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Nedbod
Tuesday 13 March 2012 10:58PM
It's a lot cheaper than SKY Linda, why should it be free, analogue TV wasn't.
roxanne
Wednesday 14 March 2012 1:59AM
How can i watch the Eurosport in Macau?
Peter Mc Mahon
Wednesday 14 March 2012 9:14AM Craigavon
Hi

Whats the best Digital High Gain Aerial to purchase.

Although my postcode is showing up as being in a good reception area, the actual location of my home is making my signal reception woeful.

Can anyone recommend a particular manufacturer for the aerial, as there are a few out there and just want to get it right this time?

Thanks for any assistance on this.
Dave Lindsay
Wednesday 14 March 2012 10:47AM
Peter McMahon: Lots of advice and products at www.aerialsandtv.com

Wideband yagi are less sensitive at lower (Group A) frequencies. See www.aerialsandtv.com link icon Gain (curves), Again

If you're going for Divis and require a high-gain aerial, probably best to get a Group A on rather than a wideband. This is the advice given by ATV.

One thing I will say is that prior to switchover, Mux C is on channel 48 and this is the only one that is outside Group A. After switchover, Divis will return to being a Group A transmitter.
Mark Fletcher
Wednesday 14 March 2012 5:58PM Halifax
Peter McMahon,Craigavon.Your best bet is to wait until nearer the time of DSO for Divis.Divis will after DSO2 come Wednesday 24 October 2012 become an all group A transmitter and as such you only need to use a group A aerial on this mast if you reside within a poor/marginal reception area within Divis itself.Only in a rare case can a group K be a substitute for a group A antenna on an all group A transmitter.If you cannot wait then you can buy a group K Yagi or X Beam instead and continue to watch Mux C on channel 48 right up until DSO2 or get a group A Yagi or X Beam now but miss out on Mux C until DSO2 (ArqA after DSO2).It is entirely up to you.
Brian Lester
Wednesday 14 March 2012 7:13PM
Why do'es my picture freeze mainly at the news hour 6pm onwards, and at present i have not had a picture since 5pm 14 - 3 - 12 on most of the commercial channels but the BBC chanels are fine.
Brian husband
Thursday 15 March 2012 12:04PM
Have read your article on inversion, does this mean every time high pressure going to suffer poor or no reception
Margaret Carney
Thursday 15 March 2012 1:25PM Clacton-on-sea
I live in Clacton CO16 8XE. Since Monday 12 March 2012 I have had problem with Channel 19 on Freeview. Tried to watch suits on Tuesday night, but picture kept freezing, then got notification that signal weak, no transmission, check antenae etc. etc. Tried to watch repeat on Wednesday night but same story. Starts of okay and then I lose picture. Same story for Channel 20 Really, which I could get perfectly before Monday. Today I retuned all channels and Channel 19 working fine so far, but what would cause this type of thing.

Margaret Carney
KMJ,Derby
Thursday 15 March 2012 2:07PM
Margaret Carney: The problem is interference caused by signals travelling further than normal due to the inversion effect during the present weather conditions. This is made more likely on Mux ArqA by the use of a temporary frequency at low power (3kW) at the Sudbury transmitter. In June 2012 the frequency will be changed and power increased to 100kW which should help reduce problems from out of area signals at your location.
jb38
Thursday 15 March 2012 2:38PM
Brian husband: About the only honest answer that can be given to that question is that it no-one can guarantee that it wouldn't happen given the right conditions, as even although high pressure problems are nothing new the effect they had on analogue reception very seldom ever completely blotted the picture out except in really severe cases, the rest of the time either causing a variety of moving lines to be seen on the picture, or at other times ghost images sweeping across it from the programme that the offending station might be broadcasting at the time.

The problem with digital Freeview is that its basically an all or nothing mode, as unlike analogue where anything that might intrude onto the same channel as the one being viewed would in most cases only result in elements of disruption to the quality of the picture and with it still being visible, whereas about the same level of interference can cause corruption of the digital signal, the result of always being far more severe ranging from varying levels of pixelation / freezing on video, this usually coupled with audio bangs and screeches, to a total blocking of reception altogether.

