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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.


Steve Shaw: See here for confirmation:

http://www.aerialsandtv.c…3174

I doubt you will be able to receive the forthcoming "local" TV station for Sheffield. Click the word "Sheffield" in the previous sentence to go to the page for the transmitter. The radiation patterns have been overlayed on that page (below the map) and the local one is quite clearly directional a little clockwise of east. For this reason I suggest you aren't likely to be able to pick it up.

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Bob: Because the ITV HD broadcast from Tyne Tees transmitters is Granada. This is because there are only a handful of ITV HD regions and so each ITV region doesn't have its own HD counterpart.

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Bob: I explained the reasoning behind this only the other day:

On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five more HD channels | High definition | ukfree.tv - 11 years of independent, free digital TV advice

Basically the only reason that ITV HD is divided into regions - albeit larger than those for standard definition - is for the benefit of the broadcaster. It allows different adverts to be shown to different parts of the country, just as Channel 4 and Channel 5 do.

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Douglas (IoM) Freeview Light transmitter
Friday 3 January 2014 8:18PM

gareth: The scaffolding could certainly affect reception, particularly the vertical poles, this being because the signals from Douglas are vertically polarised.

Unusually, the power of the Douglas transmitter increased considerably at switchover in 2009. This could have meant some aerial systems providing signals that are too strong. If the system has an amplifier then maybe it needs turning down or removing.

Samsungs are less tolerable of a OTT signal level than others. Also, where a signal of too high a level is being received the effect as far as may appear to the viewer is much the same as too little a signal, that is the signal level and quality jumping up and down or even worse little or no signal.

The other thing is that I'm not sure of the position regarding 4G services in the Isle of Man. In the UK the networks are building their networks using the 800MHz frequencies (C61 to C68). The channel you're having difficulty with is closest to this.

You might know more, but a quick glance suggests that 4G might still be a few months away.

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Silvio: Where abouts are you? Are you using a communal aerial system?

C33 is on lower power than the rest, so some Crystal Palace users won't be able to pick it up reliably. The power in itself is in no way "low", it being 36.3kW.

When manually scanning, set it to DVB-T2 rather than DVB-T, if there is such an option.

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Untitled
Saturday 4 January 2014 3:07PM

norman staff: If there is such a setting, change from 14-day EPG to 7-day EPG. The reason being that with the ceasation of Top Up TV came its 14-day EPG service. The 7-day one is that provided by Freeview.

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Craigkelly (Fife, Scotland) transmitter
Saturday 4 January 2014 4:30PM

TTD: If it is putting STV on logical channel number (LCN) 1 (rather than BBC One) then it must be noted that PSB2 is found first during the scan PSB2 being the multiplex which carries STV, STV+1, Channel 4 etc. So in such circumstances it would appear to be neglecting to assign the services their native LCNs under the Freeview system.

This makes me wonder whether the country setting isn't right as I've experienced the same thing when it's not been set correctly.

With the Freeview system each transmitter (or group of transmitters) is the "region". So selection of "region" is actually selection of transmitter. If the country setting is wrong then maybe it doesn't recognise the "region" identifiers that are being broadcast, thus the only option it can offer is one of signal quality.

I therefore think that the solution isn't necessarily one of looking to sort by region as opposed to sort by signal quality, although it is the case that irrespective of method used, the final solution is one where the "main" channels (i.e. those in proper LCNs and not those in the 800s) are those of Craigkelly.

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Full technical details of Freeview
Saturday 4 January 2014 6:12PM

Mark Farmiloe: I think you need to look closer to home some sort of electrical interference. Even if the base station is 4G at 800MHz then it's quite a way away, plus your aerial is horizontal and its signals are vertically polarised.

If it starts and stops at the same time then that is likely to be some timed device. An AM radio (LW preferably) powered from batteries might be useful in tracking it down.

Speak to neighbours and see if they have difficulties too, although be aware that they could be using a satellite service (Sky or Freesat).

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Full technical details of Freeview
Saturday 4 January 2014 7:49PM

Val Grimshaw: No. What you do need though is a TV or box with a Freeview HD (DVB-T2) tuner in. Standard definition signals use DVB-T.

Some older HD TVs were "HD Ready" (and some current ones may be - not sure about that) which meant that they could show HD pictures but didn't have the means to receive the signals.

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