All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Mike Thomas: BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru are available on Freeview in Wales. The answer is surely to feed the audio (via the L+R phonos probably) out of a set-top box into a hifi or speakers.
The "basics" from Llandrindod Wells are the Public Service channels. If they had no Public Service obligation you would likely not have them. See here for an explanation:
Londonderry (Northern Ireland) digital TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice
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andy: The "full" set of Freeview channels comprises of those from the Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs) and those from the Commercial (COM) broadcasters. Whilst the PSBs have an obligation to provide a Public Service, the Commercial ones do not. As such, the latter stick the largest transmitting stations (largest by viewer population). See here for a further explanation:
Londonderry (Northern Ireland) digital TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice
In some parts where the Skipton transmitter is available, other full-service transmitters can be received, albeit that these are generally North West region rather than Yorkshire. The full-service transmitters that might be possible are Winter Hill and, near Lancashire, Pendle Forest (there may be others).
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Sue: You are only a few hundreds of metres from the Littleborough relay transmitter, which on the tower further up your road.
I would suggest that your TV may have decided to use the BBC signal from it rather than from Winter Hill. The signal strength screen usually gives an indication as to which UHF channel (equivalent to frequency) it is tuned to. Do this for BBC One. Littleborough broadcasts on C27 and Winter Hill is on C50.
Because Littleborough's channels are all low (low frequencies) and Winter Hill's are high ones, during the scan, have the aerial out for the first 50% of the scan. This should also miss out BBC Wales and ITV Wales from the Moel-y-Parc transmitter, which is what you were getting.
Try it and let me know how you get on. If there are any other issues I may be able to suggest something.
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Dennis: It appears to be the case that Sudbury's COM channels 58, 60 and 56 are not as good as the Public Service (PSB) ones. This is particularly on your side of the transmitter.
Refer to the Sudbury transmitter page on this site. "Nick" from Hollesley finds all the COM channels hit and miss with the PSBs being strong.
If the picture is lost, or is breaking up, I wouldn't retune as this will achieve nothing positive. You will only ever get the same result, or else loose the channel completely from your receiver. The receiver, having stored C58, will lock on to it if it is available, providing the best picture possible.
The thing with digital is that there is signal strength and signal quality. A receiver requires the strength to be above its minimum threshold in order to resolve a picture (providing it is of sufficient quality).
The question is: is your difficulty resulting from the strength dropping to below that needed for your receiver or is the strength still there but instead the quality is diminished?
Make a note of the strength at different times, i.e. when it's not working and when it does work, and see if there is a difference. Also, compare the strengths of C60 (Pick TV) and C56 (Film4).
Don't compare strengths between different receivers as the meters aren't worthy of comparison. Only compare different channels with the same receiver.
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Kevin: How are the two TVs fed? Is it from one aerial and a powered amplifier/splitter? Normally I would suggest that suggest that the first suspicion is that the amplifier may have failed. However, a 800MHz 4G test started that day, which I wonder if it might affect you:
at800 West London 4G tests
If you are using an amplifier, don't assume that just because the light is on that it is functioning as it should. The light being on only tells you that there is power to the device.
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andy: YouView is an on-demand system which incorporates a Freeview (terrestrial) receiver.
Freesat "free time" is an on-demand system with free-to-air satellite channels. All channels which are on Freeview PSB muxes (i.e. those you have available from the Skipton transmitter) are on Freesat.
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PaulN: I've Googled various terms and not been successful in finding information on RT transmitter engineering works.
www.rtenl.ie which is the network operator does not appear to give that information.
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Dennis: In addition to the caution that you may be unable to receive 56, 58 and 60 reliably at your location, it is worth pointing out that your aerial that was installed in the days of analogue may not be best suited to picking up 56, 58 and 60.
The four analogue channels were Group B (the middle of the band), of which 41 and 44 are in. However, the three COM channels are in the top third of the band, Group C/D. Thus the sensitivity of a Group B aerial on higher channels may not be sufficient.
If you are still using a Group B aerial and the issue is the signal level dropping (and not the quality being lost) then a signal amplifier may help, or of course so too may a replacement aerial. If it is quality that is being lost rather than strength then no amount of amplification will right that.
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Jackie: If you are receiving from Sandy Heath transmitter then if your aerial has not been replaced from the days of four-channel analogue you may need it replacing. The reason being that it is less sensitive on the higher frequencies that ITV3, Dave, Pick TV, Film4 and others use.
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Friday 3 May 2013 10:40PM
Alan Hibbert: C59 from Winter Hill is the highest channel and therefore found last during the scan. The answer is probably that the receiver finds channels from other transmitters before getting to Winter Hill's by the time which its tuning memory is full (for C59).
The answer is usually to have the aerial lead unplugged for part of the scan to prevent it from filling the memory with the ones you don't want, so as to leave room for those you do.
Have the aerial out until 50% and let us know if it does the trick.