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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.

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Saturday 2 February 2013 2:57PM

Neil: If you use a signal amplifier, maybe to distribute to signals to multiple rooms, its failure is likely to mean no signals coming out.

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Jazz FM
Saturday 2 February 2013 4:01PM

Ray: It isn't possible to receive it on Freeview because it isn't carried on Freeview.

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Jon: The Margate relay on the top of Invicta House is a Single Frequency Network with Dover's PSBs, although it is vertically polarised. Perhaps it is this which is driving your signal strength up too high.

If you are not able to receive COM channels from Dover then you might as well use Margate, although the COM channel allocations of Sudbury preclude combining it with Margate using a diplexer.

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Windermere (Cumbria, England) DAB transmitter
Saturday 2 February 2013 7:23PM

Ian Murray: As I said in my posting immediately above yours, Windermere DAB transmitter has been undergoing engineering works, according to reports.

Refer to "R+T Investigation" as there is a further update on 31st Jan "Reduced Quality from 15:29 on 31 Jan to 14:26 yesterday".

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Jonathan Snowden: There is a predication for "poor" of Caldbeck's PSB1 which also broadcasts on C25. Could this be the culprit?

Caldbeck is in exactly the opposite direction as Lancaster so you need an aerial with a good reflector (if it's a yagi).

The high-gain aerial should be a Group A one as wideband yagis drop off on Group A channels and hence have less directivity:

Gain (curves), Again

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Jonathan Snowden: If you have another aerial pointing at Kendal transmitter, so as to give you the 'right' BBC and ITV regions, and you have the feed combined with that of the one pointing at Lancaster, then use a diplexer rather than an unfiltered splitter in reverse.

The diplexer prevents the Kendal aerial providing any signal on Lancaster's channels and vice versa.

Clearly, if you have an unfiltered splitter to combine them, then this could perhaps be the source of difficulty picking up C25.

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Loft aerials | Installing
Sunday 3 February 2013 1:12PM

Chris Foley: The question is: is this a strength issue or is it a quality issue?

The fact that you could receive the lower power (weaker) signals prior to switchover and split them suggests that it won't be too low a strength. Therefore the only possibility is too high a signal level; knowledge of your location may allow that to be graded as a likelihood.

If it is a quality issue, then that starts at your aerial. Splitting the signal won't affect the quality.

What do you observe when looking at the signal strength screens? Some receivers give more away than others and really you need to find one that gives strength and quality as separate readings.

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Keith Tyler: The signal strength is perfectly healthy.

If this is a variable signal quality issue, then I would suggest that the most likely cause is traffic on the motorway which is crossing the signal path. Multiple lanes means more traffic at any given time which might increase the potential over a single carriageway.

Might traffic tie in with when you experience poor reception? How was it on Christmas Day when, presumably, there wouldn't have been many large vehicles (typically HGVs) about?

Clearly in situations where you have objects crossing the signal path then getting the aerial higher might stand you in better stead to see over them, or at least mitigate the degree to which they may degrade the signal. A bungalow is therefore not as best placed as a house in this respect.

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Keith Tyler: If you haven't already done so,c check that your receiver is tuned to Waltham for all channels and not Sutton Coldfield or Belmont, although if it were so for BBC One or ITV then you know about it because you would get West Midlands or Yorkshire/Lincs programming instead of East Midlands.

Bring up the signal strength screen on each of the following and see whether it is tuned to the UHF/RF channel of Waltham:

BBC One = C61 (Sutton Coldfield=C43, Belmont=C22)
ITV = C54 (Sutton Coldfield=C46, Belmont=C25)
BBC One HD = C58 (Sutton Coldfield=C40, Belmont=C28)
ITV3 = C29 (Sutton Coldfield=C42, Belmont=C30)
Pick TV=C56 (Sutton Coldfield=C45, Belmont=C53)
Film4 = C57 (Sutton Coldfield=C39, Belmont=C60)


For example, BBC One it should be tuned to C61 and not 43 or 22.

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