All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Tigminor: Yes, you have nothing to worry about as you are not missing anything, matter of fact I carried out a check on my own TV earlier on and found that "TV Stars" was one of three new channels found, and of course with the "coming soon" caption appearing (albeit sluggishly) exactly as you have described.
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lee: I had a sneaking suspicion that you might have, especially when you knew the chassis used in your PVR, and of course I dare say that you noticed that the channel you cant get is one of the two used by Crystal Palace that has negative offsets on the channel frequency, the other being the HD service which the Vestel wouldn't respond to anyway.
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lee: The negative offset problem is something that has effectively killed off a large number of Vestel chassis PVR's and made others erratic in operation in areas where changes to a transmitters operational frequency had taken place, whereby a multiplex channel had started transmitting slightly off its recognised frequency so as to keep the standard 8Mhz channel spacing between it and other adjacent channels.
This applies in the case of mux Channel 28- from Crystal Palace, as this is transmitting 167khz under the the proper frequency of 530.000Mhz that Ch28 officially corresponds to, and even although the negative offset isnt that particularly great it still requires a receivers tuner to allow itself be be pulled downwards from its pre-programmed 530.00Mhz, something that the earlier ranges of Vestel chassis cant really cope with by them having a very tight AFC range (automatic frequency control) and are likewise resistant to being pulled down.
This is the main cause of this problem, although the situation was made even worse when the transmitting mode also changed from 2k to 8k at switchover.
The whole thing is similar to a tuning facility that was seen offered in most analogue TVs, insomuch if any channel number was checked on you would always usually see a "fine tune" option being offered, as it was appreciated that bang on frequency isnt always the best for reception (on analogue anyway) and with the fine tune range offered being + / - of a channel numbers centre frequency.
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Wayne Ritchie: Although you have stated that the SD channels are fine its still a case of checking the signal levels being received on both SD and HD channels, as although you are located at 18 miles away from Stockland Hill its difficult to assess any possible causes of your problem without knowledge of the strength of signal you receive, the problem being that if a signal is verging on being too strong HD will be first to suffer from intermittent spells of cutting out through tuner overloading during the slight variations in level received over any given period, whereas on the other hand reception can also intermittently cut out if its running too close to the lower reception threshold level.
If on checking the level you find that "SD" is touching near to 100% in strength then that could benefit from being slightly reduced, the reason I say SD being that in overload situations any strength indications seen on HD can be totally inaccurate, so should you be using any type of booster try a test with it being by-passed.
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robert: Any aerial installers viewing your posting cannot really reply without knowledge of your locality, something which you haven't given, and as this site covers from John O'Groats to Land's End (and beyond) prices charged can be radically different depending on where one resides.
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David: Is the red light on the magic eye actually on? and are you using the "new" Sky boxes remote control when attempting to change the channel? finally have you altered anything with your set up other than now using a different Sky box?
That said though, your type of complaint is not exactly unheard of when associated with new HD boxes.
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David Turner: No one can really offer any assistance without knowledge of your location, and with this preferably being in the form of a post code or at least one from nearby, as this would then enable the signals expected in your area to be assessed as well as the transmitter they are received from.
That said, the BBC transmitter (anywhere) is always amongst the most powerful, and so once again dependant on location your problem might even be because you are receiving an excessively high signal level from that multiplex and this can result in exactly the type of symptoms that you have mentioned, and that includes very poor signal quality.
Maybe you could also mention the model of Freeview box that you are using.
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Christopher: I strongly suspect that the reason your aerial amplifier has made the situation worse is because you are already located in a high signal strength area, as the local Pontypridd transmitter (400 watts) is not too far away from being a neighbour, and an excessive level of signal detected from that transmitter will cause your tuner to be severely desensitized thereby reducing its ability to pick up a more distant station.
What you will have to do is make your reception of the local transmitter as unfavourable as you can manage, and is something which might be difficult! but turn your aerial to its horizontal position and point it towards Wenvoe, this being roughly located at 170 degrees from you and use manual tuning to store each of its muxes, these being 41 - 44 - 47(HD) - 42 - 45 - 49.
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Ben Ward: I was having a look at your series of back postings concerning your difficulties and have a test that I would like you to try on the Humax (and only!) as the tuners fitted in these devices have more of a consistency in performance and so are best to use for checking / comparing strengths etc.
What I would like to know is what the signal / quality is seen indicated as when on BBC (Ch61) and then ITV (Ch54) when connected to the aerial used by upstairs, and then the same test carried out on the aerial used for downstairs as I believe that you use two different aerials, but make sure that the test is with the aerial connected directly into the Humax and not having been looped through anything.
Maybe you could also indicate the model of Humax that you have, although it would be of assistance to know the actual model numbers of the Toshiba TV as well as the Sony box, as many of these well known brands can have problems with transmission modes etc and so its always of benefit to know what a person is using.
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Friday 4 May 2012 8:04PM
lee: This is a known about issue with the T816 chassis, have a look at the info on the link.
Unofficial Vestel PVR Information (UK) - Digital Switchover