All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
James: Can you not receive from Kilvey Hill which would give you the full complement of Freeview channels?
Digital UK suggests excellent reception, although there is a ridge of higher-ground in the way about 2.5 miles from you.
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Nigel Newton: Your TV is obviously tuning to BBC (at least) from another transmitter. You may be able to prevent it from doing this by having the aerial unplugged for part of the scan, if the wanted and unwanted signals are in different parts of the band.
Which are you picking up and which should you be picking up?
Bring up the signal strength screen on BBC One and find out the UHF/RF channel number (or frequency in MHZ).
Tell us where you are and which transmitter you should be using.
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John Robinson: The Public Service Broadcasters being those you identify plus Channel 5 have maintained their transmitters; they have not reduced them.
With digital transmissions, multiple services can be carried on a single channel where only one was possible with the former analogue.
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Niall Rooney: Where abouts in Belfast are you?
RT channels are broadcast from Black Mountain whereas the main Freeview channels are broadcast from Divis. How close the bearings are depends on your location. You find that turning your aerial a little towards Black Mountain helps - that is so it's pointed somewhere in between the two.
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Niall Rooney: How was your Channel 5 analogue signal? It was also broadcast from Black Mountain rather than Divis.
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Frank: Yes, the feeds are identical so you can operate a second box and/or run another cable from a vacant port on your LNB.
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Frank: No because they are all the same.
Shotgun cable is simply two cables moulded together. It would have worked just the same had two separate cables been used.
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John Robinson: In addition to the BBC, the only commercial services that *must* go on the PSB2 mux are Channel 3 (ITV/STV/UTV), Channel 4 and Channel 5.
The licencees of these services are under no obligation to provide any other services.
What you are saying is that, not only should these licencees be under an obligation to provide services that they don't have to now, but that they should be forced to provide more so as to necessitate use of another multiplex.
Not sure where they would stand legally, but two things strike me:
1. These broadcasters would be under an obligation to provide far more services than they are obligated to do so now.
2. There will be less room for other broadcasters, and thus the Public Service ones will have greater power.
If anything, the Commercial (COM) mux licencees should have been compelled to provide greater coverage. The buck stops with lawmakers for not ensuring that this was the case, before licences were applied for.
There are only two '+1' services on the PSB muxes: ITV+1 and Channel 4+1. If ITV+1 were to be moved to one of the Commercial multiplexes, then this would increase costs because there would need to be different macro-ITV-region variants of that mux. At the present time there is a single UK-wide variant of COM5 and COM6. COM4 has two variants: Wales and not Wales, this being because E4 is displaced from PSB2 by S4C.
The four-channel transmitter network was a wonderful system. The same gorup of four channels were allocated to different transmitters. All transmitters used channels within a single aerial Group.
In the majority of cases post-DSO three out of the four analogue channels are used for PSB muxes with the COMs fitting in wherever. I think that it's safe to say that, even if they wanted, the forth channel won't still be available at many relays. This is because the COM networks have been allocated spare channels, 61 to 68 will soon be cleared for 4G and 31 to 34 are ringfenced.
So useable Group A is 4 channels smaller: used channels 21 to 30, albeit that 30 is used only a handful of times. And C/D has lost 8 channels.
Someone has to pay for the equipment upkeep and maintenance costs which is why the Commercial broadcasters are nowhere to be seen at many small relay stations.
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Tuesday 29 January 2013 6:03PM
Bryan: Generally speaking, the main transmitters are horizontally polarised and the relays are vertically polarised. Thus the vast majority of aerials are horizontally polarised.
See here for ideas for an aerial:
TV Aerials for Boats and Caravans
The Digital UK Postcode Checker can give you an idea:
Digital UK - Postcode checker