In other words digital reception is just not tolerant to being interfered with, this why anyone that insists on an almost 100% reliable signal should automatically think Freesat, as about the only thing that upsets it is a really heavy thundery type downpour, and even then if a slightly larger dish is used this minimises the chance of this happening even more.
Annie B
Thursday 15 March 2012 8:11PM Aylesbury
I live in Aylesbury. We have interference in our lounge TV all this week and tonight, but not the Dining Room. Lounge has a Humax Box attached. Dining Room TV is new and larger. Reception for both has been great. But this week, the lounge has been constantly interrupted and frozen, recordings were coming into the Humax which is puzzling to me (a non techno person), sometimes the recordings were OK, otherwise not. The dining room TV however, has been fine all the time. We thought the transmitter works were the problem but we don't understand. Both TVs work off same aerial, fairly new and checked by aerial man. Help?
jb38
Thursday 15 March 2012 9:01PM
Annie B: If prior to this week your system has been reasonably OK then I wouldn't worry too much about your present problems, as they are most likely being caused by the effects of the wave of high pressure that is presently prevailing and which is causing problems for numerous people right across large areas of the UK, the side effect of this condition being that its allowing variable levels of signals from distant stations to be picked which are clashing with the channels you are receiving, or trying to! and needless to say this can affect some channels and not others, and so its possible for your Humax to be affected when recording one channel whereas your TV on a different channel isnt, and of course vice-versa.

Its really just a case of waiting until these conditions have returned to normal again.
KMJ,Derby
Friday 16 March 2012 12:08AM
Annie B: Further to jB38's post, are both receivers tuned to the same transmitter? Have a look through the channel list of the lounge TV. If there are any channels listed in the 800's it will show that more than one transmitter is being received, these additional channels could give better reception. I say this because both Oxford and Sandy Heath transmitters are predicted to be receivable at your location.
Wendy Townsend
Friday 16 March 2012 8:00AM Southampton
we have a brand new tv and brand new freeview recorder box, both worked for a while, now I cannot use the box with our tv, the tv works ok when aerial plugged straight in,but not working when looped together, works ok at my sons house. We live opposite Isle of Wight.Bought new scart,got aerial man in,says reception is great,but still not picture??costing a fortune so far
Dave Lindsay
Friday 16 March 2012 9:08AM
Wendy Townsend: What is the model name and number of the recorder?

When you connect the recorder box into the aerial lead, do you loose all channels on the TV?
Wendy Townsend
Friday 16 March 2012 10:05AM Southampton
Wendy Townsend:
I have a Bush Freeview Digital tv recorder,on the instruction manual there are 4 numbers
532/2305 532/2312 BU11FVRSD32 and BU11FVRSS50and a Hitachi TV, both new. I have no idea which one of these means anything. and Yes as soon I connect the box to the aerial, I can,t get anything on the TV, no sound no picture, won,t even turn off by the remote control??
NE259YD
Friday 16 March 2012 3:58PM Whitley Bay
Channel 55 from Pontop Pike @ NE25 9YD has been of very poor signal quality for last three weeks - picture is just breaking up. All other channels including HD are perfect - any reason why?
Martin Rosen
Saturday 17 March 2012 12:09AM London
jb38: Thank you for your help. I am not sure how to do a factory default. I know how to retune, so I will do that when I return.

For people that are around on switchover dates, do they need to do just a retune or do they also need to do a factory default as well - I have seen no publicity about that.
jb38
Saturday 17 March 2012 7:53AM
Martin Rosen: To be honest about it a factory default re-set is not always really necessary in most cases, but I always usually recommend this as its a way of virtually guaranteeing that there wont be any remnants of anything previously stored in the tuning memory lurking around to cause any odd problems to occur.

So if you just carry out a normal re-tune you will probably be OK, but if you experience any odd problems whatsoever then re-set the TV to its factory default setting as this will return it to the same condition as when first taken it out of its packing case.

By the way "factory default" or re-set is called "first time installation" on some brands as they all use different names for the same procedure.
Brian Gregory
Saturday 17 March 2012 10:48AM
Annie B: Are they sharing the same aerial? can you try swapping their positions temporarily to try and see if one aerial feed is bad or if one device is just less able to cope with the signals you are receiving? Perhaps it's better by now anyway now that the unusual weather conditions are more or less ended.
Beryl Gray
Saturday 17 March 2012 2:10PM Grays
We had Freeview but decided to go for the FreeSAT to give us more channels. However, we cannot get channel 12 'Yesterday'through FreeSAT, we still have to revert to Analogue. As my husband watches this channel more than any other, will we lose it completely when Analogue is no more? Or do you know something we don't!!
Be
Dave Lindsay
Saturday 17 March 2012 2:24PM
Beryl Gray: Yesterday is one of the channels that is not available on Freesat, but is available on the full Freeview service. As you are in an area served by full Freeview now, then you will be after switchover.

