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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.


Daniel: Press "Services - 4 - 6" on your boxes remote control and have a look at the signal strength / quality indication bars, as if nothing is showing then that can indicate that there is either a fault in the coax leading to the dish, one of the "F" connectors at either end and in particular the dish end if water has crept into the connector, the dish having been moved a fraction out of alignment or finally the LNB on the end of the dish arm is defective.

These are all the possible reasons for your problem if you know for certain that the box was working OK, and by the way the card is not necessary for Sky's free to view channels except for Pick TV.

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Feedback | Feedback
Saturday 9 June 2012 7:46PM

Dan: If you have verified that your friends Sky box is actually OK when connected to the dish and all you have done is to disconnect it and connect yours instead, then it strongly suggests that your box is defective.

Press "services - 4 - 6" and check what is indicated on the signal strength / quality bars, as both should be approximately at around the 75% level.

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Indoor aerials | Installing
Saturday 9 June 2012 8:07PM

argyle_mikey: Keep in mind though, that the BBC is presently on full power and with the other muxes joining it on high power on the 13th with the exception of SDN (ITV3 etc), as it will not be doing so until the 27th when it also changes its operating channel from Ch48 down to Ch42.

You should be able to receive HD OK with your stick aerial, although if you try any other superior type and the HD starts to break up then the signal is liable to be too strong, as it always affects HD first even although SD can appear as being OK, albeit that it will be running on the verges of being overloaded, so any rooftop aerial has to be fitted with an attenuator, preferably of the variable type.

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Yvonne: Yes, a BT vision box is in effect a Freeview box but with a broadband connection so that video can be viewed on-line, and so I feel that's what the agent was possibly meaning as Freeview is not presently available, although this BT Vision via on-line broadband is done on a monthly contract basis and so the costs can add up, so your daughter has to beware of that fact.

Obviously you did provide the code for your daughters proposed flat, the only reason I enquired was that many people when enquiring on behalf of someone else usually forgets and provides their own code rather than the other persons, you of course not having done.

All that's been said by Mike Dimmick and Dave Lindsay applies to that Church Street code, with myself being quite acquaint with the Church street area as I am up in the Whitby area every three months or so, and generally have lunch in the fish & chip restaurant located at the bend in Church street where it leads down to the bridge.

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Diagnostics - old version
Saturday 9 June 2012 8:45PM

Lee Davis: Just for information purposes, there was an engineering notice posted today referring to June 8th and stating weak signals on the BBC services from Mendip, and so this work could be of an on-going nature as these notices are always posted after the event.

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ptc: I should have twigged when you mentioned about the box possibly not complying with modern standards, insomuch that this box was even problematic in a variety of ways about 7 years ago, and with the actual box dating back to 2004.

Unfortunately I have not as yet been able to find any reference to that model in my list of service manuals and so am unable to "check the spec" so to say, but to be quite honest about it your problem is most likely caused by an incompatibility problem, my suspicion being that as the BBC channels are the first to be stored on an auto-tune they are first to be discarded, because by the time you have scanned all of the six transmitters used by Freeview, many more programmes have been received that the very limited capacity of the boxes memory can store.

The only way around this is, that once you have completed a auto-tune immediately start deleting as many of the channels as possible that you are not interested in, as that will bring the overall count down.

Assuming that is that the box allows you to delete individual channels, as many don't.

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BILL: Yes! if you wish whoever to be able to view different programmes on each of them, as otherwise you could purchase an RF modulator and connect that into the scart socket on the Freesat box and feed an analogue signal via a coax cable to a TV in the other room, the TV picking it up as though it was an analogue TV channel in exactly the same way as done with a Sky box.

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C26 (514.0MHz) after switchover
Saturday 9 June 2012 11:17PM

Charles W: you are located at only 2 miles away from the massively high powered transmitters at Crystal Palace and as such your TV or boxes tuner could be suffering from being grossly overloaded depending on the aerial system being used, for a test try a set top aerial or alternatively a short piece of wire (about 12/18" or so) inserted into the inner part of the aerial socket.

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Steve Peterson: At being only seven miles away from the transmitter your TV or boxes tuner could be suffering from an excessively high level of signal, and that will always cause picture break up on HD before showing on the SD channels.

If you have any form of booster then this must be removed, or if you can borrow one try a test using a set top aerial, and should this result in lessening the problem then an attenuator placed in line with the aerial socket should correct this issue.

By the way an attenuator of the variable type being best, these rated at zero to 20db.

If you cannot borrow a set top aerial then try a short piece of wire (about 12/18") pushed into the inner part of the aerial socket.


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Indoor aerials | Installing
Sunday 10 June 2012 12:29PM

argyle_mikey: Yes, give an update when the event happens, although the thing to remember is that any rooftop aerial being used in circumstances such as yours demands that the aerial used be the smallest, simplest type possible, in other words just like a set top aerial having been placed on a roof, as if not your TV or boxes tuner will show signs of being overloaded, it always affecting HD first, the misleading aspect of this being that the symptoms experienced by the viewer are "exactly" the same as if the signal was weak, even to the extent of it indicating so on the signal check screen.

As I had previously mentioned its only BBC1 that's presently on full power, and that can sometimes cause problems by desensitizing the tuner to lower powered signals from the other muxes, but this will rectify itself when they are all move onto the same power level.



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