All posts by StevensOnln1
Below are all of StevensOnln1's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
David Mirylees: You may have too much signal, which can cause the tuner to become overloaded and appear to have the same symptoms of having no signal. According to Freeview's detailed coverage checker, your postcode is predicted to receive both Stockland Hill and Rowridge, which both use UHF channels 25/22/28 for COM4/5/6 so depending on how well your aerial is picking up Rowridge off the back (the two transmitters are in almost opposite directions from you) it could be causing interference. I would try fitting an attenuator to lower the signal strength a little to see if that overcomes the issue first, otherwise you may need to look at whether you can reposition the aerial so that there is something behind it to block out the unwanted signals from Rowridge.
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Dan T: COM7 is still broadcasting from 25 transmitters (it was originally broadcast from 30 but 5 closed during 700MHz clearance) and no closure date has been announced, although COM7's licence is currently set to expire on 30th June 2022. The recent weather conditions may have had some impact, although if a new or upgraded 5G mast has been switched on near you that could be causing interference, as the frequencies either side COM7 are now beginning to be used by the mobile networks following the completion on the 700MHz auction earlier this year.
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Chris.SE: Cellmapper (see link below) generates a crowd sourced map of mobile base stations (the individual networks each publish their own coverage maps but don't show details such as the frequency bands in use at each site) so whilst there is no guarantee as to the accuracy of the data, for areas which have been well mapped it is possible to get a fairly good idea of where the 4G/5G base stations are and which frequency bands are in use (band 20/800MHz and band 28/700MHz are the ones to look out for when looking for possible sources of interference which may impact Freeview reception).
Cellular Tower and Signal Map
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Chris.SE: The red dots on Cellmapper show sites where the location has been calculated automatically, which can sometimes be very inaccurate if there is little mapping data for that particular cell site. The yellow dots are sites which have been located by users (any registered user can move cell sites so some locations may be guesses if the actual location cannot be located visually). Clicking on each dot will show the mapped coverage for each cell sector (most sites are configured with antennas pointing in 2, 3 or sometimes 4 different directions to provide coverage in all directions).
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Richard Owen: The spectrum is licenced to the mobile networks (they've paid large amounts of money at auction so haven't nicked anything) and the small amount that is currently used for 2G and 3G services will be reused for 4G and 5G. The 900MHz and 1800MHz bands used for 2G are above the highest frequencies ever used for Freeview (most of the capacity in the bands has already been reallocated to 3G or 4G) and are therefore outside of the frequency range that TV aerials and TVs/boxes are designed to receive. The 2100MHz band originally used for 3G is already being mostly reused for 4G and even 5G in some areas).
BBC 3 will be broadcast in HD on Freeview in England, but not Wales or Scotland where the soon to the launced S4C HD and BBC Scotland HD respectively (I'm not sure about Northern Ireland) in a timeshare with CBBC HD which will revert to closing at 7pm each evening. Channel 5 HD took BBC 3 HD's former channel number (LCN) but did not use the same broadcast capacity so will not prevent BBC 3 HD returning on Freeview. BBC 3 HD's LCN has not yet been announced although my guess is that it will be on 109 as that is the lowest unused number in the HD section of the EPG (unless BBC 4 HD, BBC News HD or BBC Scotland HD move to another number).
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Andy Falls: We can't offer much help as you haven't told us where you are (a full postcode would help) or which transmitter you are receiving. All I can offer is general advice such as checking for any loose cables or connections behind your TV or box, look up at your aerial if it is visible to check that it is still pointing the right way and hasn't moved or fallen down in the recent bad weather.
Whatever you do, DO NOT RETUNE as that will wipe out your list of correctly tuned channels and make it much more difficult to see when the signal has returned.
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Mr Castle: I think you may be reading something incorrectly as the information near the top of this page clearly shows that the PSB3 HD multiplex which carries TBN is broadcast at 200W from Kings Weston, perhaps you getting mixed up with COM7 which carries a number of additional HD channels but is not broadcast from Kings Weston. I can't see any recent faults being reported for the Kings Weston transmitter and planned engineering work would not be taking place over the Christmas period.
Have you checked for any loose or damaged cables or connections behind your TV or box? If you provide a full postcode we can check what the predicted signal strength is at your location. Whatever you do don't retune as that will wipe your list of correctly tuned channels making it much more difficult to tell when the problem has been resolved.
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Karl: The aerial Chris has linked to is a wideband yagi type designed for use on caravans and motorhomes etc. It will probably work ok in areas with a strong signal but I wouldn't expect it to be much good if you are a long way from the transmitter.
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Wednesday 22 December 2021 2:22PM
David: The bouncing icon is a pin showing the location of the transmitter on the map. There are no faults currently reported for Belmont, although there is a warning of possible effect on transmission from a couple of weeks ago, so there may still be work ongoing which could require the transmitter's signal strength to be reduced or switched off for periods of time to allow the work to take place safely.