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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.

Whole house digital TV | Installing
Wednesday 23 January 2013 3:27PM

Mazbar: Thanks for that. It's a good point that the ATV site gives useful information, but that it might be worth looking around for parts once you know what you are looking for.

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Grfaham Tuggey: Because your TV is not tuned to Waltham.

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Upgrading from Sky to Freesat | Freesat
Friday 25 January 2013 10:31AM

Lesley: The point is that "Freeview" is the brand name of the terrestrial system. Removing the card would demonstrate to you which you would left with (I suspect this is what you're looking for).

In some areas (with some transmitters) a replacement aerial "may" be needed to receive all channels. In general, existing aerials will suffice.

You could try it with a Freeview receiver and see what you get. In many cases it will work fine.

Knowledge of your location, preferably in the form of postcode or that of a nearby address (such as a shop) would allow prediction of signals to be checked. This would give an idea whether your existing aerial may be expected to work.

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Michael: If you are using the Wenvoe transmitter the BBC channels did not change channel and so there is nothing different (they are the same).

For this reason, I wonder if your receiver has tuned BBC from another transmitter.

Bring up the signal strength screen and ensure that it is tuned to C41 (for Wenvoe).

Other possibilities may include Carmel on C60, Kilvey Hill on C23 or Preseli on C43.

You may be able to use the unplugging aerial trick during the part of the scan that the unwanted transmitter is received.

Wenvoe's lowest channel is 39 and its highest is 47. So if you find that it has tuned Kilvey Hill on C23 then you can avoid this (and other Kilvey Hill signals) by having the aerial unplugged for the first 30% of the scan or until it gets to the early 30 channel numbers, should it give channel numbers when scanning.

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Do I need to buy a booster? | Installing
Friday 25 January 2013 11:33AM

jeff cane: On the basis that you live high up I assume that you may well have line of sight to your transmitter. You may also have good signals from other transmitters. For this reason, the first thing I would do is check that your TV is tuned to the transmitter you are using for all its five standard definition and one HD channel.

It is the case that too high a signal strength can cause poor or no signal which is exactly the same as too little a signal.

You "may" be able to turn down the amplifier (assuming that it has such a control), or even remove it and replace with an unpowered splitter, and still get all channels. Before you do any of this though, check that you are tuned to the correct transmitter.

There are six signals known as multiplexes. Each carries a number of services and you just need to check one service from each.

The six muxes are:

PSB1 - BBC One
PSB2 - ITV1
PSB3 - BBC One HD
COM4 - ITV3
COM5 - Pick TV
COM6 - Film4

For each of these, go to them and bring up the signal strength screen. This screen usually gives the UHF channel that is tuned.

There appear to be several transmitters that might be available across the Dartmoor area.

Beacon Hill is one of those transmitters and its six channels are 60, 53, 57(HD), 42, 45, 51. These are in the same order as those above.

For example, bring up the signal strength screen on ITV3 and, if your aerial is directed to Beacon Hill, it should say channel 42.

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Martin Blamey: If you are using a communal aerial system then it might need adjustment due to the new channel coming into service, this being if it is filtered.

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A couple of questions to the professionals:

Is it necessary to have f-plugs with rubber 'o' rings for outdoor use?

What about applying silicone grease? There seems to be divided opinions over whether this is necessary or not. The SatCure website says to use it for all connections that are outdoors yet ATV says he's never met an installer who uses it.

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Feedback | Feedback
Friday 25 January 2013 5:40PM

sean baker: Not unless you had a Sky box that was dedicated to serving your bedroom (whether local or remote such as in your living room).

Sky and Freeview are separate systems.

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Mazbar: Thanks.

I should qualify that when I said "all connections that are outdoors" I was meaning enclosed in self-amalgamating tape or otherwise enclosed such as in an LNB or log aerial.

So copper oxidisation isn't really an issue?

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John Stevenson: You cannot receive Clyde 1 on DAB from the Rosneath transmitter because it doesn't broadcast from the Rosneath transmitter.

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