All posts by Dr. R. D. Feltham
Below are all of Dr. R. D. Feltham's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Hi Briantist, thanks for your reply. The claims I refer to were in a leaflet entitled "Your guide to switchover" posted to all TV subscribers in the Anglia TV region prior to DSO and published on the Digital UK web site. (They have probably removed those statements from the web site now since they told me after my complaint that they would remove them.) They claimed for example that the Sudbury power transmitted would be increased for all channels at DSO (implying that would be at the original 250 000 Watts) and that there is no such thing as a digital antennea; they also stated that if a subscriber received a good strength analogue signal prior to DSO they would not need to change their antenna. They did not mention the changes to multiplex format which result now in some channels having an effective weaker field strength for many licensees.
However, the effect for me has been that although the Freeview field strength for the BBC multiplex blocks has increased from what it was before DSO it is still much lower than the analogue transmissions were, and unreliable; the effect for the other channels in field strength for me has been such a significant fall that I can no longer receive them with all previous equipment as it was. Reception of the BBC blocks is also variable with weather conditions, at times some channels being lost altogether, particularly ITV and BBC News24.
As such I feel the complete DSO has been handled incompetently and a pack of lies has been published and propagated about the whole debacle to pre-condition the public. The reception of public TV broadcasts in my home is now again like it was in the UK in the 1950s. We now in effect again have many fringe areas over much of the UK, and one can no longer use any portable with an attached antenna unless you happen to be close to the transmitter. That is not suitable for what is supposed to be an advanced country in the 21st century.
It all means that many licensees will need a new high-gain wide band external antenna fitted to receive all channels as well as a digital receiver box. The digital receiver boxes of some became obsolete overnight at DSO. None of this was honestly publicised and if it have had been many people would have been outraged, as many are now when they find out what is really going on.
So the key effects have been that many who could receive Freeview before now cannot continue to receive all the channels which they could before DSO unless they spend even more money and throw away their now useless digital receivers and fit a new roof-top aerial. The real transmitter power has been reduced from 250 000 Watts to only 100 000 Watts; that is a reduction of more than 50% and evidently there is no intention to ever restore it to its previous level, although there is no plan to halve the licence fee with the costs saved. Thus it is no wonder that there are so many reception problems.
It is all another example of present day governments' smoke and mirrors approach to everything by means of lies and deceit.
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Hi Mike, thanks for your response and the information you give.
By the way, my problems are not due to excessive signal strength, but due to weak signal strength. I have checked all things very carefully.
As you point out one of the lies was the inference that DSO would be a two=stage process. It is clearly not. The real issue for Sudbury I feel is that the power transmitted is being reduced by more than 50% to only 100 000 Watts long-term..
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Friday 29 July 2011 12:58AM
Thanks for all the info herein. I had just complained to Digital UK and have written to my MP complaining about the total chaos of this DSO, my loss of channels and the outright lies which have been propagated. I could not understand why many of the digital channels which I had been able to receive from Sudbury prior to DSO were not now receivable! From this site I have learned that the reality is that this is because rather than being increased as Digital UK claimed the transmitted power of many channels has in fact been reduced. No wonder it is more difficult to receive good digital transmission signals where compared to analogue the transmitted power has been reduced by 150%! Digital UK claim that Ofcom state that the Sudbury power has been increased by a factor of 10 for all channels, which I now know from here is a lie!
The government and Digital UK have told a pack of lies rather than the truth, and those people who have been entrusted to organise this DSO clearly would not be able to organise a proverbial piss-up in a brewery! So thank you for your help in enabling me to understand why the problems exist, and exactly what they are.