Yesterday is not available on analogue and has never been. Terrestrial analogue consists of BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and Channel 4. Channel 5 is available on analogue with limited coverage.

As you TV is likely to have Freeview built in, or you have a separate Freeview box if it doesn't, then you would be best advised to retain it and the terrestrial aerial as a back-up should the satellite services be unavailable and also so you can view channels that aren't available on Freesat.
lorna fraser
Saturday 17 March 2012 4:05PM
I am trying to connect an old tv with scart sockets to a new digital freeview recorder which only has hmdi output.what is the best way of going about this if it is possible?
jb38
Saturday 17 March 2012 5:50PM
lorna fraser: What is the model number of the digital recorder being referred to, and if possible the same info regarding the TV.
Beryl Gray
Saturday 17 March 2012 8:10PM Grays
Thank you so much Dave for the very clear explanation on channel 12. You have made one husabnd very happy!!
Be
Bob Slattery
Monday 19 March 2012 12:14PM
Dear Sir, I brought my Sky box to Lithuania to see if it would work over here, after a failure with a small dish, I bought and tried again with a 1.2mtr. dish, I now get sky channels OK, but no BBC/ITV/C4/C5 channels, any help r suggestions would be really appreciated. P.S. Signal strength 90-100%, Signal quality 80-90%, Signal health check 15. many thanks, Bob Slattery,
ian from notts
Tuesday 20 March 2012 9:18AM Nottingham
triax sat problem
triax outlet plate 304114 fitted to a new build.
supplied and fitted triax ddu unit for sky+ playback.
ddu wont work properly without triax outlet plate 304115 !! .
solution is to change plate but what is outlet plate 304114 for ?
info plate has 3 cables,
1/ sat 1, tv, fm
2/ sat 2
3/ return
i have connected cable 1 to sat 1 and cable 3 to return but getting break up on sky,
i cannot see where a 3rd cable goes in ddu or find a unit for the pre fitted plate ?
hussain
Tuesday 20 March 2012 11:28AM
hi. i would like to have asia sat3 105E.in london,is it possible pls,
ALAN PEACHEY
Tuesday 20 March 2012 1:48PM
Just a quick question about Freesat. Can tell me why Anglia East is clear but Anglia West is Encrypted. Whats the difference?
Jacqueline Simpson
Tuesday 20 March 2012 2:32PM York
If I unplug the freeview box and arial as suggested and then do a first time installation scan, I know it will clear all programmes in the timer but will it also delete all the recorded programmes?

Thank you

Jacqueline Simpson
Neil Bell
Tuesday 20 March 2012 6:43PM
Alan I think you will find that Anglia East is on Freesat and Anglia West is on Sky but then that poses another question which I don't know the answer to!
jb38
Tuesday 20 March 2012 7:34PM
Jacqueline Simpson: Not if that's all you are doing as it doesn't involve anything concerning the hard drive where you recordings are stored, only the tuners memory is deleted.

Steve Hooper
Wednesday 21 March 2012 2:42PM Sandown
i live on the isle of wight under the rowbridge transmitter retuned as required but cannot now receive channel 33 on the multiplex signal, it is showing closed on the multiplex list - how do i get these channels back?
Kath
Wednesday 21 March 2012 2:50PM Littleborough
I have recently moved into a purpose built apartment block which has a communal aerial in Littleborough lancs. My TV has built in Freeview but I can only get BBC1, BBC2, BBC 3, BBC 4, ITV and ITV+1, ITV 2, Channel 4, Channel 5, E4, More 4, CBeebies, CBBC, BBC Parliament (in total 20 channels). When I retuned the TV the signal was showing one bar into 'GOOD'. I even tried an aerial booster but there was no change.I have since been told that my area has not had a digital upgrade. Does anyone know if this is correct and if so when is the upgrade due to take place?
Dave Lindsay
Wednesday 21 March 2012 3:02PM
Kath: The channels you have are those that are carried by the Littleborough transmitter. There is no plan to add extra services, the Commercial broadcasters have chosen not to spend money on 1000 or so small transmitter sites such as Littleborough. For an explanation, see here:

www.ukfree.tv link icon Will there ever be more services on the Freeview Light transmitters? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice

