Freeview reception at IP29 5AX
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10m20m (Angel of the North)25m30m40m56m (Hyde Park Flats, Sheffield)62m (Monument)90m (Royal Liver Building, Liverpool)107m (Meridian Quay Tower, Swansea)115m (Bridgewater Place, Leeds)127m (Glasgow Tower)143m (Guy's Hospital)158m (Blackpool Tower)170m (Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth)180m (The Gherkin/BT Tower) 193m (Tower 42)235m (Canary Wharf)310m (The Shard)(default view)
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Show good and blocked paths from IP29 5AX for aerial height of ...10m20m (Angel of the North)25m30m40m56m (Hyde Park Flats, Sheffield)62m (Monument)90m (Royal Liver Building, Liverpool)107m (Meridian Quay Tower, Swansea)115m (Bridgewater Place, Leeds)127m (Glasgow Tower)143m (Guy's Hospital)158m (Blackpool Tower)170m (Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth)180m (The Gherkin/BT Tower) 193m (Tower 42)235m (Canary Wharf)310m (The Shard)(default view)
Tuesday, 3 May 2022
J
Jeff Whittle10:06 PM
Ayr
Hi, our house number is 11. The aerial is in the loft. We can receive the Darvel Local MUX channels with excellent reception (8 That's TV Scotland, 50 Great TV, 52 Great Movies Classic & 61 Great Movies +1, but not the Darvel Main transmitter channels! Previously, we could receive the Darvel Main transmitter channels until 1 week ago, but they would often freeze or have a broken up picture, they had been like that for about 3 months or more and have got progressively worse until they have gone. We thought it was down to the weather conditions, but now we have totally lost the Darvel Main transmitter channels and cannot manually retune them. We have tried the Freeview reset procedure. The good news is we used to have a huge woods which may have blocked the signal, but it has just been chopped down, but this has made no difference to reception.
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Wednesday, 4 May 2022
C
Chris.SE3:11 PM
Jeff Whittle:
Hi. Whilst you've given us a house number (not absolutely required) we do need the full postcode to look at the predicted reception.
The Darvel transmitter was on Planned Engineering last week (not listed this week - but sometimes the work isn't completed and the list isn't 100% accurate) however to receive the Local mux and not the main muxes seems odd, are you getting it on UHF C31 just to confirm it's Darvel?
Please give a full postcode so we can look at predicted reception in more detail.
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J
Jeff Whittle9:54 PM
Ayr
Hi Chris, thank you for your response, sorry I posted 3 times, but it came up as an error each time I posted, but I did not realise that it had gone through. Postcode is KA7 4EE, we are on a north to NNE facing slope about half way up. Several years ago, we had our aerial professionally installed. The installer wanted us to have a roof mounted aerial, but we suffer a lot with blustery weather and it would have lasted about 5 minutes, so he installed a 2 metre long aerial in the loft. He said at the time the trees in the woods might affect the signal, but it has been OK, until a few months ago. 3 weeks ago all the trees were cut down and I would have expected the signal to improve, but it hasn't.
Yes, it is definitely UHF C31, as I manually tuned our TV to 31 and that's why I listed the channels we receive with a strong signal so you could confirm I had actually tuned to UHF C31. On our LG TV when you manually tune it shows the signal strength and signal quality. I have tried to manually tune it to Darvel on the other UHF Channels 22, 25, 28, 32, 34 35 & 55, with no success. Tonight suddenly UHF C25 came back but with low signal quality fluctuating between 17-33%, signal strength is 100% and I have just managed to manually tune UHF C28, again with low signal quality of 17-33%, but high signal strength 100%. UHF C55 shows 0% strength and 0% signal quality, C22, C32, C35, show 100% signal strength momentarily with 0% signal quality but as soon as I press the update button, the signal strength drops to 0% after a couple of seconds. For the TV channels on UHF C25 & C28 they freeze or have a broken up picture, I guess this is due to the low signal quality of 17-33%. Could I ask if the Darvel Mux different to the main Darvel transmitter in terms of vertical or horizontal modulation? Could that be why we are receiving a strong Darvel Mux signal, but a poor Main Darvel transmitter? Thanks
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Thursday, 5 May 2022
C
Chris.SE2:45 AM
Jeff Whittle:
Hi Jeff, yes that error message is a nuisance, the site owner has been having problems with it since a software upgrade, just ignore it and wait several minutes before checking your post has appeared.
Thanks for the extra detail. A few thoughts here.
All muxes from Darvel are horizontally polarised. The Local mux although using lower power has good coverage because of the transmission mode it uses, but this results in less capacity, hence only a small number of channels.
You are predicted to get very good reception of all muxes from Darvel.
Generally, if there is low quality, it suggests interference, which if strong enough will result in the signal going to zero as the set just sees it as noise. There is/was a small amount of predicted tropospheric ducting weather conditions recently (resulting in signals from other transmitters on the same channels being received causing interference) but whether it's affected you is difficult to say as the predicted areas were a bit further south from you. It may well have cleared now in any event but the effects could be compounded by whatever transmitter work was being done if there was reduced signal.
But, the other case can be with too much signal and you are saying you have 100% for some of the muxes. Now that the trees have been cut down this could be what's making the difference. Additionally, another possibility is the installer will have originally positioned the aerial direction for best signal and now the trees have been cut down that may have changed slightly (but that doesn't really tally with 100% signal!). Never the less, it's worth check your aerial is pointing correctly which for you would be a compass bearing of ~52 degrees (7 degrees E of NE) but the beamwidth of the aerial should allow a small margin of error.
Back to specifics of too much signal. Do you per chance have a distribution amp/splitter?
Whether you do or not, a large aerial of course can still provide too much signal. Now the Black Hill transmitter is pretty well NE from you (well within the beamwidth of the aerial) and you are predicted to get good signals from it for all but COMs5&6. You could try a manual tune on C46 - the BBCA/PSB1 mux (which is C22 at Darvel) and if you get that with 100% Quality and less than 100% signal this could confirm the too much signal from Darvel theory. If you get nothing at all try C40 which is the BBCB mux.
If you have a distribution amp/splitter and it has a variable gain control, try turning the gain down and see if your Darvel muxes improve. Under normal circumstances you should be getting 100% Quality on all muxes. It doesn't matter too much what the signal level goes down to (even 50% on the LG should be good, but you can tweak it up until you see a drop in quality and then just drop it a touch.).
If you have no amp or no gain control, if it's easy to move, you could try just turning the aerial off beam a bit (maybe northwards but whatever your loft might allow) and see what the effect is. If you an achieve satisfactory stable reception of all muxes like that, then no more to do. If you can get some muxes and not others then using an attenuator would be the next option - a variable one would be best. If you need one, I'll try and give you a link to what you need, but post back how you get on experimenting a bit, first.
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J
Jeff Whittle8:42 PM
Ayr
Hi Chris, thank you for the detailed response. We don't have amp/splitter with gain control. I will try the points you have suggested over the weekend and let you know.
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