All posts by Ken Collyer
Below are all of Ken Collyer's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.On September 19 we had all the fuss of a re-tune because some stations were being give new numbers including the "News" channels and the "Childrens" channels, but here we are in November and I'm still getting Childrens channels on 70, 71, and 72, and News on 80, 81, 82, 83 and 84. So can someone tell me what's going on.
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Cathy. To give any real help, people need to know, preferably, which transmitter you receive your television signal from, or if you don't know that, where you live.
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Dave Lindsay.
You say to A. Blumenfeld "you asked the same question yesterday and an answer was given" but it's not on this page. It seems to me there are too many "pages" on which to ask questions and therefore you can't always find the answer. Also can you tell me why this, and indeed other earlier update emails are headed "Updated - changes to Freeview channel numbers this week on September 19th 2012", when we are in March 2013.
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Sue,
Check to see which way the aerial on your mum's roof is pointing. It should be roughly at right angles to the ridge, pointing towards the sun, for Bluebell Hill, but if it's pointing along the ridge, then she's pointing at Crystal Palace and that won't give the best signal. A friend of mine in Sittingbourne had the same problem, lost all the BBC programs. We got round that by using the HD versions instead. ie 101 instead of 1, 102 instead of 2 and so on, so if your mum has an HD set, not HD Ready, that will be a way around the problem.
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Sue,
The reason for establishing which way the aerial is pointing is NOT to find out if the aerial has moved but to find out where the received signal is coming from. If it is coming from London (Crystal Palace) then because of the distance it is more susceptible to atmospheric changes, which might well account for losing the signal at some point every day. This will also apply to signals coming from Essex. Another way to check where the signal is coming from is to sect Channel 719 on the TV. This is local radio and if you get BBC Radio Kent, your aerial is pointing to Bluebell Hill, but if you get BBC Radio London or BBC Essex, your aerial is pointing to Crystal Palace or somewhere in Essex. As Radio seems less fussy about signal strength and quality you should be able to get local radio on 719 even if you can't get a BBC television station.
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Sue,
Smooth should be on 718 and is transmitted on a different MultiPlex (a group of stations) and therefore it is almost impossible for Smooth to be on 719. I would guess your mum accidently pressed 718 which is where Smooth should be. Your mum is not alone in having an odd ball problem; quite a few seem to get them. Sometime they disappear without ever knowing why they came or went and sometimes you have to live with it or find a work around. I don't remember all these odd ball problems with analogue TV.
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jb38,
You said about Sue's mum getting BBC Solent on 719. That is almost impossible from the Bluebell Hill transmitter. Channel 719 is the channel for BBC local radio and which one you get depend or where you are (receiving your signal from), thus to get get BBC Solent you would need to be somewhere in the Southampton area. Where Sue's mum lives she should be able to get either BBC Radio Kent, BBC London or BBC Essex, but it would depend which way her aerial was pointing and ideally it should be pointing to Bluebell Hill as it's almost in her back garden, metaphorically.
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Sue,
It might be worth checking the signal strength of ITV even though it's "working". You say BBC is 50% and jb38 says that isn't much above the reception threshold drop out level, it may be that ITV is only, say 55%, or 60%. Where your mum is should give you virtually 100%; she's so close to the transmitter. If the ITV signal is also low if may be a problem with the aerial down lead. If so, does the aerial lead run across the roof, from the bottom of the aerial to the gutter, because one of the problems that can occur is the lead rubs on the roof as the wind blows it back and forth. This wears the insulation away on the underside where no one can see but where rain running down the roof can get in. Water in an aerial cable at its worst is little better than cutting the cable, but any amount will weaken the signal. It's unlikely to be the "aerial" if it's up there, pointing in the right direction and intact; much more likely to be the down lead.
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Sue,
As I stated in an earlier comment, if your mum has an HD TV (NOT HD READY), she could try getting the BBC HD versions of the station, that is BBC1 HD on 101, BBC2 HD on 102 and all the others somewhere in the hundreds. You can find them in the "pretty" bit towards the top of this page. If your mum hasn't got an HD TV, it might be worth considering getting one, although it would be best if you could borrow one to try first. An HD tv might work while the present one doesn't because the HD channels are transmitted on different frequencies. In the old days of analogue TV, before digital switchover, you had one tv station on one Channel, a bit like one letter in one envelope. One "envelope" for the BBC1 " letter", and another for the BBC2 "letter" and so on. With digital it's like putting several, but not all, letters in one envelope. Most BBC non HD stations and, I think, all BBC radio station go in one "envelope", some commercial stations in another " envelope", more commercial stations in another and the HD stations in one or more other "envelopes". So, like with proper letters, when they arrive you get all the "letters" in that "envelope", but if one "gets lost in the post" it doesn't mean the other "envelopes" with other "letters" aren't going to arrive. When the "envelope" arrives at/in your tv, the tv has to open the "envelope" and sort the "letters" so you can "read" them.
I hope that isn't to simplistic, but I'm aware that not everybody understands how modern TV's and the transmission system works. I've work in electronics for over 40 years and there's lots that I don't understand.
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Friday 5 October 2012 7:35PM
Gillingham
Dave; Just to clarify; the re-tune that cleared the fault I had was a manual re-tune of ArqB only which from Bluebell Hill is channel 54.