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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.

J
Humax FOXSAT-HD freesat HD | Freesat
Tuesday 10 December 2013 11:39PM

DaveG: Apologies for the delay in replying but this was unavoidable due work related commitments.

Thanks for providing the info requested as this helps to clarify the issue with regards to why the boxes software is so far out of date, I am also inclined to agree that its unlikely that your failed attempt to update the software would have affected the box in any way, because if it had have done I doubt that you would have been able to do anything with it other than to switch it off and on, if even that!

However as far as the box not responding to the USB stick is concerned, this could well have been caused by something I admit to having been totally unaware of, insomuch that Humax HDR's can be critical to the type of USB stick used for transferring the updated software into it and with same failing to respond to certain types, this seen referred to at the latter end of the download instructions in the undermentioned link, and which also explains the reason for the various software updates that were sent out from time to time.

On the subject of your latter question, unfortunately I am unable to give you a positive answer on this and so its really a case of try it and see, because the aspect of updating software when numerous intermediate updates were missed is more allied to the computer field rather than my own of being connected with RF engineering.

By the way, ignore the link provided within the attached to the Humax software update site as its inoperative, use the one provided in my previous reply.

FOXSAT-HDR Firmware releases - My Humax Wiki

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J
Humax FOXSAT-HD freesat HD | Freesat
Wednesday 11 December 2013 7:58PM

DaveG : If you have returned the two LNB inputs back to their original positions then try disconnecting the box from the mains via rear switch (if convenient) followed by swapping the two leads over, finally power the box up again and carry out another Freesat auto tune to (hopefully) reload the channels into the No2 tuner.

By the way, the two tuners in the box cannot be controlled individually.

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J
Humax FOXSAT-HD freesat HD | Freesat
Thursday 12 December 2013 9:15AM

DaveG: I am beginning to suspect that your main problem is possibly due to your box being unable to receive horizontally polarised channels irrespective of the band that they may be operating on, this being why 11427 H was not seen when you tried to select it on a manual scan test, therefore I would like you to try another test on the boxes "manual tune" facility then on transponders by selecting 10773 H 22000 by inching along the transponder list using the right hand side of the large selection button on the remote control, the transponder frequency given containing BBC1 East (W).

Band switching problems are usually caused by an LNB port fault, however as the situation had apparently remained the same even after having swapped the LNB inputs followed another rescan this could point to your box having a defective tuner, as the ports on a multi-output LNB work independently from each other.

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J
Humax FOXSAT-HD freesat HD | Freesat
Thursday 12 December 2013 5:56PM

DaveG: It certainly appears that way! although with satellite systems its always easier to determine the source of a problem, i.e: whether box or dish, if the person with the suspect device is on friendly terms with anyone who uses a Sky+ or Freesat box, because should a friendly neighbour or whoever be willing to allow their dish system to be used for the purpose of carrying out a rescan on the suspect device the results of would instantly give a pointer as to where to investigate.

As far as dish alignment is concerned, the reason I did not mention checking the dish was simply because you had previously mentioned in one of your earlier postings that you had already done so and with me having taken this at face value, although I fully appreciate that it might well have been accidentally moved since then.

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Mr Philip Marples: Try going into the TV's set up menu system and under "technical set up" you might see "Auto service update" or similar being mentioned, switch it off.

Should you experience any problems in finding this choice as not all menu systems are the same, this aspect can be checked out for you by supplying the model number of the device in question.

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Mike Oughton: Out of interest, does this problem affect all channels? insomuch if this occurs whilst viewing ITV and you "immediately" change over to BBC is it OK?

The other point being, if it does affect all channels then are you located in an area where your view of the transmitter is restricted by the trees on the left hand side of Sheepdrove Road or are you clear of them?

Finally, if you carry out a signal strength / quality check on the BBC and ITV are they roughly level pegging with each other?

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Mike Oughton: Many thanks for the update and pleased all is "seemingly" OK for now.

As far as signal strength readings from a TV is concerned, the problem with this is that most sets give somewhat inflated indications of what the actual strength really is and which in reality is usually much lower, the only Freeview device I can think of that does give a reasonably accurate indication of signal strength when compared to that obtained using a proper signal meter (albeit it calibrated in dBuV) is the slightly older Humax non HD boxes such as the PVR9200 / 9300T ranges, e.g: a full scale (just anyway) indication on a Panasonic / Sony / LG etc TV only indicating 84% or so on the Humax which is roughly equivalent to around 72dBuV or so, the top side of the target level for Freeview reception but not overloading.

That said, if a full scale strength indication on a TV is accompanied by the quality continually dipping backwards then signal overloading conditions should indeed always be suspected, because when a TV is genuinely suffering from the effects of receiving an excessively high signal level this causes instability to occur in the tuner corrupting the data that's used to measure quality, with in severe cases this dropping to zero quality whilst being accompanied by an indication of 100% strength, LG TV tuners more than most being extremely intolerant to slight overloading.

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J
Humax FOXSAT-HD freesat HD | Freesat
Friday 13 December 2013 10:34PM

DaveG: Although you maybe possibly have found this out for yourself by now, but with regards to your No2 tuner problem as the tuner in question failed to operate after having carried out the software update / box reset etc the likely reason for this new problem is that the box will be sitting on its "single input" mode, and although you are using two input feeds the second one will be disabled.

To get over this problem press : "Menu" - "Set up" then select Freesat tune followed by carrying out this button pressing procedure which takes you into another menu where you can select one or two input feeds.

Press in succession: Red / Green / Yellow / Blue / Green / Yellow / Blue and a menu should appear with "connection type", make sure that two inputs are selected then back out of the menu and carry out another Freesat tune.

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J
Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmitter
Friday 13 December 2013 10:47PM

michael derrick: According to the coverage map its not possible to receive the Heathfield transmitter in Newhaven, although this could have been checked out in greater detail if you had provided your post code or alternatively one from somewhere nearby, e.g: a shop / post office.

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J
Heathfield (East Sussex, England) transmitter
Friday 13 December 2013 11:30PM

michael derrick b: Re: previous reply, just for a test I used Newhaven Post Office in the High Street as a location, the results of indicating that the signal from Heathfield (@ 14.8 miles) suffers from being seriously obstructed starting from approximately 4 miles prior to reaching Newhaven, although I fully appreciate that you might well be located nowhere near to the centre of Newhaven.

With regards to your signal failing towards the evenings, this indeed could well be caused by the atmospheric conditions prevailing at this present time, but though it could also be caused by the signal you are receiving be achieved purely via diffraction, (signal bending) and signals receiving in this way are vulnerable to conditions changing between day and night times irrespective of whether or not the actual inversion is occurring.

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