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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.


James Osbourn: Yes, as it was caused by the BBC transmitter being down for 11 minutes from 11:11am, and with the reason it checked out OK with me being because you had only queried the problem at 13:33, which of course it had been back on again for about 2 hours prior to that.

The point about this being, that any time when a channel selected results in a blank screen NEVER be tempted to carry out a retune as the programme will NOT have been lost from the TV's or boxes memory, and all re-tuning does is to guarantee that the memory is wiped clean which necessitates frequent rescans being made to recover the lost channels, whereas if things had been left as they were they would have returned of their own accord.

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J
ITV 4
Wednesday 18 July 2012 12:02AM

Mark: That is something that generally happens when using an indoor aerial, or if an outdoor type the coax used from the aerial being of poor quality with minimum screening whereby the cable reacts to capacity changes caused by anything coming near to it.

Because of your proximity to the transmitter you don't really want anything elaborate or you could overload the new boxes tuner resulting in signal blocking, so maybe you could advise regarding what type of aerial system you are using.

By the way is your new box a Bush B320HD?

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J
Detailed comparison Freeview/Sky
Wednesday 18 July 2012 5:02PM

Max: ITV London should be on programme No 973 on a Sky box.

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J
Detailed comparison Freeview/Sky
Wednesday 18 July 2012 5:54PM

Max: Meant also to say that its only Sky that can make ITV London appear on 103 as its done via the Sky card, but "if" you have just received the card then they "might" change it for you over air, but in general terms they always match it to the post code of your address when you first applied for the card.

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coates: This is most likely being caused by water entering the "F" connector on the dishes LNB and short circuiting the signal, you will have to unscrew the "F" connector from the LNB and then from the coax to dry it out, then after re-assembling same and screwing it back onto the LNB again tightly wrap some self amalgamating tape around the entire connector.

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J
Diagnostics - old version
Wednesday 18 July 2012 9:51PM

Pinkman: Although this problem might be related to something going on at the transmitter and which hasn't as yet been reported, but 100% on all other channels could possibly mean that the signal is slightly over the top strength wise for HD, as signal overloading will always affect HD first even although all seems to be OK on SD channels, and with the signal strength seen indicated usually always being inaccurate due to elements of instability in the tuner causing of data corruption, something which always results in low readings.

You haven't mentioned what your aerial arrangements are, but purely for a test if you have a set top aerial kicking around then plug that in and check if HD is still breaking up, although a short length of wire (about 18" or so) connected into the aerial socket could also be used should you not have access to a set top aerial.

That said, the proper way of doing things is to try an attenuator in line with the aerial socket on the TV / box, these being relatively inexpensive devices costing under £5.00 from most TV shop outlets, as even although one aspect of a signal problem might clear up with a set top aerial test the signal might then be too much on the low side causing break up for another reason, as the symptoms seen indicated with a signal that's too strong are identical to that of too low, this being the aspect that causes confusion to many a person.

Just to clarify a point, the next stage up from an indication of 100% strength being seen "is" instability and the eventual stage of complete signal blocking.

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J
Feedback | Feedback
Thursday 19 July 2012 12:17AM

John: I don't really think that its so much the case of a problem having developed on your No1 HDMI input but more the case of the design circuitry used by these devices having the unintended effect of sending a pulse though pin 19 when the box is triggered by being programmed by the manufacturer to carry out tasks on a regular basis, the main one being the updating of the EPG programme info, although obviously this pulse on activation wil only affect receiving equipment fitted with a pin 19 sensor on one of its HDMI inputs.

But though when you say "even although the box is switched off", are you meaning completely off altogether or simply when the box is sitting in standby?, because if its the former then it should have no effect whatsoever on the TV, and should it do then this can then indicate the existence of some form of problem, but if you let me have the model number of the box I can then check out some details regarding the boxes circuitry as they are all different.

Of course if your TV has more than one HDMI input then you could just use the No2 input as that wont have any sensor on it, the only inconvenience about using No2 being that you have to select that input when you wish to view Freesat, this being done via the TV's input selector on the remote control and with the various input options seen by repeatedly pressing the input button.

Even I suffer from my Humax Freesat HDR switching the TV over to its input for about 5 seconds or so when its automatically activated from standby about 15 minutes or so before the start of a pre-programmed recording.

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beckie: A Freesat box will only work when its connected to a dish in exactly the same way as a Sky box and NOT a normal aerial.

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J
ITV 4
Thursday 19 July 2012 7:40AM

Mark: Its difficult to say exactly what the reason is for you experiencing this peculiar problem as a break on the coax's inner connector either where it joins the coax plug or alternatively at the point where it connects to the aerial could cause this, but on the other hand a signal level being received that's on the verges of being too high can also be responsible, as devices operating under conditions of being potentially overloaded can play up in a variety of ways.

Although you can check this out by trying a test using either a set top aerial or alternatively a short piece of wire (about 18" min) connected into the inner receptacle on the aerial socket, if the BBC channels return by having done this then you will require an attenuator to be placed in line with the boxes aerial socket, these generally costing less than £5.00 or so from TV shops or from numerous e-bay sources, one rated about 3 or 6db should be suffice or a variable type could also be used, albeit these being rather crude in operation devices.

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J
ITV 4
Thursday 19 July 2012 8:08AM

Mark: Needless of course to say, but should you be using any type of booster on your aerial then by-pass it.

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