All posts by Dave Lindsay
Below are all of Dave Lindsay's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
jim: Yes, and a particularly small one at that.
Longer explanation: There are now two types of broadcaster in the UK: Public Service (PSB) and Commercial (COM).
The Commercial ones are purely profit-driven organisations and the Public Service ones, as the name implies, have a Public Service obligation.
The COM channels achieve coverage of 90% of the population by broadcasting from 81 of the largest transmitters (largest by viewer population).
There are over 1,000 PSB-only relays like St Neot which serve about 8.5% of the population. For the COMs to add them to their portfolio would roughly double their cost of transmission. As they operate purely for profit derived from advertisers which requires viewers, then they wish to acquire most viewers at lowest possible cost. For this reason it isn't surprising that they don't wish to double their cost of transmission in order to add about 10% to their existing viewer base.
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Leighton Lewis: Yes, Channel 4HD is expected to be available in from Welsh transmitters from some time in December 2012.
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David S: This means that your receiver has tuned to a different transmitter (for BBC at least). Manually tune to the UHF channels used by your transmitter.
Or there may be another workaround, but we will need knowledge of which transmitter it is that you should be using and which you have picked up. Knowing your location such as in the form of a postcode or nearby postcode (e.g. a shop) may help us work these things out.
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Mark Plant: As you have line-of-sight at 9 miles to a 100kW per channel transmitter, then your receiver could be suffering from too much signal. The effects of such a situation often appear the same as too little a signal.
An attenuator can be fitted in-line with the aerial lead and acts to reduce the amplitude of signals which is the opposite of what an amplifier does.
The higher the gain of the aerial, the more likely this may be an issue. If the cowboy aerial installer fitted a large high-gain aerial then this is almost certainly OTT for your location.
At a location such as yours, a DM Log should be fine:
Online TV FM DAB Aerial sales
Winter Hill Transmitter
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Mike Lavender: UHF channel 30 (PSB3) from Lark Stone carries HD services and operates in DVB-T2 mode whereas the others carry standard definition services and use DVB-T mode.
The most reason for no signal being shown when tuning to PSB3/HD mux is because the tuner only works with standard definition (DVB-T) signals.
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Syd Wall: Lark Stoke is vertically polarised (aerial vertical) whereas any Anglia transmitters that you "might" pick up (as you say, they will probably be weak or not available at your location) are horizontally polarised. So all in all, the chances of picking up such signals with a vertically-polarised aerial is nil.
What I would do is confirm that your receiver is tuned to Lark Stone for all signals. Do this by viewing the signal strength screen whilst on one of the services carried on each multiplex. A multiplex is a single signal that carries multiple services, for example, PSB1 carries BBC One, BBC Two, and other standard definition BBC services.
For Lark Stone they are:
PSB1 | BBC One | C26
PSB2 | ITV1 | C23
PSB3 | BBC One HD | C30 (only applicable for HD receivers)
COM4 | ITV3 | C41
COM5 | Pick TV | C44
COM6 | Film4 | C47
For example, go to BBC One and bring up the signal strength screen and it should say that it is tuned to C26. If it's not, then it is receiving from another transmitter and this needs correcting. (I say this on the understanding that your aerial points to Lark Stone rather than Sutton Coldfield.)
The six channels used by Sutton Coldfield are (given in the same order as above):
43, 46, 40(HD), 42, 45, 39
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NJ: The reason why it only affected one UHF channel is probably down to the fact that they won't all be exactly the same. Had you had more gain, then maybe it would have started to affect other channels.
The is surely not to run it so high rather than wondering why one channel is degraded when others are not!
Digital reception requires good quality. Don't try to run it as close to full strength as possible.
With analogue, the stronger the signal the better the picture. With digital there is a threshold over which the signal can be received. Whilst it is a good idea to have a good margin over that threshold to allow for natural fluctuations, there is no need to strive for as high as you can as it gives no benefit to the picture.
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Mark G: It is probably worth checking the connection of the cable at the aerial end. Maybe moving the aerial has caused the cable to break.
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Roy Lightfoot: I imagine that you are supposed to be receiving from Caldbeck. It broadcasts English North West regions as well as Scottish regional variants towards Scotland.
If your receiver has manual tuning, then that might be the only way to get the Scottish regional variants. See this posting I made to John H last week on the same issue:
Updated - changes to Freeview channel numbers this week on September 19th 2012 | ukfree.tv - 10 years of independent, free digital TV advice
The services (what you've referred to as "channels") are broadcast on multiplexes. A multiplex is a single signal of which there are six. See this page for the six multiplexes:
DTG :: DTT Services by Multiplex
So PSB1 carries BBC One, BBC Two etc.
Focus on one service from each multiplex and ensure that you have them and that they are tuned to the correct UHF channel. The first in each is what I advise, these being BBC One, ITV1, BBC One HD (if applicable), ITV3, Pick TV and Film4.
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Wednesday 17 October 2012 8:48PM
jay: Having looked at satellite and street photos, I can see that there are a lot of trees on Quick Edge which means that not only would you be receiving over the brow, but that that brow has vegetation which is likely to affect reception...