All posts by Terry Hall
Below are all of Terry Hall 's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
jb38: Thank you for your response and advice. I have now tried an attenuator, turning it down until even non HD channels drop out, but no success with HD. I have also used a separate 5mtr HDMI cable, well away from the aerial cable, but this has not improved signal strength on CH50. The signal strength on the other five transponders are between 80% & 100%. The CH50 signal strength as measured on the PVR, constantly varies between 60% & zero. It just rapidly fluctuates. The received signal, measured at the aerial is 76db.
Kind regards
Terry
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jb38: I have now solved the issue of poor or no reception of HD channels on ch50 from Tacolneston. Hopefully this may help someone else. I first reset my HD reveiver box which forced me to retune all channels. I selected manual mode so that I could select just ch50 (HD channels). Everything was perfect with full signal strength on all HD channels. The problem returned when I also tuned the remaining channels. The offender being ch55. For some reason, Tacolneston is broadcasting some of the HD channels on ch55 as well as ch50. This may not be an issue on all receivers, but on my TVonics PVR-HDR500 it caused my HD channels on ch50 to constantly drop out. I reset the box again and retunes using only channels 31,37,39,42,45,50 & 59. By leaving out ch55, everything is perfect. If I had allowed autotune it would have included ch55. The only channels of significance that I have lost by not tuning ch55 is BBBC1 & BBC2 non HD. Which is of no loss to me.
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jb38: Thank you for the reply and suggestions. I should have clarified that the aerial fitters reading of 76db was at the aerial not the cable end. Although the very highest grade of coax was used, I doubt it would be 76db at the cable end. After a successful retune with all channels at near max strength, I then spent some considerable time re-ordering the channel list. This is quite a lengthy and time consuming task on the DTR-HD500. I am therefore reluctant to carry out any further testing, as the only channels I have missing are BBC1 & BBC2 non-hd. My main aim has been to restore all HD channels which has now been achived. But I would like to thank you for your interest and taking the time to respond.
Kind regards
Terry Hall
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jb38: Great call on the attenuator. although I was somewhat reluctant to retune again, I have now done so for a couple of reasons. Mainly because of experiencing some spurious pixelation on HD channels. Not the kind that you would normally associate with drop out due to poor signal, as the signal remained constant. And nothing I have ever experienced before. I now believe that this is due to my received signal being to strong for my Tvonics receiver as you suggested it might be. The other reason was the loss of BBC regional news coverage. So I reset the receiver and retuned to Tacolneston channels 31,37,39,42,45,50,55 & 59 after inserting a fixed 6db attenuator. Problem solved and all channels excellent. Signal strength as measured by the receiver is still very high on all channels apart from a slight drop on ch59. So sincere thanks for your suggestions and encouraging me to look at it again.
Apart from too high a signal strength, I believe I have now got to the bottom of what has been causing an issue for some time, and may be of some help to other users in some parts of Lowestoft. I live at one of the highest parts Lowestoft and my aerial points near enough west towards Tacolneston. Directly east about 1/2 mile away is the Lowestoft local transmitter on the college. When I tried to tune Tacolneston ch55, the available programs list also showed 4HD channels that I had already tuned on ch50. I stupidly beleived that these were being transmitted from Tacolneston. I now believe that these were picked up on the back end of my aerial on ch56 from the nearby Lowestoft transmitter. It would appear that the 6db attenuation is just enough to prevent this from happening and also enough to prevent the receiver overload on my HD channels. I'm sure other people in my area must be having similar issues. Especially if they allow their receivers to auto tune, which will just pick up everything. So thanks again for all your help and advice.
Kind regards
Terry Hall
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jb38: The aerial wad replaced due to the constant drop out on HD channels, which I incorrectly attributed to poor reception. I opted for the Labgear LAB450T partly for it's high gain, but also for it's wide bandwidth in the hope that this will avoid any future changes when the 700mhz band dissappears. My postcode is NR32 2RA. Living in the elevated area that I do, and taking into account the fact that East Anglia is fairly, I would assume a reasonable line of sight to Tacolneston. Hope this helps.
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jb38: I appear to have just responded to a post by you dated last Wednesday. I have only just come across it so it's no longer relevant so please ignore it. Apologies for any confusion.
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Monday 14 November 2016 5:53PM
Recently my signal strength on CH50 from the Tacolneston transmitter varies between weak and absent. All 5 of the other channels register almost 100%. Today I have had a new Labgear LAB450T high gain aerial fitted on a mast clamped to the chimney breast. I live at one of the highest points in Lowestoft, where reception is generally very good. My aerial is fed directly to a TVonics DTR HD-500 PVR. This is connected to the TV via high quality HDMI cable. I don't have any devices that output a UHF signal. I have manually tuned the receiver to avoid picking up any channels from thenearby local transmitter at Lowestoft College. The new aerial has 4G filtering so this rules out any issues there. I don't know what more I can do. Is anyone else having the same problem or know of any reason for this.