now have back-up and quick channel hop. (LL145HD)
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Sounds feasible - though extreme. How far apart are your aerials?
Could you try your kit on his aerial?
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Meirion - I think the answer may be "never". Some local transmitters will only carry the "public service" muxes, and I think Cefn Mawr is one of them.
From google you seem to be on the North side of the valley - are you high enough to "see" The Wrekin?
Non-Welsh speaking readers may be interested to know that "Cefn Mawr" means big (mawr) ridge/bank - in this case referring to the side of the River Dee Valley as it emerges from the Welsh Hills onto the Cheshire Plain.
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Have you
1) Plugged an aerial into the new box?
2) Done Initial Installation Channel search with the new box?
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To minimise scope for problems, JUST connect rooftop aerial to PVR input, and PVR to TV with SCART.
If you can then get a PVR Menu displayed on the screen the PVR clearly talks to the TV so you need to do channel selection. Dunno if you can do that without a remote or not. Is it a 2/h PVR? Might be faulty?
Do you have a manual? Can probably download.
And probably buy a remote cheaply. Try any other you can get. My PVR and cheap STB remotes are interchangable, though they are totally different brands.
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Friday 22 April 2011 4:36PM
Walsall
Brian - I hope you won't mind me mentioning it, but your notes "If you have..." may not be very clear to someone unfamiliar with the concepts involved. Might be clearer if they showed as hyperlinks needing to be folloewed without hovering?