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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.


Yvonne: As you probably know, Whitby is now poorly served by terrestrial television following the debacle in which the transmitter was resited to the back of beyond in 2007.

The Whitby relay transmitter will start broadcasting Freeview in September, but it will carry only Public Service channels. These are BBC, ITV1, ITV1+1, ITV2, Channel 4, E4, More 4, Channel 5 and the four HD services.

There will be no Dave, Film 4, ITV3, ITV4 etc. Only main stations such as Bilsdale carry these.

Is there a TV aerial and is it just satellite dishes that aren't allowed?

Where abouts is she thinking of moving?

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Brian Richardson: Confirm that Mux 1 is coming in on C52 by bringing up the signal strength screen.

If it is, then perhaps the post-switchover signal being fed into your receiver is too strong and overloading it:

Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice

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A D Woods: This one and the other Commercial multiplexes are on low power until 27th of this month when a retune will be required.

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david: This happens with some transmitters at switchover, where one of the analogue services takes the place of BBC Two analogue so as to throw another free.

C56 is not used at all by Dover after switchover as it is to be used by Sudbury for one of its Commercial multiplexes. These are on temporary channels at very low power which has caused many complaints from people who now can't receive them.

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P Kendrick: No because the Commercial broadcasters (those that don't transmit from Preston) don't wish to invest in almost 1,100 similar small stations.

They cover 90% of the population from 81 of the largest transmitters (by viewer population). To include the rest in their portfolio would roughly double their cost of transmission whilst only adding about 8.5% to their potential viewer-base.

They operate on a profit making basis only and have no "Public Service" obligation.

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An Irate Freeview viewer: See the report above from A D Woods citing the same problem over the last day or so.

Whilst there is never a guarantee, you will be expected to get these channels back once the power goes up on 27th.

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Film 4
Sunday 10 June 2012 7:04PM

Richard: You're the third person to my knowledge that has reported an issue over the last few days about ArqB from Sudbury. This suggests that some (perhaps slight) change has been made at the transmitter.

This multiplex and the other Commercial ones have been running on very low power since last year. This one in particular has been difficult to receive for many people, although these have tended to be around the east and south of the transmitter (judging by reports on here).

There will be a retune on 27th of this month when these multiplexes will finally go on full power.

The manual tuning is asking for a UHF channel number, these being from 21 to 69. These are equivalent to the frequency on which the services are carried. Film 4 is on "logical channel number" 15 which is the number you key in to view it.

It the moment these services are on UHF channel 63. These are all one signal, known as a multiplex. Hence if you can pick it up, when you manually tune to C63, it would add all that this multiplex carries.

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Timmy K: It depends which transmitter is being received from. The Haywards Heath relay transmitter isn't likely to ever carry these channels because the broadcasters in question (the Commercial broadcasters) don't wish to pay for the 1,000 or so small transmitters to carry their services, probably owing to the fact that it will roughly double their cost of transmission whilst only adding 8.5% of the population to their potential viewer-base. The current 81 transmitters achieve 90% coverage. They operate on a profit-making basis and have no Public Service obligation, unlike BBC, ITV, C4 and C5. For a more in depth explanation, see Will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice

For those homes that can receive from a station that broadcasts the Commercial channels, then they will be able to watch them, subject to them having an appropriate aerial.

As a test post code, I used that of the Haywards Heath Post Office, RH16 3XX, and put it into the Digital UK Tradeview predictor: Postcode Checker - Trade View

This suggests that full-service reception may be possible from Heathfield. (RH16 3XX)

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Anch: Wait until this Wednesday and ITV and other channels should become available. Only the BBC channels go to full power (and therefore become available to some for the first time) at the first stage of switchover. At the second and final stage, the rest go to full power (and become available for the first time for some).

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