All posts by brendan c
Below are all of brendan c's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
I am pretty sure my recent problems were due to 4G it was clear the interference was from a digital signal anyway, at least IMO, I could 'see' what look like digital data.
I have since switched transmitter away from the Nottingham one I was on to the Waltham one I am on now, I did have some interference on that too initially but it seems to have gone now.
I have not checked if Nottingham still has the problem.
If it is the aerial/wiring, it is quite difficult to explain how it would affect one mux more than another.
4G might be able to do that more easily I expect?
Anita may already have had a weak signal, she needed a booster previously (as did I, indeed I had a booster and the loft and and second one in the room the TV's were in).
We don't know the aerial she has either.
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Also perhaps like me she has a mobile transmitter mast close to line of sight of the transmitter as I did ( until I switched transmitter). I have one about 800 meters away and it is only about 25 degrees off direct line od sight.
Anyway there is an article about 4G interference here
Ofcom moves to protect Freeview interference from 4G mobile devices | 4G-at-800 | ukfree.tv - 11 years of independent, free digital TV advice
"The frequencies used for the DTT services being received, with those on the adjacent C60 being worst, C52 to C59 second worst and those on lower frequencies having the best chance of avoiding interference. "
My problems were on C52 mainly, Anita missing mux is C43 (BBC mux) which is not listed as one of those to be worst affected Her muxes range from C39-C46 so you might expect her to lose C46 which is the main ITV (ITV1 Chanel 4 Channel 5) mux first before BBC.
However it may not be as simple as that.
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Thanks Mike, I thoght they might have boosted the power on the higher frequency muxes as I believed those signals do not travel so well, however after a careful look one on the low frequency signals is also high powered so it is indeed as you say the PSB one which are boosted, presumably because public service broadcasts are considered more important, no least because you actually pay for them!
I have no need to connect the Nottingham transmitter now because I get all the muxes with no bit level errors apart form COM6 which has an error level of typically 80, however there are no visible problems on the picture,
the only way I knew there were any errors was by looking at the signal info. Furthermore I am pretty sure the reception on that mux is even worse on Nottingham!
I think in the past I have managed to connect two aerial successfully just by twisting the cores and shielding together. That was before I had a booster in the loft, I found I could pick up some signals on my external aerial ( which was not wide band) which I could not get on the loft aerial.
I seem to remember the tuning on that was rather tricky, I vaguely remember having to unplug the aerial at the right time to avoid picking up the wrong signal! (I don't think I had the ability to selectively tune specific channels) separately.
Also it is much better on Waltham as I can simply lay the aerial on the insulation and get all the muxes (the signal is horizontal unlike Nottingham whcih is horizontal). The Nottingham one is precariously mounted high in the loft, if it was as low as the Waltham one I would probably lose a few muxes, it is also rather obtrusive in my small loft so I plan on removing it completely.
I could get a better signal if I moved the Waltham aerial higher, but there is not point really as there would be no visible improvement and it would be obtrusive.
Note I combined the two aerials, I didn't switch between the two, and they were pointing at different tranmitters.
At one point I did try having both aerials pointing at the same transmitter to 'double' the signal strength but that was the failure a professional aerial fitter told me it would be!! ( I still gave it a go though lol). I thought if I got the cable lengths exactly the same it might work but it was completely hopeless, couldn't get anything at all.
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HI I have been getting interference recently, these last few days, it has been bad on sky news mux com 5 it is intermittent but kind of unwatchable, I am now watching online as I am a sky news addict
BBC 1 news psb 1 is a lot better but I get a bit of interference on it, it has always been strongest mux for me really. ITV 1, PSB2 is OK well similar to PSB1, i get a bit of interference.
ITV3 (com4) seems good but it likely same as my other good one.
But main issue is COM5 too much interference for it to be comfortably to watch, it is kind of intermittent though
like electrical interference maybe from mobile comms, 4G and all that stuff.
It varies a bit right now it is OK. 5 bar strength, but earlier it was just 2, BBC 1 is 6-7 bar.
It does look like interference...........
However I tweaked my aerial (which is in the loft) and that has improved things considerably, ie
it is 7 out of 10 bars, bbc 1 is 9 out of 10..
So the tweak, just lifting the aerial a bit off the loft insulation gave me an extra 2 bars it seems.
So seems this post was a false alarm but I will leave it just incase the problem returns :O)
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Hi I have there lost com5 Arq A, the Sky News and Dave mux, I had been getting interference on it the last few
day but now tonight, it has gone completely, I guess it is the weather and will be back soon? I hope so!
