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All posts by jb38

Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


Benjafield: Just out of curiosity I wondered in what context the satellite receiver being mentioned comes into the equation? or are you just meaning that you use a satellite receiver as a back up? I only mention this as the current wave of high pressure that is responsible for reception problems across large areas of the UK does not really affect microwave satellite reception.

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Indoor aerials | Installing
Friday 16 March 2012 9:08PM

Paul: Sky satellite dishes and Freeview equipment are totally incompatible with each other, so you might have been better purchasing a Freesat box as that "is" compatible with the Sky dish and which the feed from would have connected straight into the Freesat box.

Advice cannot really be given on reception issues without knowledge of you location (pref: post code) this for purposes of signal checking as well as knowing what your local transmitter might be.

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Connecting it all up | Installing
Friday 16 March 2012 9:35PM

George: Yes, give an update on the outcome of your trials, by the way my reason for mentioning the thicker type of scart lead is because the thinner types are generally only that because they use the absolute minimum of pin connections hence do not require so many internal wires, the problem there being that the pins that are not connected are the very ones that are necessary for two way use on AV1 sockets.

The other point about thinner cables being that they are also of inferior quality by only having the minimum of screening between the cables, something which can lead to slight ghosting being seen in the background of some scenes.

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ian: The Sky+ boxes RF output channel can only be received if your TV has been set on analogue rather than digital (DVB), however although I would normally have said that the changeover does not affect reception of Sky, what I suspect has likely happened is that at switchover your local high powered Freeview transmitter has moved onto the channel that is being used for the Sky boxes RF modulator, the way to test this being to do what you normally do to receive the Sky box (which does not work) then take the lead out (from roof aerial or wherever) that goes into the Sky boxes aerial socket, if the fault immediately clears up then all you require to do is select another RF channel for the RF modulator, and then re-tune the TV whilst on analogue to pick up the changed channel.

If you had provided your post code (for signal checking purposes) I could have advised regarding the best channel to use for the RF modulator.

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laura: Although there is always the possibility of some other reason applying, but for the last couple of weeks there have been complaints from all over the UK (especially from South of the border) regarding poor reception, and something which is unfortunately not rectifiable as its being caused by the current wave of high pressure across the country, this resulting in distant stations (including foreign) being picked up which can cause interference to local channels.

Its really a case of waiting until the situation has settled down again as there is absolutely nothing that can be done as it used to affect analogue as well, but with the only difference there being that it only really spoiled the picture by causing wavy lines and such likes on it and not breaking it up, break up being a digital thing.

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laura: You didn't actually mention this aspect in your posting or I would have included the possible reason for this happening, which though is still connected to what I did say, basically being that the conditions referred also causes the signal levels received to drop and tuners in some models of TV's are better at coping with this than others because of variations in the sensitivity levels of their tuners, so you "might" have found that if you had swapped the sets over the problem could have moved with the swap.

Another aspect that can also affect this is the method you have used to feed the aerial into the two TV's, as unless a powered splitter has been used one TV could be getting a higher level of signal over the other, and if the TV with the lower signal is also the one with the less sensitive tuner then that's a bad combination.

One other final possible reason, being that "if" you are in an area where more than one station can be received (post code required to verify) then the TV with the problem might have picked up an alternative transmitter during a re-scan, this being something quite commonly experienced by many residing in multi-reception possibility areas.

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Feedback | Feedback
Saturday 17 March 2012 7:53AM

Martin Rosen: To be honest about it a factory default re-set is not always really necessary in most cases, but I always usually recommend this as its a way of virtually guaranteeing that there wont be any remnants of anything previously stored in the tuning memory lurking around to cause any odd problems to occur.

So if you just carry out a normal re-tune you will probably be OK, but if you experience any odd problems whatsoever then re-set the TV to its factory default setting as this will return it to the same condition as when first taken it out of its packing case.

By the way "factory default" or re-set is called "first time installation" on some brands as they all use different names for the same procedure.

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Lee: Taking it that when you say that the Sky box still changes channels you are meaning if using the remote control in the same room as the box, then it looks like RF2's power supply has failed in the Sky box, although you should go into the engineers menu and check that the RF2 power is still seen as being activated just in case it isn't.

Should you find on checking that it is still shown as being activated try connecting the eye straight into the RF2 socket, no need to connect eyes output to anything, and if it doesn't light even when straight into RF2 socket then this indicates that the box is faulty.

If you have access to a simple voltmeter try it across the RF2 socket and it should read from 5 to 9 volts or so.


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teejay: I cant quite get a grasp of exactly what you are meaning or if there is a problem or not, and if there is what is it?

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teejay: What is the model number of your new Sanyo TV, because if you always pick up the Freeview channels then the set isnt scanning in analogue, dont you see a TV/DVB button on your remote control? as analogue / digital operation is usually selected by pressing that button.

Anyway let me have the model number of the set.

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