All posts by Norm De Plume
Below are all of Norm De Plume's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Apologies for the typo, the Linux config file should be
T 634000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 658000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 738000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 698000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 2k 1/32 NONE
T 706000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
(Note the 2k value for C49)
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@Elaine Fuller
In the Ipswich area, you get similar powers from Tacolneston and Sudbury and the aerials are often pointed depending on geography and the positions of local trees, so what you are saying isn't a big surprise.
Your problems could still be cured by improving your aerial setup.
Firstly, the leads from wall sockets to the TV can make a big difference and are the simplest to fix. If you replace cheap leads with good quality double-shielded cable and decent connectors, that can often make the difference between a borderline digital signal and something that's viewable.
If that doesn't sort out your system, the next thing to bear in mind is that you probably have one aerial and yet you have at least 2 TV connections. If the splitting is carried out with a cheap connection, that will also cause problems. The best type of splitter is called a 'diplexer' and should be labelled that way. Unfortunately, such things are often buried away in the loft/airing cupboard/floorboards, so it may take a bit more time to find out.
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Hello Elaine,
It sounds like the splitting is done at the aerial.
Do you know if any power needs to be sent to the aerial from a box of tricks somewhere or one of the receivers? If so, you might have an amplifier on the aerial, so the splitting would be electrically of a good quality. Unfortunately, if not, it could well be that the wires are both just joined together at the aerial and that will lead to a lower quality signal. The reason that I suspect the aerial installation is because the Humax is giving problems - Humaxes should give you a good picture but if there's something wrong with the wiring, that would lead to unexplained results.
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Mark: first, plug your FULL postcode into the predictor on the top right of this webpage. After that, please provide your postcode when requesting advice about reception.
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Emily Dumas: Before you do anything, try the digibox in one of the other rooms attached to one of the other TVs and one of the other TVs on the cable for the digibox. If the problem stays with the room then it would be a wiring issue. If the problem stays with the digibox, then you might want to consider changing it, but please read on first.
Yes, the power of the weaker signals will be improved over the next year as other areas are upgraded (COM5 and COM6 in particular) but it may be that your digibox just cannot cope with the increased power from the other much stronger signals which now swamps the weaker ones.
Do the other TVs show a very healthy signal level, saying something like 100%? If that is the case, the solution is to weaken the signal to the digibox using a small device called an attenuator.
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buckers24 - if you have a 9200T, try a firmware update as older firmwares don't like a mixture of transmission modes (which is what we have on Sudbury)
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Buckers - ignore my previous post about the 9200T, it was meant for Russ
Russ - check out this page about some boxes that have trouble receiving multiple modes: TVs and boxes that do not support the 8k-mode | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice (IP142JJ)
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Neil, in November, as part of the switchover for Tacolneston transmitter (the next one North of Sudbury) the carrier on Sudbury for Film4 etc. was moved to a higher frequency. This frequency, is difficult to receive for many aerials and receivers and, just to put the tin lid on it, the power is also very low. The reason that the power is low is so that it doesn't interfere with the Dover area.
Once Dover have finished their switchover, on 27th June 2012, a different frequency will be allocated which is both easier to receive and the power will go up to the full level.
So, you have a quandry - either put up with missing channels for the next 6 months, or invest money in upgrading your system, despite the fact that you've probably already had to do that once already.
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Sunday 24 July 2011 12:02AM
For Linux users, if you are scanning for channels try using the following in the configuration file for uk-Sudbury
T 634000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 658000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 738000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 698000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
T 706000000 8MHz 2/3 NONE QAM64 8k 1/32 NONE
MythTV refused to scan properly for ArqA and ArqB so they refused to lock, but once I seeded the scanning process with the above, everything was fine and I could generate my own channels.conf file.