All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Jasper Llama: The power of the commercial channels from Oxford will increase on 18th April.
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Eric Lacey: That is correct, King's Lynn transmitter at Sandringham now broadcasts BBC, ITV1, ITV2, C4, C5, E4, More4, HD and a few others.
Before switchover it, Burnham and Wells-next-the-Sea only carried BBC One and Anglia TV. The purpose was to provide the correct regional programming for an area served adequately by Belmont. That is, viewers would have one aerial on Belmont for watching BBC Two and Channel 4 and one on King's Lynn for BBC One East and ITV1 Anglia.
Due to the fact that King's Lynn is a Public Service Broadcaster transmitter only, viewers may wish to continue using either only Belmont or both King's Lynn and Belmont in order to receive the full range of Freeview channels.
Unfortunately, due to frequency planning of the commercial channels from Belmont (and Waltham), it is not a simple case of diplexing (combining) the two aerials.
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Russell Plumb: You haven't disclosed your location on this forum, although your Twitter account identifies you as being in Essex. You wouldn't be using Sudbury by any chance, would you? Arqiva B multiplex (which carries the services you have identified) is on low power until 27th June.
It is also on channel 63 until then, so make sure that the RF out channel is not anywhere near there if you are on Sudbury. If there is an option to turn it off, then do so.
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Gary (and others): According to the Digital UK Tradeview predictor there are no more retunes for Hannington. As KMJ,Derby says, C44 (Arq A which includes Pick TV), should increase in power on 4th April which means that you should manually tune to it on that date.
Then on 18th April, manually tune to C41 and C47. There should hopefully be no need to do a full retune (risking picking up another transmitter); just simply add the multiplexes that come available to you.
The only other thing I would say is that the high signal level for the Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) multiplexes (which includes BBC, ITV1, C4, C5, HD) being higher could be desensitising your receiver to the lower power ones. Whilst in-built signal strength meters might not all read the same value, 100% does seem very high. If you have a signal booster remove it, or try reducing its level of amplification (if it allows) and see if the strength of the two commercial multiplexes you do get increases (by checking ITV3 and Pick TV). Having adjusted, try manually tuning to to C47 if Yesterday/Film4 aren't on your list, else go to one of those channels and see if they are back.
Your other possibility (particularly if you don't have any amplification) is to get a variable attenuator and see if you can reduce the level of the signals going into your receiver. Your aim would be to strike a balance. You will be reducing the level of all the signals (strong and weak). See if you can lower the strong ones enough such that the receiver becomes more sensitive to the weaker ones, but not weaken the weaker ones such that they become too weak! Be aware that it may be an impossibility; there may be no balance to be struck where you are.
I would select the channel that is 37% strength and then adjust the attenuator, seeing where it goes up to its highest value. The receiver will take some seconds to respond to any change in signal level, so do it a bit at a time and wait for it to settle. Having got the highest value you can, check the other channels, in particular, see if the missing Arq B (Yesterday/Film4 etc) is back. You could always adjust the attenuator whilst viewing the strength of Arq B to get it at its strongest.
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peter whiting: In general in the UK, main (large area) transmitters are horizontally polarised and relays are vertical, but there are exceptions.
On the basis of the prediction at your location by Digital UK Tradeview (click the link next to your posting), you are likely to be getting your TV from Rowridge.
Rowridge is the only main station in the UK to have a vertical element and this will be introduced at switchover for the Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) services and on 18th April for the commercial (COM) services.
Rowridge is presently horizontally polarised only. The strength (power) of the PSBs will match the coverage of the current analogue both horizontally and vertically. The vertical components of the PSB signals will be introduced at their respective switchover dates. They are 7th March for BBC A (which carries all BBC standard definition TV and radio) and 21st March for D3&4 (which carries ITV1, C4, C5 and some others) and BBC B (which carries all HD services including those of ITV and C4).
The COMs will remain on low power 18th April on which date they will move to their final switchover channels and the vertical elements will be introduced.
The power of the PSBs will be 200kW horizontally and vertically, but the power of the COMs will be 50kW horizontally and 200kW vertically. Thus, those living further away from the transmitter might find that switching their aerials from horizontal to vertical will improve reception of the COMs.
The idea is that in order to receive PSBs no changes need be made to aerials. In some circumstances, changes need be made, but this will only affect reception of the COMs.
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Perhaps HD will come later.
Sometimes there are licensing issues with programmes broadcast on certain platforms. Could it be that RT will not be able to broadcast certain content (e.g. particular films) north of the border due to licensing issues and that this will mean that if it supplied it in HD, it would have to be a different HD feed to that in Ireland so as to allow opt outs?
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cal wale: For HD services from Tacolneston you need to tune to channel 62.
The link to the page I referred to above is here:
Freeview signals: too much of a good thing is bad for you | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice
A crude way of attenuating (reducing signal level) that might work (as a test) is to either hold the aerial plug close but not quite in or remove the outer screen of the plug where it is a non-moulded type, placing only the centre pin in the socket. This might help demonstrate if it is too high a signal level.
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Friday 24 February 2012 1:34PM
Sue A: There is no reason that aerials won't generally receive HD services when they will receive other (standard definition) ones. All transmitters that carry Freeview broadcast the HD services as these are "Public Service Broadcasters".
The situation after switchover is that BBC4 is transmitted on the same multiplex (i.e. the same group or basket of services, all on one frequency) as other BBC standard definition services (including BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three). So if you get BBC One from Hannington, it follows that BBC Four should also be in your list of programme channels.
Prior to switchover, BBC Four was on a separate multiplex to that of BBC One, BBC Two etc. This makes me wonder whether your "Grundig" box has tuned to the signals from another transmitter (that has yet to go through switchover) and not Hannington. I would never make the assumption that a device connected to an aerial facing a particular transmitter has tuned to the transmitter during its automatic tuning sequence.
The designers of boxes that do not allow manual tuning should be locked in a room with 100... maybe 1000 of their products connected to an aerial that picks up more than one transmitter and which the boxes automatically pick up the wrong one; they should not be let out until all are tuned correctly.
The fact that you are missing the multiplex that carries ITV1, C4, C5 also makes me wonder whether this is as a result of another transmitter being picked up (and that ITV1, C4, C5 is not quite strong enough which is why it's missing).
You need to confirm that the multiplexes you have are from Hannington. My suspicion is that they could be from Crystal Palace.
I downloaded the instructions here:
http://www.grundig.co.uk/….pdf
I cannot see anywhere that it indicates the UHF channel that it is tuned to. This information is usually given on the signal stength/quality screen, but the images shown do not carry that information...very poor. So it appears that it keeps this information secret from the user.
The only way that you can confirm that it has picked up Hannington is to look at the EPG for BBC One at 18:30. Does it show your regional news programme or does it show the London variant?
If it shows the London variant, then it has decided that it knows best and to go with Crystal Palace and, most importantly, it gives you no easy way of controlling it and putting it right.
One reason it might pick up Crystal Palace is that it will be found before Hannington due to the fact that it uses lower frequency channels (and the automatic tuning scan will work low frequency to high frequency).
A for this particular problem of picking up Crystal Palace where Hannington is required is to unplug the aerial lead for the first 25% of the scan so as to miss out the channels used by CP but get those of Hannington. Not ideal, but then the designers of these things only think of the ideal world where only one transmitter is picked up.