All posts by Paul
Below are all of Paul's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Dave: I would suggest going to bed. It takes a few hours to complete the necessary work on the transmitter. In the meantime, all freeview channels except the BBC channels will be off the air. Digital UK says that the work will be completed by 6am.
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Graeme: It sounds like you have a group A ariel (Craigkelly was a group A area prior to DSO). A group A ariel will not pick up channels 39, 42 and 45. You need a K group or wideband ariel to pick up these channels (see the illustration above showing the different coloured bars for the different ariel groups). Unfortunately, anyone viewing Craigkelly using a group A ariel will actually have less channels than before DSO.
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Graeme: Sorry, I didn't read your post about receiving channels outside group A previously.
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Colin Brown: There are other transmitters nearby which use other channels in Group A.
For example, the Durris transmitter to the north in Aberdeenshire uses channels 22, 23, 25, 26, 28 and 29. Craigkelly therefore cannot use these channels otherwise there would be interference.
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Colin Brown: I can only assume that if Craigkelly swapped a channel with Durris, there would be a clash with another transmitter.
I agree that Digital UK has provided poor information on the Craigkelly DSO. I think a lot of us could see this coming. In their adverts, they kept saying that people would receive more channels after DSO but failed to mention that a lot of people would need to replace their group A aerial with a wideband aerial for this to be the case. Naturally, a lot of people are now asking why they have now lost channels.
As you say, aerial installers in Edinburgh will be laughing as they exploit this confusion.
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Briantist: Apologies for making this really fussy point but the "More Info" box under the map at the top of this page says that a WH aerial is required. Shouldn't this now be an AH aerial following Wednesday's retune?
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John Loveday: Refer to previous comments by Mike Dimmick. The COM multiplexes on Durris (ArqA, ArqB and SDN) moved on the 15th June to channels 23, 26 and 29 respectively. Unfortunately, the Knockmore transmitter to the north west of Oldmeldrum transmits the PSB multiplexes on these channels and so is probably causing interference.
You haven't given a postcode so I don't know exactly where you are however I would have thought that the Durris transmitter would have given you a much stronger signal than Knockmore. It's closer and radiates at a much higher power. I know that the reception of the COM muxes in Aberdeen has improved dramatically since the 15th (some channels that were virtually unwatchable are now perfect) so there definitely has been a large increase in power.
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Jim Graves: The muxes are now all being transmitted at their final power levels. There will be no further power increases.
To cut a long story short, digital signals will provide perfect picture and sound quality at much weaker strengths compared to analogue signals.
Analogue quality degrades as the signal noise increases. This is not the case with digital transmissions. The reception quality remains the same as signal noise increases up to a point in which the reception effectively falls apart rapidly. This means that a lower signal to noise ratio is required for good digital reception. In other words, the signal doesn't need to be as strong.
The power levels of the PSB muxes (100kW in the case of Durris) have been set to provide the same coverage as the old analogue signals. If you could receive the old analogue channels, then you should be able to receive muxes BBCA, BBCB (if you have an HD freeview receiver) and D3+4.
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I would prefer to have a quarter screen BBC Parliament over the loss of the radio stations. It would be interesting to see the viewing figures for BBC Parliament. It should be prescribed by doctors as a cure for insomnia.
I don't want to sound arrogant or disrespectful to Gaelic speakers but is there really a requirement to broadcast BBC Alba across Scotland. Only 1.2% of Scots speak the language (2001 census) and from the link below, it can be seen that it is mainly spoken towards the west of the country.
File:ScotlandGaelicSpeakers2001.gif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I live in the east of Scotland and as far as I'm aware, Gaelic was never widely spoken here if at all. Why can't BBC Alba just be broadcast in the areas where Gaelic speakers are concentrated? I have a feeling that the roll out across the country was to allow self righteous people at the BBC to claim that they are single-handedly saving a language.
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Tuesday 7 June 2011 10:45PM
Aaron: According to Digital UK there is a fault on the Craigkelly Transmitter which is affecting digital TV services. This is not related to the switchover and they are working to resolve it.