All posts by LesG
Below are all of LesG's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Thanks to David and FJC Farrar for some useful input. As an update to my situation issues have continued. It starts to look as if its mainly happening during morning TV, then clears for the afternoon and early/ peak evening, then starts again after about midnight or 1 a.m. As an ex IT systems person this looks suspiciously like scheduled work to minimise the disruption to (presumed) main viewers. Not much use if you are a shift worker, or (like me) record stuff on BBC3 and 4 in the early hours. I agree with David that we should raise this wherever possible. I have written to Watchdog, BBC reception and Digital UK. The BBC have trotted out the usual "help" and I have contacted Digital UK on their advice. I have been given a case number by the Beeb at least and will follow up with them depending on the DigitalUK response. I am not expecting much comeback, but I feel I should follow all avenues before escalating further. The irony is that all the engineering reports talk of weaker signals on analogue BBC 1 and 2, but mine (on my old Panasonic CRT TV) have never seemed better!
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L
Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) Full Freeview transmitSaturday 10 March 2012 12:43PM
Reading
Apologies to FJC Farrar for not answering your query of 5th March sooner. The reason for using Crystal Palace is that we have always had London programmes since moving into the house more than twenty years ago, and have tended to prefer them over BBC South/Meridian. I don't want the expense of having the aerial realigned at this stage.
We are geographically in an area that sits west of London, south of what used to be Midlands and north of South (if you get my meaning). On BBC digital text news it is not unusual to see stories from all areas in BBC South and London coverage.
As far as signal strength is concerned we have always been able to receive analogue and digital channels without a problem until the end of this February. We actually receive more channels than the Digital UK or Freeview predictor suggests.
Which brings me to a new gripe - when I started using this site you were "assigned" a transmitter and region based on postcode, but you could change it to the transmitter you actually pick up. Now it seems I am automatically "forced" in a link to Hannington when I come into the site, and there seems no way to change it!
Further to my ongoing reception issues. I went back to Digital UK and asked them to reconsider their response as they had ignored that I said I was getting London programmes - again they had just looked at the postcode checker and came up with Hannington. Again they everything was "normal" with Crystal Palace but at least they offered more advice (most of which I had tried previously without success). I am now going to go back to the BBC with my case number and report that what they had suggested had not helped, and ask why they are not taking my complaint more seriously (I will restrict my channel problems to BBC as they say they are only responsible for those). Given that they are supposed to be acting for Ofcom, they don't seem to be making a good job of it at present.
I agree that this would be easier to bear if the expectation had been set that things would get worse before they get better!
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L
Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) Full Freeview transmitThursday 19 April 2012 1:44AM
Reading
Some observations on Wednesday's switchover in case it gives any solace to the many people encountering tuning problems. I have an old Humax Fox T set top box, which I have normally retuned by deleting all of the TV and radio channel lists (using the Edit Channels function), then doing an auto tune. I did this around 8.15 on Wednesday a.m. and most things appeared fine except for channels in COM6 (Yesterday etc), which were pixellating and losing sporadic sound. I also retuned a Panasonic twin HD tuner PVR about fifteen minutes later. This showed similar problems with COM6, but in addition was not recognising any HD channels. One thing I noticed was that where channels were OK, signal strength was about 64% and quality at 100%. This contrasted to the changes on 4th April where mux PSB1 (theoretically the same maximum output as now) was showing a signal strength of 83%, and quality of 100%.
Another (non HD digital) TV was retuned elsewhere in the house using the same aerial after midday and picked up everything OK. I later then revisited the STB and PVR around 3.30 p.m., following the same processes as before but this time mux COM6 was OK, and all HD was picked up on the PVR. Since then there has been the odd glitch but things are generally OK.
My main observation is that these things seem to take a day or so to settle down, so if you've got something in most of the muxes, follow the good advice in other posts (trawl back and check earlier postings over the last few days if necessary)and try retuning at different times. One thing I also found useful in the past with the Humax box was that deleting all channels, and then switching it off at the mains (it does not have an on/off switch on the unit) seemed to ensure all memory was cleared, ready to be switched back on and retuned.
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My admiration increases more and more for guys such as Briantist, jb38, Mike Dimmick and Dave Lindsay. Apart from their technical knowledge, they must have tremendous patience in helping us mortals deal with these switchover issues especially when they have to keep repeating the same answers!
Further to my post yesterday concerning apparent success with my Humax STB and Panasonic PVR, I encountered a few more glitches today. When I retuned the Panny PVR it had lost the HD channels found yesterday. So I bypassed the old booster from the aerial input, retuned again and Robert's your father's brother! Everything is now received, signal strength is around 60 to 70% and quality is 100%, with not a pixel out of place. Previously I had assumed that my signal could not possible be too high as I live near Reading on the western fringes of the reception area (which is why we had the amplifier to get decent analogue reception). I was wrong, since the booster was obviously having an adverse effect. People really close to Crystal Palace must be able to get their signals without an aerial (well almost)!
So thanks guys, your repeated advice on signals being overloaded or too strong have convinced me!
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L
Crystal Palace (Greater London, England) Full Freeview transmitFriday 27 April 2012 12:03AM
Reading
I had BBCA mux channels breaking up this (Thursday)evening from about 20.10 for about half an hour (don't know the end time for sure as I switched over to BBCB during the period, as BBCA became unwatchable). All other muxes from Crystal Palace were fine. Anyone else have a problem at that time, or know why this could have happened please?
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Friday 2 March 2012 12:59AM
Reading
Since Wednesday 29th Feb 2012 I have had problems with reception at various times of day. All digital channnels bar those in Mux C have suffered extensive or complete picture and sound breakdown for varying periods. My Freeview box shows a general reception strength of about 60% level, but quality of reception varies from 40% for really bad recpetion on most channels to 100% for those in Mux C. I am picking up London in RG4 7LU postcode. Have done all the usual retuning to no avail. Rooftop aerial is OK. Any ideas please?