All posts by Thomas
Below are all of Thomas's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Back in the analogue days, BBC2 suffered severe interference and dropouts whenever the wind blew (at least on my aerial system). SDN now has BBC2's old frequency and as I predicted, on a windy day like today, keeps pixellating and dropping out. Other muxes are not affected as bad. Why only this particular frequency? "The Space" is on the HD mux (channel 41). New channels called '193' and '194' on those numbers, mux COM5/ArqA. Currently displaying a message saying 'adult channels have moved'. My older Lowry Freeview box doesn't seem to work properly. The auto-scan gets as far as channel 52 then completely sticks until I power-cycle it. It's never done this before, and I've tried rescanning 5 times in succession - same issue. Has something changed on Emley Moor's ArqA that it doesn't understand? The IPTV channels are unlikely to be affected by renumbering (unless there is some bug in the TV's firmware). Right now on my Panasonic, Sports Tonight works intermittently and the others say "You do not have a compatible device".
I'm guessing you'll need a retune to pick up the new channel numbers. What happens if you don't retune? Will the channels just stay on their old numbers or will they be inaccessible? I live in an area served best by Emley Moor, but I can pick up a weak signal from Bilsdale through my existing aerial. It's quite fuzzy, but good enough to see what's going on.
I wonder if Bilsdale's high-power transmissions will be visible here? I'd prefer to keep Emley Moor as my transmitter, but as some TVs run on a first come first served basis I might get Emley's channels relegated to the 800s when I retune.
My aerial is a B group rather than K or A, (and is pointing at Emley) so that should help filter out Bilsdale. We'll see tomorrow when DSO stage 1 is complete. Watching Bilsdale right now, 23:50 BBC ONE analogue appears to have gone off-air. I thought it was BBC TWO that was supposed to go off for DSO1? All analogue channels from Bilsdale now off except for BBC TWO. Not sure what they're doing; it's as if they think it's DSO2 and have turned off the wrong transmitters! I receive all the Freeview multiplexes from Emley Moor and am quite happy with that. From 6am I checked and Bilsdale analogue 1, 3, 4, and 5 have come back on. I also retuned my Freeview TV and it picked up the new BBCA Mux from Bilsdale, putting its channels in the 800s. Emley Moor's channels remained on their normal numbers.
The signal from Bilsdale is viewable, but the quality is very low and I get occasional blockiness or freezing on it. Still, I can sort of choose between regions for BBC News now. Well that's it, the end of analogue from Bilsdale.
BBC1 went off first at around 11:30pm, just after the programme finished. No warning, announcement or ceremonial closedown as far as I can tell. Just after midnight Channel 4 went off, quickly followed by ITV1. Again, no warning or closedown - just the 'analogue will cease at midnight' caption.
Finally Channel 5 went off at 00:05, with no warning or anything. Here in Leeds I can get a decent signal on the BBCA Mux, but none of the other muxes are of a good enough quality for the TV to pick up. Guess no ITV1 Tyne Tees for me. 
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