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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.

Diagnostics - old version
Thursday 19 April 2012 2:29PM

Rosie Neville: What's the make and model of your set? Some won't work after switchover (assuming that you're in the London area which switched yesterday).

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Bob: Freesat will work with a dish installed previously for a Sky service.

If you wish get a satellite recorder, you will probably need two leads from the dish and dual LNB (the bit on the dish that the cable connects to). This is because in order to watch one channel and record another, there needs to be a single cable for each channel being received.

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Gary Faulkner: All HD services are carried on the same signal as part of the same multiplex, therefore the same strength and quality will be given for BBC One, BBC HD, ITV1 HD and Channel 4 HD from the same transmitter and the same time.

Therefore, check that the UHF channel that they are all tuned to is C30.

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Thursday 19 April 2012 4:19PM

Clive: I concur that your aerial would appear to be on Tunbridge Wells. With a month and half to go before switchover completes there is probably little point in spending money making changes to your aerial system.

However, I will say that Tunbridge Wells is traditionally a Group B transmitter. That means that the channels used for analogue (including analogue Channel 5) are in Group B which is the middle third of the band.

Consequently, aerials that are fitted, particularly older ones, will be Group B ones, them being much more sensitive over the middle third of the band and dorpping off above and below Group B channels.

The services that you're not picking up are on C61 which is the highest channel and well out of Group B.

As an example, see the trace here: Gain (curves), Again

Here, the yellow "C10B" gain curve drops off to nothing by C61. I stress that this is simply an example to illustrate a point. Your aerial may not be exactly as that shown but TV aerial (yagi types) have much the same sort of gain curve.

Try manually tuning to C61 if your receiver allows. It may give a signal strength reading when you do this and may say that there is a signal but that it's too low for your receiver to use.

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Margaret Philips: C42 is coming from Hannington (Hampshire) which is why you have poor reception.

As your aerial is directed at Crystal Palace, run the automatic tuning scan and unplug the aerial when it gets to 30%. All of Crystal Palace's channels are within the first 30% and Hannington's are after 30%.

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Thursday 19 April 2012 5:27PM

Clive: The problem should hopefully be rectified at the second stage of switchover on 13th June.

If it is too weak a signal, then the transmission will be stronger.

If the issue is that your aerial is Group B, then all services after switchover will be within that group, and so it won't be a problem after switchover.

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Richard: See "After switchover configuration" on this page: Freeview multiplexes | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice

Quest is carried on the COM4/"SDN" multiplex.

If the sets have a manual tune option, try manually tuning to C25 for SDN.

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Peter Danckwerts: See here for the specification:

27-inch D5000 Series 5 Full HD 1080p LED TV | UE27D5000NW - Samsung UK - TECH SPECS

Under "System" it says "DTV Reception DVB-T / C", so no, it doesn't have the ability to receive Freeview HD signals over the air as they use DVB-T2.

It is "Full HD" which means that it will show HD pictures in the resolution 1080p. Despite how this "may" be interpreted by some, it does not give any qualification to the Freeview part of TV being able to decode HD signals.

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Thursday 19 April 2012 5:54PM

Clive: I'm happy to help; it's not trouble.

I found the manual here:

http://www.sony.co.uk/pro…nual

Page 12 of the manual (page 14 of the PDF file) describes the manual tuning procedure.

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Thursday 19 April 2012 5:59PM

Clive: If you've already tried this, then perhaps the signal on C61 isn't good enough, for whatever reason.

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