All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
John Archer: The reason for the "low" power of 87kW is because Pontop Pike uses C48 for one of its pre-switchover channels. It will vacate the channel on 12th September when the power of Emley will increase.
The Digital UK predictor thinks that Pontop's current signals are "good" for you, except for C48. So this is probably your problem.
As a temporary measure, until September, you could try tuning to C42 which is the same multiplex from Bilsdale or C53 which is likewise from Pontop.
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H. Gravett: Which transmitter is the aerial directed to?
Have you been able to receive Freeview on the main TV before last Wednesday?
Have you tried taking the two TVs to the main room and tuning them in?
Which channels have and have not been picked up? In particular, I ask the question in relation to BBC One, ITV1, ITV3, Pick TV and Yesterday.
Are there any channels numbered from 800 onwards?
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Maurice: A factory reset won't clear programmes that have been recorded on the hard drive; only a reformatting of the hard disk will do this.
From what you've found, it would appear that you will have to carry out a factory reset on 13th.
Your son should also carry out a factory reset and see what channels he can get.
It sounds like he does receive from Sandy Heath (south from his location). For Sandy Heath, aerials installed in the days of four-channel analogue "may" need to be replaced in order to receive the Commercial channels (ITV3, Pick TV, Yesterday, Film 4, Dave etc).
Even if his aerial is one that needs replacing, then he will probably have been able to receive ITV3 prior to 9th May. If he can get Pick TV and Yesterday now, then this suggests that his aerial will be OK and that a retune will probably restore ITV3 and other services on the SDN mux.
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H. Gravett: In answer to your question of why some receivers may pick up some channels and not others are:
- differing sensitivities of the tuners, particularly affected where signals are near borderline.
- differing leads from the point of distribution.
Do these channel totals include radio channels as well as TV ones?
I would be more concerned with whether you are receiving all channels that are being broadcast by the transmitter to which the aerial faces. You've said that they all use the same aerial, so where is it pointing? Is it to the Newhaven transmitter which is at 134 degrees with the aerial vertical? Or maybe it's Heathfield at 37 degrees with the aerial horizontal?
With any, you should certainly be receiving all BBC standard definition TV and radio channels as they are now on full power; i.e. they have "switched".
For a full list of post-switchover services, see here:
DMOL Post-DSO Multiplex Channel Allocations
You should have all those in the PSB1 (BBC) table where there is a bullet in the "E" (England) column.
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Tom Farrell: Perhaps see:
Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice
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johnmc: I've been unable to find a manual for this exact model. However, I wonder if you need to press the button that allows you to select different inputs (scart inputs, PC etc). It may be a circle with an arrow pointing in.
The analogue TV part may be (on the list that appears on the screen) "ATV" or something similar.
I suggest that you tune the Sky box to programme number 1 (formerly used for BBC One analogue).
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Tony Kendrick: I think that the most likely solution is to change your aerial to vertical.
Other people have posted on this site saying that they have changed their aerials and that it has rectified the problem.
That may be a costly exercise if you can't do it yourself.
"Maybe" some attenuation to reduce the level of signals might help. Whether it will work will depend on whether you can find a sweet spot where the higher power signals are reduced enough but the lower ones are reduced too much.
This is probably exacerbated by the fact that the powers that be decided to put the low power (50kW) horizontal signals on adjacent channels to the relatively high power (200kW) horizontal signals.
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david: See the message at the top of this page. Tacolneston TV is "liable to interruption" which suggests that engineering work is ongoing, so there is the possibility that what you're experiencing is caused by this.
The message is sourced from Digital UK which you can view by visiting www.digitaluk.co.uk/engineeringworks
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nc: You will have to change the channel on the new Goodmans receiver.
I wouldn't take the output from the boxes using RF signals. Only do this where scart is not an option or where you are feeding this to a TV in another room. Scart should give you better quality pictures that via the RF lead and it will also give you stereo sound rather than mono.
Because there are no analogue signals, there is no need to loop the aerial lead through the VCR/DVD. The aerial lead should go into the Goodmans and out to the TV.
If the design allows, then turn off the modulators in the Goodmans and DVD/VCR. The modulators are the parts that produce the RF signals (which you set to 60 and 57). On some devices, where the UHF channel is set, there is an option to set to "Off" or something similar.
I found the manual for the DVD/VCR here http://downloadcenter.sam….pdf
Page 16 shows that it has two Scart sockets. The bottom socket (AV1) needs connecting to the TV and the top socket (AV2) needs connecting to the Goodmans. To view the Goodmans, select press INPUT SEL. until it shows AV2. Because AV2 is all you will ever view, leave it on that input (if it will stay on that input). There is no tuning on the DVD/VCR necessary; the tuning (auto setup) on that box relates to tuning in the old analogue signals which are now no longer broadcast.
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Saturday 2 June 2012 4:49PM
johnmc: What's the model number of the Toshiba? I will see if I can find a user manual for it, in order to answer your question.