All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
steven crowhurst: You may be in with a good chance.
Local TV will only be available from Whitehawk Hill, and all aerials in your vicinity appear to be directed to it.
The transmission power of the local channel will be lower than the other channels. At 9.7 miles you would appear to have clear line-of-sight so you may be OK.
I don't know whether the transmitter is on air yet, although we have had reports of test broadcasts for local TV channels in other areas. Try a manual scan of UHF channel 54, which is that which will carry the new local multiplex.
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Dirk Gently: Perhaps it is an issue with a cable or connector.
The signal mode used for the three COM channel (54, 59 and 50) means they are less resiliant and therefore more fragile than the PSB channels, so this could perhaps explain why the COMs are apparently affected more.
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john: I don't understand. What else is there to connect to the scart socket anyway?
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Margaret: Which channels are you having difficulty with? Is it the COM ones as these have inferior coverage to the PSBs.
See here for a list which identifies whether it is on a PSB mux or a COM mux:
Digital UK Industry - Channel listings
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john: What functionality are you hoping to achieve?
The Freesat box should be connected to the TV with a HDMI lead. Thus the single scart socket on it can be used to feed into the DVD/VHS combi. If the DVD/VHS combi has two scart sockets then you can feed it out to the TV.
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Nick Burleigh: As this issue is limited to a particular locality then perhaps it is worth discounting the possibility that this could be due to a 4G mobile base station operating in the 800MHz band (which is what used to be the top part of the band for TV frequencies).
There are mobile phone base stations co-located with the Torquay Town transmitter and it is only a few hundred metres away, so any signals are likely to be very strong.
The organisation set-up by the mobile operators to tackle interference with terrestrial TV is at800. It generally notifies by postcard those who may be affected, although as it isn't an exact science this isn't always the case.
If you haven't had notification then I would give them a ring to see if there is a 800MHz 4G base station that has come on air and which coincides with the TV reception issue:
Contact at800 / DMSL | General Enquiries | at800
The solution is usually the installation of a filter, provided free-of-charge by at800. This needs to be fitted between aerial and TV or box, and before any amplifier (booster). Where a set-top aerial with an in-built booster is being used then this may have to be replaced with one that doesn't. It may turn out that using an aerial without a booster resolves the issue as, quite frankly, at such close proximity to the transmitter the signal isn't liable to be too weak and the only possible undesireable outcome of using a booster is that the signal breaks up due to being made too big!
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Michael Walker: The process of closing down the network of terrestrial transmitters can only happen after a consultation. Such a consultation has not been issued therefore there is no where to send comments on something which hasn't been put forward as a proposal yet!
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JACK: In specific response to your question: because different frequencies behave differently, and particularly so in situations such as yours where there is no line-of-sight to the transmitter and you have trees in the way. So, in actual fact the question you are asking is why does ITV come in OK?
The Digital UK predictor doesn't predict anything. The terrain plotter shows that the ground rises up around 100m within approximately three-quarters of a mile:
Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location
This is hardly a recipe for interruption-free viewing!
You only mention PSB channels BBC and ITV. As you have ITV, it follows you must have access to Channel 4, Channel 5 and their six other sister services.
But do you receive the Commercial (COM) channels, these being (10)ITV3, Pick(11) and (18)4Music?
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JACK: I have looked further at your situation. In your posting you said signals came from "cornwall" which I now understand to mean from Caradon Hill. Whilst it's not great it may be so, this plot showing that Brownhill is your only obstruction at about 80m above you:
Terrain between ( m a.g.l.) and (antenna m a.g.l.) - Optimising UK DTT Freeview and Radio aerial location
With this in mind I would confirm that for ITV you are tuned to UHF channel 25 (506MHz or 506.2MHz) and not UHF channel 49 (698MHz), this being the frequency of Plympton. This information is usually given on the signal strength screen.
If it turns out to be tuned to Plympton then run the automatic tuning scan and unplug at 30% or when the scan gets past UHF channel 30.
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Saturday 15 February 2014 12:25AM
Jane Cooper: I should add that just because the Hastings signals broadcast on the same frequencies a retune was required to watch them.