Your only real option for extra free to air services is Freesat. There would appear to be a communal satellite dish on the front of the building, mounted on the same pole as the terrestrial aerial which faces Littleborough.
Mike Dimmick
Wednesday 21 March 2012 6:04PM
ALAN PEACHEY: I believe the Anglia East and West regions still split for a small amount of local news. At www.itv.com link icon Watch Anglia Tonight | Anglia - ITV News , part 2 is labelled 'East'. (No sign of an online video for 'West'!) Otherwise, the difference is merely the advertising.

Anglia West is encrypted because it is on one of the pan-European beams on the Astra 2B satellite. If it was not encrypted, ITV would have to pay much more for broadcast rights for all of the *other* programmes, to cover the whole broadcast area. Anglia East is not encrypted because it is on the UK beam on Astra 1N, which is intended to only cover the British Isles and is much harder to receive elsewhere in Europe (a substantially larger dish is usually required, and the signal levels available outside the official footprint could change without notice, as happened earlier this year when services moved from Astra 2D to 1N).

Oddly, Anglia South is also free-to-air, even though ITV no longer sell advertising airtime for this subregion separately from the Anglia East subregion, and it has never had a separate news service. It is anticipated that ITV will shortly close some of these redundant services, which may make space for Anglia West to move to Astra 1N and go free-to-air. However, the space might alternatively be used to provide a +1 hour timeshift of the Anglia service, replacing (for Anglia viewers) the Meridian +1 service you currently get.

The regional variations on satellite are selected by the postcode that your viewing card is registered to, for Sky, or the postcode you entered in system setup for Freesat. You can still view an alternative version through Other Channels/Non-Freesat Channels. The region boundaries are roughly those of the terrestrial transmitters: Anglia West is the area covered by Sandy Heath and its relays, while Anglia East is the area covered by Tacolneston and its relays. (Anglia South was Sudbury and its relays, but Sudbury now just transmits the same as Tacolneston.) There's a map in ITV Media's Factsheet at www.itvmedia.co.uk link icon http://www.itvmedia.co.uk….pdf .
ALAN PEACHEY
Wednesday 21 March 2012 10:31PM
Thanks Neil and Mike for your help.
ALAN PEACHEY
Thursday 22 March 2012 12:46PM
Another quick question. On Freesat I manualy tuned 11639v and to my suprise there was a channel there called RTB VIRGILIO. Any idea what it is? I think it might be Italian. Another strange thing is that it does not say what satilite it is coming from. Thanks.
Mike Dimmick
Thursday 22 March 2012 1:58PM
ALAN PEACHEY: en.kingofsat.net link icon Astra 1N / Astra 2A / Astra 2B / Astra 2D / Eutelsat 28A (28.2°E) - All transmissions - frequencies - KingOfSat suggests that 11639 V would be a transponder on Eutelsat 28A (formerly Eurobird 1), though it shows the D10 transponder on 11642 MHz. It's listed as carrying occasional feeds, which may be what's happened here. Or, a broadcaster may have decided to rent that transponder, though Italian channels would be surprising on the 28.2°E cluster as they're nearly all in English, or Commonwealth languages targetting UK viewers. Or it could simply be a cock-up - it looks like Arqiva or BT are responsible for uplinking to its proper home on Hotbird 13B (located at 13°E). If it is simply a case of uplinking to the wrong place I'd expect the whole Hotbird 13B 10732 MHz transponder to be duplicated.

