All posts by Nick Burleigh
Below are all of Nick Burleigh 's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Dear jb38, Thank you for your help. The postcode areas where reports to us have come from are:
TQ2 5UX, TQ2 5TA, TQ2 5TD, TQ2 5SZ, TQ2 5NB, TQ2 5TL, TQ2 5SR, TQ2 5NQ, TQ2 5NA.
There is a clear line of sight from some properties to the transmitter sited on top of an apartment block about 0.1 miles away. The issue about trees has been looked in to before. One resident who called in an aerial expert fitted an attenuator in case the problem was down to signal overload where they lived. It didn't solve the problem either.
One of the most qualified aerial fitters in Torbay, Jim Fraser of Jim's Aerials, Torbay has attended the television sets of many complainants across the area and taken readings using meters. He reports that in his professional opinion the problem is clearly down to a fault at the transmitter. It was first noticed after a huge storm that even damaged a main railway line in the locality during February 2013.
He has been most helpful and has left messages with a company called Arqiva who own the transmitter, but they never respond to his calls!!
Jim Fraser has the contract to look after the aerial and satellite system in the block of flats where the transmitter is sited and has asked the Managers of this building to tell if Arqiva request access to their transmitter on the roof space, just to see if they are doing anything about his calls.
We have been round the houses for so long now and people have been forced to sign up to the cable service operated by Virgin media just to get reliable tv. This is particularly unfair to older people, those with second homes or holiday flatswho just want basic freeview tv and the Torquay transmitter met their needs perfectly.
In analogue days we had excellent reception, even using an indoor or set top aerial pointing to the Torquay town transmitter that opened in the mid eighties when rediffusion announced the closure of their old cable system. It went digital around 2009/10
Hopefully we can find some way of getting hold of the people responsible for this transmitter so they can get it fixed for the local commmunity I work for.
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Dear jb38,
Thank you for your reply.
You have certainly done a lot of work to offer a possible solution and that is much appreciated.
I have a photograph that was taken when the Managers of some flats in the area had an aerial firm round trying to sort out the problem for their tenants in 2014 and the guy asked me how many other people had problems with reception and asked for access to take the pic from. It shows their communal aerial on the building and the transmitter. If you are interested I could send it you to confirm or deny your theory about trees.
But I will need an email address as I can't copy and paste a snip or pic on to this form
regards,
Nick
Melville Hill Community Group
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Thanks for the support from this site following reports about intermittent loss of reception on freeview for residents using the Torquay town centre relay transmitting sration in Devon. After two years of residents loosing their favourite shows in wet and windy the problem has been resolved. This happened because over the new year a local resident who has holiday accommodation managed to get through by telephone call to some on call engineers. The engineers agreed to look at the ailing transmitter. They didn't make excuses like all the other staff that the problem was to do with everybody using faulty aerials or had trees in the way. The engineers agreed there were problems with their transmitting system. A few days later the transmitter went off for a few hours one afternoon. It came back on about 6pm and ever since then no one has complained. It proves that communication between people who rely on small tv stations covering just a few roads or local district has much to be desired since the digital revolution.
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Thursday 12 November 2015 9:53PM
Is anyone able to tell me how you can report a fault at a television transmitter and be taken seriously
?
I work for a community association and residents who use freeview are served by a small relay called Torquay Town transmitter. In windy weather we get flooded with calls because residents complain that all the channels start to break up and does not return until the weather calms.
This started three years ago.
Viewers in the area have gone to the expense of getting new aerials and cable fitted that doesn't solve the problem as recommended by people offering reception advice. Some people have signed up to pay tv from Virgin cable as the conservation area restricts the use of freesat.
A retirement block even went to the expense of getting planning permission to erect a structure on the building capable of supporting a large aerial and high enough for it to get the reception from a neighbouring transmitter that works properly. Is it really impossible to get those who look after this transmitter to sort out the problems for people
Any advice would be greatly received.