All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
LJA: BBC1 from the Sandy transmitter is being received perfectly OK up in the Stamford area, but though as this same complaint has recently been mentioned by one or two other viewers, I suspect that the reason for the problem is down to atmospheric conditions allowing the reception of some distant transmitter (possibly foreign) operating on the same Mux channel as Sandy's BBC, the clashing of the two wiping reception of the BBC out in "certain" areas.
"If" when you first experienced this problem you had tried retuning your TV? then this will have erased the BBC Mux channel from the tuners memory, and with the only way of recovering same being by carrying out a series of further retunes until you do, this being the reason why a person should never carry out a retune on their TV or box unless specifically requested to do so by a caption having appeared on their screen.
| link to this comment |
Jodie: Northamptonshire, including areas to the South of stretching right across to the East of England are notorious for suffering from reception problems at around this time of the year, basically because most (but not all) of them do "not" (including yourself) have a line-of-sight to the Sandy transmitter, the result of this being that the signal from Sandy is prone to reacting to interference from distant stations, including in some instances ones from outside of the UK.
In most cases nothing can really be done about the problem, that is except to wait until conditions turn more favourable.
| link to this comment |
Kris : In addition to that said by MikeB, although the Ridge Hill transmitter could possibly be located at around 13 miles or so away from the area referred to, then as the signal from the aerial would appear to be feeding a total of four outlet points is the splitter being used for the purpose of feeding these outlets a powered or non-powered type?, because in most situations it should really be powered. You should try temporarily connecting one of the sets suffering from poor reception into the outlet point used by one of the two thats perfectly OK, if it still fails to receive properly then carry out the procedure as mentioned in MikeB's 3rd paragraph down, the Mux channels used by Ridge Hill being as follows. / 28 (BBC) - 25 (ITV) or 29 (ITV West) - 22 (HD service) - 21 (SDN / ITV3) - 24 (Pick TV etc) - 27 (4Music etc) - 32 (COM 7 HD) - 34 (COM8 - if in operation).
| link to this comment |
Jon: If you have carried out this test exactly as described, i.e: entering Ch33 but "not" followed by scanning it and no traces of a signal appeared on the strength / quality bars, then this does not look promising as far as the reception of this channel is concerned, because this type of test uses the tuner as a "poor man's" form of active signal meter free of threshold cut off levels, likewise will reveal signals down to a level well "under" that required to resolve a picture, and if any traces of a signal were evident then changing the aerial would have increased this level to one that would resolve a picture, although "maybe" with the aid of a booster.
As a matter of interest, what signal level readings do you get using the same type of test on C58?, the normal PSB3 HD service.
| link to this comment |
H Hansen: The building and works department of you local council are the people you should be contacting, as their maintenance department will likely (or might!) have a maintenance contract with the company that installed the dish as well as the distribution equipment associated with it.
Although, have you you as yet checked with any of your neighbours to make sure that the problem you are experiencing is also affecting more than yourself? and is "not" just down to something connected with your equipment.
| link to this comment |
Jodie: The fact of you having said that others around you are also experiencing problems, plus reports of poor, or no reception from other viewers located around the areas referred to in my previous posting and yet signals from the Sandy transmitter are being received perfectly OK further afield, is a positive indication that reception in the areas of complaint "are" being affected by conditions relating to high pressure, something no one can do anything about except to wait until it clears.
This being one of the pitfalls of terrestrial digital reception, as in analogue days the effects of interference from distant stations generally resulted in a range of visual disturbances, for example, ghostly negative images sweeping across the picture from left to right, wavy lines etc across same, and only in cases of severe interference would the picture become non-viewable, whereas in the case of digital reception interference from distant stations, even if only of a relatively mild / low level nature usually results in picture glitching problems, the quality of the signal frequently being observed to dive down to near zero, any increase in the strength of the interference completely corrupting the digital signal entering the decoder thereby killing reception, this being the type of thing that can give some viewers the impression that the transmitter must be faulty, which in Sandy's case it isn't!
| link to this comment |
vivien dick: As your Freeview reception would appear to be from the Carmel transmitter, then your problem might possibly be down to the level of signal being received during the day time hours dropping off in the evenings due to such as slight changes in atmospheric conditions, something that's not that uncommon in certain areas.
In order to find out if this is the reason (or not!) for the problem, carry out a signal strength / quality test during daytime hours on BBC1 (C60) & ITV1 (C53), making a note of that seen for comparison purposes against that being indicated "after" the signal has apparently failed, because dependant on the levels being indicated (especially quality) it "might" be possible to rectify the problem by the addition of a booster in line with the TV's aerial socket.
By the way, it should be noted that if selecting a programme channel from the EPG / LCN listings results in a blank screen, then its not necessarily always the case that no signal exists, but simply one that is under the threshold level for reception, so carry out the check even although the screen may be blank.
This type of test can also be carried out by going into the tuning menu and selecting "manual" tune, entering the Mux channel number of the transmitter but "not" followed by pressing search or scan, as the level of any signal being received will appear on the indicator bars, Carmels BBC and ITV being C60 & C53 respectively.
| link to this comment |
vivien dick : Further to that said. Although based on reception predictions I had assumed that your Freeview reception was from the Carmel transmitter, however, viewing a few of the rooftops in your area via Google Earth reveals that the majority of aerials are vertically mounted which matches the polarity of the Kilvey Hill transmitter and "not" Carmel, this latter transmitter radiating in the horizontal plane.
Therefore, although the test procedure remains the same the channel numbers referred to should be changed to the following:
C60 (BBC / Carmel) to C23 (BBC / Kilvey Hill)
C53 (ITV / Carmel) to C26 (ITV / Kilvey Hill)
Although further advice is dependant on the outcome of the test, as a booster is being used its assumed (again!) that the electrical supply to same has not been altered in any way? such as accidentally re-wired via a timer.
| link to this comment |
Clancy: Most sky cards will start to show burn marks after a considerable period of time, and so I would discount that aspect as being connected in any way with your problem.
If when you say "stormy weather", you are NOT meaning heavy thundery type downpours which can cause loss of reception for a few minutes or so, as otherwise the problem of picture freezing can be caused by the dish mountings being slack and allowing the dish to move slightly in the wind, or the dishes view of the skyline being intermittently obstructed by vegetation such as from leaves on a branch of a tree etc, other causes being down to droplets of water having gained access to the inside of the "F" connectors on the dishes LNB.
You should carry out a signal check on the box and make sure that the strength and quality are level pegging at around a "minimum" of 50%, 70%+ being the ideal level and with the quality leading the strength, if its under then the dish requires slight trimming, this usually always in the horizontal (right / left) plane.
| link to this comment |
Monday 4 August 2014 9:17PM
Kate: That can be a symptom of a box with a defective power supply, the test for being to switch it completely off (from mains power supply) when it fails, then waiting 10 minutes or so before powering it up again, if this restores it to normal operation then this points to the aforementioned power supply problem.
By the way, do you have your own dish? or are you connected into a communal system?