All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Fran Shuttlewood: With regards to your concern about the possibility of affecting your neighbours ability to receive Freeview from Oxford, as an engineer, I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing to worry about as its impossible for you to do anything that would affect it in any way whatsoever.
However, I will look out for any further updates once you have managed to carry either of the two test options mentioned
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Craig: Maybe so! but that message will be originating from "within" your TV or box in response to no signal being detected, as nothing is wrong with Anglia's Mux24.
What to do is, go into the set up menu on whatever you are using and select "tuning" / "manual tune" and enter 24 into the box but NOT followed by pressing search or scan, because on most devices the signal & quality level will appear in the level bars no matter how low the signal may be.
Further info dependant on feedback.
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Fran Shuttlewood : Just another couple of points that you could possibly try / check out in the meantime.
Although having reset your TV followed by attempting to store Oxfords 53 (BBC) or ITV (60) using the manual tune procedure had failed, as you will no doubt have carried out an auto-tune since then check to make sure that Oxfords BBC / ITV are not stored up in the 800 range of channels,
If by any chance a BBC / ITV programme channel is listed, select one of and carry out a signal check on it, this not so much being for the strength / quality of the signal, and which I believe "might" be combined in one bar on your set?, but more to check the Mux channel number seen indicated along with it, which if BBC could be : 25 (Woodford) - 53 (Oxford) or possibly 43 (Sutton Coldfield)
Secondly, if the aforementioned does not bring any results, should the booster referred to be situated anywhere close to the TV, remove the connector going into its input and connect it directly into the TV, this then followed by (unfortunately once again) resetting the TV and carrying out another manual tune / attempt to store / Oxfords Mux 53.
My reason for the latter check is simply because the booster will be amplifying the signal from Woodford Halse as well as the one from Oxford, but by Woodford H being so close its signal being amplified could possibly have the effect of desensitizing the tuner in your set as well as causing other problems, tuners used in Technika's not necessarily the best for stability.
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John Martin: Perfectly understandable! but many thanks for the update on the outcome of the engineers visit, insomuch that the problem was tracked down as being caused by a defective aerial splitter, site visits armed with the necessary equipment always being a far quicker way of determining the cause of a problem, no matter of what nature it might be!
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Susan: The "F" type connectors fitted on the ends of the coax coming from the dish are exactly the same on "all" satellite equipment, whether it be Sky, Freesat or anything else, if these screw type connectors do not fit your box then you do "not" have a Freesat box, but possibly one designed for Freeview which uses a normal aerial.
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rik: If you go into your Sky boxes signal check screen by pressing "services - 4 - 6" (on a standard or Sky+ box) then for satisfactory reception the strength and quality being indicated "has" to be around 60% on both for satisfactory reception, although 75% is really the target figure. If your indications are less than this? then your dish either requires realigning, or alternatively the dish is being partially / intermittently obstructed by such as vegetation (tree leaves etc) .
Other possibilities being, that the coax has not been secured properly where it leaves the "F" connector on the LNB and has developed a partial fracture, or that the dish mounting is slack and allowing the dish to move slightly with every gust of wind.
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Susan: If you are thinking along the lines of being able to record one programme whilst watching another, or recording two programmes at the same time, then I would recommend the Humax HDR-1000S/1TB as seen in the link, as although Humax boxes are a little more expensive that some of the more household name types, they are high quality devices with a reputation for reliability far in excess of most other devices. I myself have two Humax boxes, one Freesat HD type which has given fault free performance over the last four years, the other being a Freeview model, and which similar to the Freesat version has been fault free over the last three years, both boxes having been powered 24/7 during the entire time. HumaxDirect
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rik: If this problem "only" happens when its windy then it "has" to be caused by one of the possible reasons previously mentioned, however "if" you can access the dish then unscrew the "F" connector from the LNB and check the it for any signs of corrosion / water contamination etc, although sometimes even removing the connector then reconnecting it again can clear a fault.
This advice is based on the problem "only" occurring when it windy, if though it has happened at any time when it isnt? then further advice can be given as required
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Jon: Re: the Ch33 problem. Many thanks for the update on the outcome of your fault finding exercise in an attempt to trace the reason for the problem, I'll bet you gave a sigh of relief when you eventually found it!
Of course, now that the reason is known this explains why Ch58 was only indicating 54% on your Humax, which as you know was something I commented on, although I feel that even the 54% was purely down to your 20dB booster, as otherwise it would have been a lot lower due to the FM sockets filtering / attenuating of signals in excess of 108Mhz, the top side of the FM band.
With regards to your aerial not being wideband, the situation has to be looked at in a similar way to that applying to boosters, insomuch that a signal "has" to there in the first place to be improved on, and although changing an aerial from C/D to a wideband type in order to accommodate a transmitter operating on a lower frequency "will" in most cases give an improvement, (albeit not always as much as might be expected) it will only do so if an signal is being detected in the first place, detected meaning "not" via an auto-tune which activates threshold limits, but either on a proper signal meter or, by using the aforementioned "manual tune" test procedure which is free of such limits, in your case no signal detected on Ch33 being the reason for my reservations about changing the aerial.
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to update me on the situation, most interesting!
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Saturday 16 August 2014 8:59PM
Craig: ITV is being received perfectly OK up in South Lincolnshire (Stamford) , although the HD service from Sandy is a tad on the glitchy side with sizeable variations in the signal quality being indicated.
However, as far as reception from Sandy is concerned. Northampton, including large swathes of Northamptonshire is an area notorious for suffering from problems with reception from the Sandy transmitter at around this time of the year, the reason for basically down to most of the areas involved "not" being line-of-sight with the transmitter, whereby the signals received from same is via an element of diffraction (signal bending), reception under these sort of conditions being vulnerable to any changes in atmospheric conditions that may take place and the effect of on diffraction, the result of being areas of patchy (or zero) reception.
Changes in atmospheric conditions can also, in some cases, allow distant transmitters to be received, and if any of them happen to be operating on the same channels as Sandy, then the result of the clashing between them is once again, zero reception.
When the aforementioned happened during the analogue years, it usually resulted in ghostly negative images sweeping across the picture, or other forms of visual disturbances such as loss of colour etc but seldom ever the loss of the signal, as one analogue signal does not necessarily wipe out another, whereas where digital reception is involved in most cases it will, as one digital signal corrupts the other and vice versa.