menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Archive (2002-)

 

 

Click to see updates

All posts by Dave Lindsay

Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


Dave: The reception on BBC4 should be exactly the same as that on BBC1, BBC2 and other BBC standard definition and radio channels. This is because they are all transmitted on the same multiplex (i.e. as a group of channels on the same frequency as part of the same signal).

The only possibility I can think of is that the BBC4 you are tuned to is from another transmitter (whereas the other BBC channels come from the correct transmitter). It might be worth looking to see whether it is on the same UHF channel as the other BBC channels.

link to this comment
GB flag

Dave, Adam B: Ah right. I forgot about that!

link to this comment
GB flag
Diagnostics - old version
Thursday 1 December 2011 1:49PM

gordon: Do you have a separate box for your Freesat and is it connected via a scart lead? It sounds as thought the box might be seizing the TV and changing it over to the appropriate (scart) input.

link to this comment
GB flag
Diagnostics - old version
Thursday 1 December 2011 1:50PM

gordon: To test this theory, unplug the scart lead from the Freesat box and see if the TV works OK on Freeview.

link to this comment
GB flag

Glanville Carleton: The reason for this is because your receiver is picking up the signal from Belmont (whose principle service area is Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire) and it has decided to go with this instead of that from Sandy Heath.

What is the make and model of your receiver (TV or set-top box)? I will see if I can find the instructions for it and suggest how you might get it to do what you want it to do.

link to this comment
GB flag

Jean: I see that you're in a large blocks of flats. I soured Google Streetview and have found what appears to be the TV aerial for your flats and it can be clearly seen to be pointed at Sandy Heath, which is the main transmitter which broadcasts all the full range of Freeview channels and which broadcast Freeview before switchover. Dallington Park transmitter broadcasts only the "light" channels now and did not broadcast Freeview before switchover (which means that you must have been picking it up from Sandy Heath).

Try as jb38 suggests and manually add the commercial channels for Sandy Heath: 31, 48 and 51.

link to this comment
GB flag
Film 4
Friday 2 December 2011 12:43PM

JP Richardson: Do you get Yorkshire TV or Tyne Tees TV?

I went down your street on Google Streetview and the vast majority of the aerials I could see are on Bilsdale which is Tyne Tees. A few are on Belmont, but I saw none on Oliver's Mount (or Hunmanby).

Hunmanby transmitter radiates in the direction of Hunmanby rather than Filey. The houses on The Beach Road are on Belmont as it's much lower lying than the town. I did think that Oliver's Mount served Filey as well, so I wonder if your street is blocked by something which is why residents have to watch Tyne Tees.

So, to which transmitter is your aerial facing and what local news do you normally get? Is your aerial horizontal or vertical? See here for a photo of aerial in horizontal and vertical polarisations.

If you are on Belmont (174 degrees horizontal) then you will be getting Look North from Hull with Peter Levy. The predictor suggests that you might not get some of the commercial channels from Belmont.

If you are on Bilsdale (285 degrees horizontal) which is near Northallerton you will get Tyne Tees on ITV and Look North North East & Cumbria.

If you are on Oliver's Mount (309 degrees vertical) then you will get Look North from Leeds with Harry and Christa.

Note that it is possible to receive another transmitter to which the aerial doesn't face, albeit to a lesser degree. So the fact that your TV has tuned to one signal doesn't necessarily mean that it matches where your aerial is pointing. If this is the case, then your TV's tuning needs some attention to put it right.

For this reason I suggest that you look at your aerial and see which transmitter it is pointing at and work from there.

link to this comment
GB flag
Film 4
Friday 2 December 2011 12:45PM

JP Richardson: Sorry, forgot to include the link to horizontal and vertical aerials:

Aerials, TV Aerial and Digital Aerial

link to this comment
GB flag

Jonathan Ashenden: I second Mark's suggestion to look at the ATV website for loads of information on aerials.

It is worth bearing in mind that when switchover has happened, the transmission power will be increased. This means that any improvements/changes you make to your aerial setup are only of benefit pre-switchover as you current one *might* work after switchover.

After switchover, Rowridge will broadcast horizontally and vertically (it only does the former now). You will be best advised to re-orientate your aerials to vertical after switchover so as to have the greatest chance of getting the commercial multiplexes as they will be on lower power horizontally than vertically.

link to this comment
GB flag