More about the channel at RTB Network ::: RTB City, RTB Virgilio, RTB Crypted, RTB Web & Televideo
ALAN PEACHEY
Thursday 22 March 2012 3:13PM
Thanks Mike. I meant to ask before but I kept forgetting, as it has been there quite a while. I should say that when the clouds are quite thick it tends to disappear.
jim a
Thursday 22 March 2012 5:36PM Bognor Regis
since the change my tv takes ages to change channels & the screen goes blank for a few seconds is this normal or is my tv not working properly
Shell
Thursday 22 March 2012 8:48PM
Sometimes we lose all ITV channels, CH4, CH5, etc on digital for days at a time. Still can watch on analogue, but getting worried as after switchover we won't be able to view that way and will end up missing episodes of programmes. I believe it is down to inversion. Will the situation improve after switchover or will we always be without channels? Had the signal checked and we have a strong signal strength.
Chris
Saturday 24 March 2012 10:14PM
Is the standard Sky boxes HD ready? As an example, If Sky were to transmit a weekend of free HD progrmas on, say, Sky 1 will I be able to view in HD on my HD ready TV through a standard Sky box (NOT Sky+).
P Wilson
Sunday 25 March 2012 12:36PM Birchington
We have a Freeview HD ready TV and also a BT vision box. They have been working h=fine until recently and now we have good signal strength but 0-30% signal quality. We have moved the aerial and retuned bi=ut this only lasts hours. Is there a problem with our transmitter ,we believe it is Dover?
CT7 9HP
Carol Galloway
Sunday 25 March 2012 9:31PM Maidstone
I have been unable to get any ITV channels for approx. 3 days - tv showing 'no signal'. These channels are now nt appearing at all and when attempting the manual tuning it doesn't allow me to enter any of these channels. Do you think this is just a signal problemand will I eventually be able to receive these? My post code is ME17 4HW. Thank you.
Jeff Cowley
Monday 26 March 2012 9:02AM
hi, I live in Worthing West Sussex and the signal from Southampton(Rowridge) and from Brighton (Whitehawk hill)seem to be equal, which one should I use to prevent any future possible problems? Thanks Jeff
ian from notts
Monday 26 March 2012 9:22AM Derby
Chris
sky's hd content has its own channel slots
ie- sky1 & sky1 hd, bbc1 & bbc1 hd so forth,
i believe the standard sky box would not pick up the channels you ask for as they would just unblock them for free viewing?
also there is no hdmi slot on a standard sky box ?
KMJ,Derby
Monday 26 March 2012 9:55AM
Carol Galloway: The current weather conditions are causing out of area signals to travel further than normal, and block reception of those normally received. If you are using Bluebell Hill the official prediction is for variable reception of Mux2. Another post has mentioned loss of signal on the high power transmission for Sandy Heath which uses the same frequency (C24), so it would appear likely that the high power Rowridge signal or one of the continental transmissions is currently swamping the regular service in Kent and parts of East Anglia. If you no longer have ITV1 etc in your channel list keep trying to input the Mux2 frequency manually until you are successful in finding and storing the required channels.
Sharon Webley
Monday 26 March 2012 12:44PM
I am in the Medway area, receiving my signal from Bluebell Hill. On Friday morning I lost all my ITV channels from my Freeview box, and they were still blank Friday evening. They were back on Saturday, but disappeared again last night during the final of Dancing of Ice, and were still blank while Titanic was been aired. Why is this? At the moment I still have analogue TV as an alternative but that is disappearing in 3 months. I am not impressed by digital TV. I am dreading losing my analogue signal and having nothing to fall back on.
Bob
Monday 26 March 2012 8:37PM Battle
Still having problems in the Hastings area. No ITV channels now for over a week. BBC is fine.
I did ask last week about this and was informed that there was engineering works at Hastings. However, I have checked this today and everything is supposed to be normal.
The ITV channels all seem to go down at peak times. Can anyone please tell me why this is and why it doesn't affect BBC?
Kris Stewart
Tuesday 27 March 2012 3:15AM
Hi, I've been having 'No signal being received' issues with my Amstrad sky HD box for a number of weeks now when it gets to around 8/9pm through the night. I've had it I've tried all the recommended steps but to no great avail. Swapped the cables into the LNB to spare connector ports with temporary/intermittent success. Swapped with another Amstrad HD box and symptoms were the same making me believe it was a cable/LNB/Dish fault and not the box. I've went right through the channels and have noticed that I am not getting any with H polarity however a weird thing can happen where I record a V polarity channel (bbc1 HD) and H polarity channels will return and input 2 signal strength returns from nothing to 70%. I've set it up on single feed mode and all channels are available. Do these symptoms scream out an obvious fault with one of the parts?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Brian
Tuesday 27 March 2012 1:42PM Eastleigh
I have a freeview box which works well with the new digital signal, and two LG dvd recorders which have a signal overload. How can I reduce the signal for the DVDs and not the box?



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