All posts by Anthony
Below are all of Anthony's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
sharealam: My Panasonic DVD VCR Freeview Recorder and Samsung TV indicated a new channel had come onto freeview;and I did an "add new channels" tune sequence, Quest+1 on the fifties from Winter Hill with a very strong signal indeed.
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Can I pick up Freeview from Germany? | Help! Outside the UKWednesday 12 February 2014 10:41AM
Accrington
Cheryl: It will be all the unencrypted free-to-air channels that you can get on Astra2/EB1 through Freesat in Frankfurt. You might need a slightly larger antenna for some Astra2 channels because these use the fixed UK spotbeam which gets progressively weaker the further south and east you go across Europe from the UK. In terms of dish size if you want to receive everything from Freesat I would say at least 90cm, preferably 1m diameter.
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On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five morWednesday 12 February 2014 1:39PM
Accrington
I have set up an aerial which picks up Winter Hill at a friends house, horizontally polarised C/D group, BUT channel 54 (on which the HD multiplex is transmitted) is missing all of the channels, only a small number of the 10 that should be received are being picked up at all! Would a better quality Wideband High Gain multi-element aerial (and possibly a booster too) improve my chances of picking all 10 HD channels up on Winter Hill ch54? Or would this be a waste of money? Reception is fine by the way. Some people tell me that 54 is quite tricky to pick up and has slightly lower signal strength than the other mux's from Winter Hill;is this correct?
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Stamatina, the UK national broadcasters (and some english language commercial channels) within Sky and Freesat use Astra2's UK spotbeam which restricts reception, largely, to the United Kingdom and just a limited overspill to North West Europe, other english channels subscription and non-subscription use a Pan European Wide Beam which covers a good part of western central northern and eastern europe but unfortunately doesn't get much further than the far northwestern quadrant of Greece. Some of the Astra satellites at 19.2degE NOT 28.2degE DO cover the Middle East. There is a West African spotbeam on Astra2 but this DOES NOT unfortunately cover the Middle East.
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The end is near for analogue radio... Part 3, satellite FreeviThursday 13 February 2014 9:21AM
Accrington
DAB is absolutely poor many stations are mono and in very low quality and poor robustness makes it bubble like mud! FM is crystal clear stereo and although hissy with periods of poor signal is more preferable with a warm clear sound. If the DRM+ system was trialled on the FM 87-108Mhz band in the whole of the United Kingdom, you can have four stations on one frequency at CD quality stereo, every frequency of the FM band occupied in this way utilizing the Digital Radio Mondiale Plus system (DRM+) can provide dozens of stations at CD quality stereo covering 87-108Mhz, and why not? It can give a better lease of life to this waveband and give more out of it.
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On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five morThursday 13 February 2014 12:51PM
Accrington
Anthony: I'll look for a wideband high gain 52-element aerial and set it up at my friend's house using the existing cabling pointing to Winter Hill, that should help matters. Channel 31 isn't used by Winter Hill at all, Winter Hill channels start around 45 and work upwards;Haslingden uses 26, 29 and 31.
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The end is near for analogue radio... Part 3, satellite FreeviThursday 13 February 2014 12:54PM
Accrington
The reason BBC Radio Lancashire needs 1557kHz and 855kHz MW and 95.5/103.9 and 104.5Mhz FM Stereo in addition to DAB is because Lancashire is a massive county to serve and there are areas where DAB isn't at it's best, particularly in hilly/built up zones.
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Dave Lindsay: wideband high gain aerials correctly aligned and installed corresponding to the transmitter polarisation of the main or relay transmitter you are trying to receive should be fine;the further away from the transmitter you are, even with a good line of sight, the signal can still be weak on that transmitter aerial group, in winter hill's case c/d group. Digital TV is fickle and everything can make all the difference as to whether you get good reception poor reception or in worst case no reception. As a rule of thumb the further away you are the better the aerial you need, and that's not hairy fairy myth that's truth. A 52 element wideband high gain aerial horizontally polarised on winter hill with a masthead amplifier to boost reception will probably pull all the freeview channels in incl all 10 hd channels on 37 and 54 and will probably help, this is what I am gonna work on.
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ian: wrong ian. the UK channels on Astra2 have switched to a UK spotbeam with limited European overspill to protect programme rights to the UK only;it's a shame but deemed necessary.
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Monday 10 February 2014 10:05AM
J Wilkinson: Is there anything in the house that could be causing interference to her Freeview signal ie fridges/heating etc? Is the aerial and/or cables at fault? I would hazard a guess it could be one of those two possibilities.