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All posts by Dave Lindsay

Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

Drama
Sunday 7 June 2015 3:09PM

David Mitchell: If your aerial is directed to the Tiverton transmitter then this does not broadcast Drama and other COM-multiplex channels. Thus the question may be one of can you receive reliably from a full-service transmitter? Knowledge of your location, preferably in the form of postcode, is the only way we can suggest whether this might be a possibility.

Drama and other UKTV channels aren't likely to become available on Freesat because they are on Sky's subscription platform and therefore would likely loose out on revenue from Sky as well as having to pay to be on Freesat.

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keith Blackham: Silly question: Why are you using (or trying to use) Ridge Hill rather than Bromsgrove?

At just under 1 mile away, you would appear to have clear line-of-sight to Bromsgrove:


Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location


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keith Blackham: The Digital UK Coverage Checker suggests otherwise. Ridge Hill is variable/poor whereas Bromsgrove is all good. This prediction should be used as a guide and not an exact representation of what you will find in practice.

I can't quite work out why Digital UK rates your chances of Ridge Hill so poorly. The terrain plot is here:


Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location


At 32.4 miles you would appear to have clear line-of-sight, albeit with the question of a peak at 21 miles out which may be in the way and corresponds to somewhere around Storridge.

All that said, looking on Streetview, the vast majority of aerials are facing Bromsgrove, them being vertically polarised. And if you're tuned to UHF channel 26 for BBC One then you're tuned to Bromsgrove! If your aerial is horizontal and pointing slightly off-beam, which it must be, then this would explain the poor reception.

You need to do a manual scan for Ridge Hill channels: 28, 25, 21, 24, 27. Go to the manual tune screen and enter/select each channel in turn, but don't press the button to scan/add services. Instead, for each one, wait and see what the strength and quality is like and whether it's pretty stable.

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jb38: Bromsgrove, The Wrekin and Lark Stone are SFNs, so might they not complement one another rather than interfere?

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5USA
Monday 8 June 2015 1:34PM

Ralph harvey: Logical channel number 21 was VIVA, this having moved to 74. 5USA was on 31, so if you still have VIVA on 21 then you can't have done a retune to reorganise the channels as per the new numbering and 5USA may therefore be still on 31.

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Connecting it all up | Installing
Monday 8 June 2015 1:36PM

Miss P. Davies: Where are you? In some locations only PSB channels can be received, these being BBC TV and radio, ITV/STV/UTV (and +1), Channel 4, Channel 4+1, More4, ITV2, Channel 5 and a few others.

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Full technical details of Freeview
Tuesday 9 June 2015 11:24AM

M. Roberts: So you are missing ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV2, Channel 4+1 and a few others then?

Your location is imperative as this relates to a reception issue. Judging by your previous postings you are in Llay. Is this correct?

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Full technical details of Freeview
Tuesday 9 June 2015 8:02PM

Andy: A wind turbine, maybe? (Although the aerial installer would surely have seen it!)

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Vivien Barker: While Digital UK doesn't say there are engineering works at Huntshaw Cross, Radio & TV Information Service (which only covers the BBC) reports weak signal for a period yesterday afternoon, so they could be doing something.

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michael: Ah, yes.

COM4 and COM5 are co-channel with multiplexes from Redruth and Mendip. COM6 is co-channel with a multiplex from Mendip.

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