All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Maria: BT Vision gives access to Freeview channels and on-demand content provided by a BT Broadband connection. Thus, a BT Vision box effectively contains a Freeview box.
The problems encountered by those in Suffolk and surrounding areas will be alieviated in June. Therefore, any change that is made to receive the missing channels (*if* such a change can be made), is only of benefit for the next six months.
My advice would be NOT to retune as it is not a tuning problem. Retuning simply causes you more trouble because then you have a TV that isn't tuned to the relevant frequency and therefore you won't know when the reception of the signal has improved.
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Maria: As I say, that any changes you make to receive these services will only be of benefit for the next 6 months because you will be (as sure as you can ever be) sure that it will work in 6 months time.
Freesat is a satellite service and therefore the signal comes from a satellite which serves the whole of the country.
If you have received these services previously, then perhaps it was the case that you were "only just" getting them (i.e. the signal was *just* strong enough). A slight change (maybe a tiny tiny change to the signal) means that you can't pick them up.
You say that you have three TVs and that they are all having issues picking up these channels. Are they all connected to the same aerial? If so, how is this connected?
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Maria: This definately is a try it and see thing. It is a case of making suggestions that might increase your chances, therefore there are no guarantees.
Remove the doubler from the downstairs TV so that the lead that feeds the upstairs TV is disconnected (and therefore so that the upstairs TV has no signal).
Now see if that improves things.
Downstairs (I guess in the lounge), what equipment do you have? For example, do you have a recorder with built-in Freeview (e.g. DVD recorder, hard drive recorder). What about the TV, does it have Freeview built in?
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Maria: Firstly, the doubler you have splits the signal in two. Therefore, each output is not a strong a signal as at the input. In many many circumstances this is perfectly fine and will not affect reception because the incoming signal (from the aerial) is strong enough anyway. Clearly the other channels are fine and quite happy being split like that.
The reason I asked you about what else you have is because had you got a TV that does not have Freeview built in (i.e. it is an analogue only TV), then there is no point in feeding the aerial into it (as it doesn't "read" the signal) and therefore you might as well do away with the splitter and feed the upstairs TV directly from what was put into the TV. As you have a Freeview TV, that might not be an option.
If the video recorder does not have Freeview built in (i.e. it is analogue only) then again, there is no benefit in having it connected to the aerial. So remove the video from your aerial by removing the aerial into it and putting it into whatever the output feeds into. Same goes for the DVD player if it has only an analogue tuner in it but no digital (Freeview) one.
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kc: I can think of two possibilities (both may apply):
1. Your receiver has tuned to the signal from The Wrekin transmitter even though your aerial faces Sutton Coldfield. The simplest and most generic solution I can advance for that is to run the auto-tune search with the aerial unplugged and then when it gets to 25% plug in the aerial. That way the aerial will be unplugged when it is scanning the frequencies used by The Wrekin and plugged in for Sutton Coldfield frequencies.
2. Your signal strength is too high. See this page for more information and how it might be rectified:
Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice
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Bob Buckle: There are different uses for the word "channel".
Broadcast channels 21 to 37 are another way of denoting broadcast frequencies. These frequencies are known as "Ultra High Frequencies" which is often shortened to "UHF", hence these could be referred to as "UHF channels".
"Channel 1", as in pressing number 1 on your remote and getting BBC1 is not the same thing. In Freeview terms it is often referred to as LCN 1, meaning "logical channel number 1", so as to distinguish from UHF channels.
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Steve: In general, indoor aerials are no substitute for outdoor ones. This is because the signal is worse inside than outside.
I presume that poor reception you refer to is that of the main transmitter, Sutton Coldfield. If that is the case, then you will be pushing your luck to receive it using an indoor aerial.
However, the Redditch relay transmitter might work. It doesn't carry all the commercial channels, but it will nonetheless give you BBC services, ITV1, ITV2, C4, E4, C5 and a few others.
The reason for this transmitter is because of the topography of your area which can't 'see' Sutton Coldfield very well.
You might need to retune your TV to receive from it if it is tuned to Sutton Coldfield.
It is a very low power relay and it is situated alongside Brockhill Drive, near to the pedestrian over-pass. If you are to get it working (if it is possible), you might need to site your aerial at that side of the house, ideally with as few a walls as possible in the way.
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SARA: Is it a communal aerial system that you're using? If so, ask your neighbours in the building if they are having issues.
What's your analogue reception like?
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Steve: For a set-top aerial, I would only have a directional polarised aerial. I wouldn't go in for these amplified models.
A quick look on Amazon:
Philex 27766R Kobra High Gain TV Set Top Aerial: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
Antiference, Set top TV aerial: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home
If you are going to use it on Redditch transmitter, then the aerial needs to be vertically polarised or for Sutton Coldfield it should be horizontally polarised.
See this picture:
http://www.leekes.co.uk/c….jpg
The main photo shows horizontal and the inset image shows it vertically polarised. Both those models I linked to on Amazon can set for each polarisation.
Another thing to be aware of is that when doing auto-tuning your receiver might choose to go with the wrong transmitter. For example, if you have a roof-top aerial horizontally polarised pointing at Sutton Coldfield, and you tune your receiver using it, the receiver may choose to use the signal from the Redditch relay. Remember that Redditch doesn't broadcast the commercial multiplexes, hence those that are stored will always be the ones from SC.
The simplest method to avoid this is when tuning to SC is to run the auto-tune scan with the aerial unplugged and then plug it in when it gets to 25%. This will have the aerial unplugged whilst it's scanning the frequencies used by Redditch, but plugged in when scanning SC's frequencies.
As Redditch carries only two standard-definiation multiplexes, manual tuning is probably the most straight-forward. It needs tuning to Ch25 (for BBC) and Ch22 (for ITV1/C4/C5 and others). If you do want to auto-tune it, then have the aerial plugged in up until 25% and then leave it unplugged until the scan is completed. If it's a set-top aerial you're using to do this, then I'd doubt that this will be necessary as the SC signals will probably be so weak. If it's the roof-top aerial, then that's a different matter.
The possible problem you have is that in order to tune you need the aerial sited where it can pick up the signal and in order to site the aerial you need to have already tuned the receiver. To start off with, you could put the set-top aerial somewhere where you think that you might have the best chance of reception (clearest view of the transmitter), even if that's not where you intend to use it. The key thing is that having tuned it in, don't re-scan because it is the aerial that needs moving and not the tuning that needs altering.
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Saturday 17 December 2011 5:24PM
Claire: Go through the menu to manual tuning and tune to Ch62 which carries ITV3, QVC and others.
Having done that, go through the manual tune option again and tune to Ch55 which carries Yesterday, Film4 and others.