All posts by Stuart Owens
Below are all of Stuart Owens's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) Full Freeview transmitte
Wednesday 3 August 2011 10:44AM
Wrexham
Wednesday 3 August 2011 10:44AM
Wrexham
NottsUK: Something I forgot to say is that when the news items cut to show the Antiques Roadshow, the picture was quite a weaker reception during the AR broadcast periods, as though somebody had switched off the BBC1 signal at Sutton Coldfield and I was receiving a signal from another channel from another transmitter. But as I said, none of the other 4 channels was showing AR so don't know whaat happened really.
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Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham, England) Full Freeview transmitte
Wednesday 3 August 2011 6:59PM
Wrexham
Wednesday 3 August 2011 6:59PM
Wrexham
Briantist: I know when Antigues Roadshow is on TV.
What I am saying is that BBC Midlands Today got interrupted with a weaker signal showing Antiques Roadshow and that wasn't showing anywhere else at that time.
So that may have been a pre-recording that BBC Birmingham played back by mistake or some other explanation.
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Re: My Post dated Tuesday 2 August 2011 10:59PM
I contacted BBC Midlands Today last week and have had a reply today regarding my question.
Here's the reply I had from BBC Birmingham today:
"Hi
I saw this email earlier in the week via Paul Hunt - so I'm not sure who is replying to him.
In a nutshell, we had intermittent equipment failure on Tuesday, which caused Midlands Today to be switched to East Midlands Today a couple of times. The faulty switch has since been replaced. This affected 'analogue' services only.
Martin"
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Here was my Original Post:
I posted this on Digital Spy tonight (2nd August) but looks like no-one could help me:
Did anyone watch the on-air mistake on BBC (West) Midlands Today tonight?
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I was watching in Analogue on Sutton Coldfield and was wondering if all analogue, freeview, freesat and Sky viewers were affected with the same as what I saw:
A couple of times, the broadcast switched to a recording of Antiques Roadshow!
As no other channel was showing that at the time, it couldn't have been an engineering switching break or anything.
I'm guessing the production team at The Mailbox, Birmingham pressed the wrong button to switch out Midlands Today and start playing a VT of Fiona Bruce presenting Antiques Roadshow!
I'm just wondering if this was a mistake, whether the mistake went out on all platforms or just certain ones?
Hope some others who saw this can let me know and what platform (analogue, freeview, freesat and Sky) they were watching it on.
Thanks.
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The thing that hasn't really be talked about and discussed on UK Free TV is the content of local TV programmes.
Will it be just local news or will there be other programmes like local history and geography?
Interviews with local celebrities and important local members of the community?
Any ideas?
And what hours will these local station broadcast from/to?
I doubt they will be 24 hours?
I wonder what they'll show the rest of the time?
Will they just shut down or will they carry Teleshopping like all other channels seem to do when they shut down?
It will be interesting to see which local TV stations I can receive when they start as I get very good signals from Winter Hill, The Wrekin and Sutton Coldfield.
I know these local station will be on a much lower power but you never know how strong or weak the signals come in where I live.
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That's a great idea, the only improvement I would make to it is if you could show the name of the transmitter beside the station name, frequency and power, especially when the same radio station operates on the same frequency but at different powers.
For example:
Absolute Radio 1215kHz at 1.2kW Absolute Radio 1215kHz at 320W Absolute Radio 1215kHz at 1.0kW etc. etc.
You can't tell which transmitter operates at each power level.
Hope you don't mind my little suggestion.
Thanks,
Stuart.
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Nottingham (Nottinghamshire, England) Full Freeview transmitter
Sunday 21 August 2011 11:46PM
Wrexham
Sunday 21 August 2011 11:46PM
Wrexham
Paul Curran: I think you will be receiving the transmitter in Waltham, not the Nottingham transmitter as that switched on 30th March and 13th April 2011.
It may be that as the signal has increased at Waltham from 10kW to 50kW then the new higher powered signal is too strong for your aerial and TV.
Brian who runs this website will probably advise you to remove any amplifiers from your aerial system if you have any.
If you don't, try fitting an aerial attenuator. This will help bring the signal down to a more usable level without overloading your system. They can be bought from Maplin and some DIY stores for about £5.
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Shouldn't it show 'Meridian' on your pages for the ITV region for Oxford? And not 'Thames Valley (Central South)'?
Likewise, shouldn't Sky's channel name for the ITV region for Oxford show 'Meridian' and not 'Central S'?
The fact that Meridian Tonight is the ITV news programme for the Oxford region (I watched Fred Dineage talk about the Oxford switchover last night!), then I would've thought that the channel name would show as Meridian or Meridian Oxford or Meridian Thames Valley?
Also, why is ITV1 +1 showing on your page as ITV Meridian Southampton?
Shouldn't both ITV1 and ITV1 +1 show as the same region as each other?
Does any name change take place after switchover to either ITV1 or ITV1 +1?
If not, why not?
Hope someone can explain to make things a bit clearer.
Thanks.
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Hi Brian, Thanks for changing the name.
It won't affect me but I'm sure it will make things easier for all those who do receive Oxford and its relays.
Hope you agree with me that it does make more sense and easier to understand for the name of the ITV1 region to match the name of the regional news programme.
Now if only Sky could do the same!
I also noticed flicking around the regions previously that Border and Tyne Tees seems to have merged also and Sky has the wrong name for one of those.
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I'm sure it used to say 28th September for the date of the power increase for ARQB. Unless I got the date wrong?
If it has changed, I guess 28th September must have been an unconfirmed date and was later confirmed with the new date of 21st September?
Does anyone know for sure?
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Wednesday 3 August 2011 1:50AM
Wrexham
I heard about that story, NottsUK.
But what I saw was in the middle of one news item, nothing to do with antiques, then it cut to Antiques Roadshow, then it cut back to that same news item before it cut.
And it did the same a little later on by Midlands Today being cut out to an unrelated VT then back to it.
I thought that Nick and Suzanne would know about the production mistake and apologise to their viewers but this was neither not realised nor mentioned.