All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Liam Boyle: Most people located to the North of Peterborough use Waltham as their first choice for reception and with it also being indicated on the reception predictor as such, albeit the penalty there is that the regional news is centred around the Nottingham / Derby areas. However on the technical side the only snag that you might experience is problems caused by the forest of trees located to the W/NW of you, as Waltham's signal comes from roughly that direction.
With regards to receiving a signal from Sandy as well as Belmont and vice-versa, some aerials do not necessarily show that terribly much of a difference in signal strength when turned at 180 degrees from a signal source, and with Sandy being located at 175 degrees from you and Belmont being at 004 degrees then what you have said isn't that surprising.
I would though try a few tests to see what you can pick up from Waltham, although if your aerial is facing Sandy then although Waltham will not be exactly on your aerials dead spot, that is at 90 degrees from the signal source that its pointing at, it is however only about 36 degrees or so away from it as Waltham is located at 301 degrees, although for a test it wouldn't do any harm for you to clear the channels stored on your TV by carrying out a factory reset, then go into the TV's manual tuning screen and punch in mux Ch61 which is BBC from Waltham, if it comes up then try the test again using mux Ch54 which is Waltham's ITV, although its not really a good test because of your aerial facing nearly South.
If by the way, its you that has a large tree smack right in front of your garden then your signal from Waltham would have greatly benefited from the aerial having been mounted on the right hand side of your house, as the signal path would have been clearer in that position.
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Alan: Regarding >> and the truth is these aerials are more to do with looks than improvement in signal level etc << Its pleasing to see someone talking technical sense.
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lee: Good news then! although I would have liked the serial number associated with your model of box so that I could tag it as being from a serial number onwards that the update works on, as subtle changes to a devices circuitry always takes place during long batch runs, and with this in many cases being why an update will work on some models but not others even although the model to all intents is the same.
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Alan: I suspected that might be the case, and I fully agree with what you have mentioned regarding this issue, as I disagreed with that logo being allowed to be used right from day one as it was inevitable that people were going to be caught out by it.
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Mick I am not quite sure as to what exactly you want to do as if your DVD recorder is now defunct then its out of the equation, and so is the Bush you are referring to a PVR? that being a self contained Freeview+ digital recorder that cannot record from anything other than its own internal Freeview tuners, nor does it have any DVD player facilities.
If you have a number of DVD's that you want to be able to view then a cheap DVD player is all that you require, as this could be coupled into your TV as well as the Bush, or even connected into any TV so long as it has a scart socket.
Maybe you could clarify on these points.
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franky vaughan: Taking it that you are referring to a "Freesat" twin channel PVR recorder? if one of the feeds from the dish gives a good signal on LNB 1's input but the other gives no signal on the LNB 2 input then swap the two input feeds over and see if the fault changes positions, if it does then you should check that the "F" connector on the "no signal" input isn't shorting inside because a strand of wire is touching the inner core, if though its found not to be then couple it back into the box again as its time to move outside to check that the "F" connectors on the other end of the cable havent became waterlogged and is shorting out, if though nothing appears amiss then swap the "F" plugs over again but this time on the LNB and have a check on the recorder, if you see that the fault has reverted back to its original position then the block is faulty.
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Mike O'Pray: With regards to "scan", its just that every manufacturer has their own idea about wording, and on the manual tune menu screen there is usually a box for the channel number to be entered into plus underneath a button bar marked scan / tune / search or whatever, that being obviously the next stage in the procedure "if" a person wanted to carry out a manual search, which of course you cut short as you were only using that facility as a fixed channel signal level checker, and with the strength indicated on the channel concerned proving as being inadequate for the TV to lock and why you cannot receive it.
As you may already have gathered, there are quite a number of complaints from people all around the Northampton area who are experiencing reception difficulties with the commercial channels, and it was noticed that most of the problems reported are from people who are all on very similar bearings from the station, Sandy being at 101 degrees @ 41 mls from your own location and another person with similar problems to yourself with a heading of 104 degrees but at only 32 mls from the station, and a third on a bearing of 97 degrees @ 24 mls, so it appears to be the radiation beamed in that particular segment that's deficient.
With regards to your own SDN (ITV3 etc) problem, its a pity that you couldn't manage to get hold of an aerial amplifier of about 15db gain or so for a test as you might well find that the amp would most likely lift the signal level of Ch51 up to above the reception threshold for your set and enable you to view the channel, as apart from that action I cant really see anything else improving your situation except by experimenting with the aerial in different positions, and I am not necessarily meaning being mounted much higher up, as in difficult areas its frequently found to the amazement of some, that a signal can rise coming downwards towards a gutter level, as in non line-of-site situations the signals paths get bent by reflections and this has to be taken advantage of by positioning the aerial in a hot spot thats found to be stable, the type of job only really suitable for DIY as its time consuming.
That said though, trees are a killer if less than a mile away from the receiving aerial.
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Nigel: These 8 way splitters have minimum gain irrespective of what might be claimed for them, and this is why you dont really notice much difference whether its in circuit or not, as they are really devices thats best classed as a no-loss splitter.
By the way, I am in no way being derogatory about them as they serve a purpose.
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Roy Thomson: Well considering that you can presently receive a Freeview signal at all from multiplexes operating on 2Kw (BBC1 1Kw) albeit in an intermittent fashion, then the chances are that when the station switches to high powered operation on June 27th when the PSB muxes are increasing to 80Kw and the commercials to 40Kw there is a good chance that your present difficulty will vanish.
By the way the BBC mux (and only BBC) will change to high power on June 13th ahead of the other five muxes.
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Tuesday 15 May 2012 3:08PM
Holly: The answer to the first question is yes, but its Sky free to view that you will be able to watch and not exactly Freesat as such, although both are very similar except that some programmes on Sky FTV are not on Freesat and vice-versa, and of course as you will probably already know that you cannot use the recording side of the Sky box nor play back anything previously recorded.
Secondly, its maybe a slip of the tongue on your part, but an aerial is no use for a satellite box as it has to be connected to a dish, although only one dish lead is required and which has to be connected into the Sky boxes LNB1 input.
If your TV is HD ready then you should just have used the HDMI lead between the box and the TV and leave the scart leads off.