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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.


V.Fenwick: Just to add to that said by Dave Lindsay, the TV or box that you are receiving on has to be fitted with a DVB-T2 tuner to be able to receive HD transmissions, what you are using is most likely only fitted with a DVB-T tuner.

If you provide the model number of whatever you are using this aspect can be checked on, or if you have a manual look under "tuner" in the specifications section.

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sue veillette: Your best policy would be to make a few enquiries with your neighbours to find out if they are also experiencing the same problems as yourself, because reception in the Bridlington area which comes from the Belmont transmitter (@ 51 miles) can be erratic at certain times in the year and so you have to determine whether or not your problem is confined to your installation or not, because if it is then your signal level is running at too low a level, however if the problem is also being experienced by others then unfortunately there isn't really that much that can be done.

Further advice dependant on outcome of enquiries made.

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sue veillette : Also meant to add, that if your aerial is facing diagonally towards the trees on the Southside of Kingsgate then that will certainly not help matters, as trees (even in winter months) can partially block reception.

Do you use a booster?

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rachel urrry: Apart from the fact that this website has no connection whatsoever with Sky television, however what you are complaining of suggests that one of the two inputs from the dish is defective, and so if you have just had this system installed then you should report this problem directly to Sky.

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J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Saturday 16 February 2013 6:52PM

anthony: Well the main reason for my query was really connected to what you had said in your posting made on the 13th @ 4:10pm insomuch that "your Humax could get them but your Sony cant", but though with your later posting made on the 14th @ 5:18pm somewhat arousing my suspicion regarding the "possibility" of a problem existing on your installation by you having said that the Humax was connected before the distribution amp whereas the Sony is connected after it, as even although I did comment that Humax tuners are more sensitive than most Sony's ("most" as they can vary) the fact of the Sony being fed from a distribution amp whereas the Humax wasn't should have levelled this difference out "if" all is OK with the feed being used for the Sony.

The simple way to verify if everything is as it should be would be to test the Humax on the aerial feed used for the Sony, because if the Humax is sitting on the MEN mux and with a note being made of whatever the signal strength / quality level is indicating when taken "immediately" before moving it, then comparing these readings to that obtained on the Humax when its connected to the feed used for the Sony as they should be slightly higher, if not then either the amp (or connections from) is defective.

I do realise that its neither here nor there as you are not interested in the MEN channel anyway, and so my curiosity was purely a technical one as what you have reported can indicate a problem.



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J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Saturday 16 February 2013 9:27PM

anthony: Another little point I wondered about being, does that Tandy (Radio Shack) distribution amplifier that you use have an adjustable gain control slot? as some of these are quite powerful offering about 25dB gain and I wondered what the result would be if you tried varying the gain either way, your previous One-for-All being in the region of 20dB.

Once again, my only reason for asking being by the fact of you being able to receive the MEN 1Kw transmitter as this is suggestive of you residing in a particularly good reception area, although one which could result in problems if the signal being received was being over amplified as it could result in elements of instability developing in the tuner, this corrupting the measuring system whereby the signal levels seen indicated cannot be relied upon as they will always give indications much lower than they really are, particularly where quality indications are concerned as in many cases a signal level of about 80% will be accompanied by near zero quality, a reduction in gain generally resulting in the quality zooming upwards.

Not really saying this type of situation applies in your case, but thought it worth mentioning.

By the way, Humax tuners and circuitry associated with is not near so susceptible to this sort of problem, and the reason why signal strength reports as being viewed on a Humax box can always be taken as being closer to that obtained on a proper signal meter, although the latter (provided of the more expensive variety) is always superior as its virtually immune to instability problems.

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J
Showcase TV
Sunday 17 February 2013 9:31AM

frank: I checked this on both Freesat (400) and Sky Freesat (191) and both were OK with me, if your Dad's box is still doing this ask him to unplug it from the mains power supply and then wait about 30 secs or so before reconnecting it again, then once the box has stabilised carry out another check on the Showcase channel.

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emma: Thanks for the update and with the content of being very informative, insomuch that as you are now able to receive Freeview via your indoor aerial then this makes it much easier for you to verify if your problem is indeed being caused by the communal aerial feed cutting out, because as soon as your TV cuts out just swap its input connection from the communal aerial over with the jumper lead that comes from your indoor aerials booster and the picture should return.

If the aforementioned is found to be the case then you should contact the people involved as ask if they have "accidentally" connected the TV distribution amplifier used by the flats into a timed circuit, because everything you have said suggests that this is what has happened.

Of course another other angle is, that unless whoever owns the flats has thought up a good way of saving a little money by killing the lighting circuit during the early hours of the morning (some places do!) but forgetting, or maybe not being aware of the fact that the communal amp used to supply a TV signal to the flats is on the same circuit.

Maybe you could give another update on how you get on.

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J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Sunday 17 February 2013 5:01PM

janet huyton: You are indicated as being only 6 miles away from the Winter Hill transmitter at 131 degrees, and so if the turbine is located anywhere near to this bearing then there is a greater chance of it causing problems than not doing.

But though even if its behind you it still cause problems because of its relatively close proximity to the transmitter, as its blades will be in line with the main beam of the signal which can result in massive signal reflections from the rear clashing with the signal received via the front of your aerial.

The whole thing is hit and miss, as although wind turbines do not always devastate a digital signal in the same way as done with analogue transmissions, they always have to be looked at as bad news.

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David: Judging by what you have reported would suggest that your best policy by far is to make some local enquiries to find out if others are also suffering from the same problem as yourself, that being the loss of programmes on PSB2 mux Ch42.

The other point being, that should a further retune enable you to regain a full compliment of channels only to find out that when one of them is subsequently selected from the EPG it results in a blank screen then you should resist the temptation to carry out another retune, as all this will achieve is that you wipe out everything already stored, and with the reason for this being, that unless the receiving device being used has developed a tuner defect then channels already stored are never lost even although selecting one results in a blank screen, as the channel will still be there but with a signal strength not high enough to resolve a picture.

You can test this out on one of your devices that offers manual tuning, this done by simply going into the tuning menu / manual tune and entering Ch42 (ITV etc) but do NOT press search or scan, because on most devices the level that the signal is being received at will immediately be indicated.

If you note the level of Ch42 and then change the channel number to Ch45 (BBC) and also what its indicating, then if you compare the two readings the reception threshold for your receiver will be roughly somewhere between these readings.

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