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Hi Mike, that mux has always been the weakest one for me and I occasionally get some interference on it, at the moment I have variable levels of blocking but I have sound, sometime broken, earlier today I had no signal it varies a bit. One every year of so it is a bit problematic for about a week or so. All the other muxes are fine really.
Interesting I just tried it via a DVB USB stick connected to my PC and it is fine, good picture and sound.
The signal level is about 2 bars, it is 6-7 on the BBC mux though.
Oddly perhaps if I put the cable that was in the USB stick and connect it my TV (via PVR thing) I get no signal.
So it seems that older TV is not good at picking up the signal....
....actually right now I have a good picture back, not too sure why, maybe the signal improved a bit or there is less electrical noise at 1.35am. I just checked the signal level via my DVB stick and it was 3 bars, so that is up a bar.
So seems OK at the moment maybe the weather conditions improved a bit more and I am past the worst.
I will see how it is tomorrow during the day when there is likely to be more electric noise from traffic or whatever, but fine at the moment, touch wood!! That mux has always been just good enough, hope it stays that way as I watch Sky News on it 80% of the time!
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Mike, well I solid pictures via all 3 of my tuners, TV, recorder, and USB DVB earlier today, then I messed about a bit with the cables and hard a touch of interference.
Anyhow I think it is the cable more so than the tuner which is key, I used to have the longest cable to the USB DVD stick as I assumed it would be the worst as it is 3-4 maybe 5 times longer than my other cables, however careful testing shows it is the best and noticeably the best.
That cable now goes direct to my TV as that is the most used tuner so that seems sensible.
I should explain I have a booster in the loft and then another booster/splitter down stairs giving me two out puts, one goes to the TV via the best cable, the second goes to the TV recorder, and the feed through signal from that goes to the USB stick (which is rarely used) seems to be the best setup.
Anyhow it is a confusing picture, changing all the time, I lost picture on al three tuner, I have a bad signal back on one at the moment, so it is changing even as I write and of course if is hard to know if fiddling with cables helps or not or whether signal condition or interference changed.
I will try to resist fiddling with the cable for a while to remove that as a variable and see if I get an improvement over time.
It is showing a signal strength of 77 at the moment which is quite high, but I have interference, earlier I was getting a good picture at 71 or 72 so I think it is electrical interference maybe from traffic or whatever, could be other sources. Oh I just noticed I has a picture on the Nottingham BBC for a while on my DVB, it has stopped now though.
However it could still be the USB stick has the best receiver, I just noticed it has two BBC1's, one must be from the Nottingham ham transmitter, I was getting a picture on it earlier ( I think) but now I get nothing, but obviously it was picked up when tuning.
Anyhow it is a confusing picture......BUT... I have just been up in the loft and moved the aerial a bit and I LOST ALL SIGNALS!!!
I though maybe I have caused a short circuit and damaged by TV or boosters, turn out the connector to the 4G filter and slipped out, much to my relieve as I got a picture when I reconnected.
I can't see the TV but I put the sound on live and wave the aerial untill I hear clear voice.
I have it kind of resting on something (water overflow tank I think) and it is pointing up at about 25 degrees!!
However I have a good picture, signal strength is 81 and bit error level is down to 140 ish (I and get a picture at 2000 the max it goes up to).
So.... seems to be OK now back to a picture in a 3 recievers, indeed the DVB one is 3 bar, max before was 2 bar.
So that seems to be a significant improvement all round.
Everything has improved, however I seem to have lost the Nottingham transmitter altogether now, but that is hardly surpising and I do not want it anyway, I think it is being switch off on 31st Mar 2018- according to..
Which Freeview channels does the Nottingham transmitter broadcast? that is how it looks to me anyway.
Anyhow unless it was pure coincidence it looks like O have solved my problems, I seem to have a significant improvement in signal.
Hope it stays that way!
I just retuned and picked up Notts TV clear as a bell, which I didn't get before, pleased about that, also I think I piked up com 6, not sure if I had that before, indeed it is a bit noisy so I guess I didn't have it recently, I maybe be able to get it better with more careful aeriall tweaking however I am not too fussed about it, so long as I have a good Sky News I am happy.
So I have quite an improvement, I maybe able to get it a bit better but at the moment it is probably as good as it has ever been, I will have to see how it goes for a while.
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Tweaked the aerial a bit, signal up to 90, bit error down to single figures sometimes always sub 30 avg 10ish.
Very good sharp picture on Sky New and indeed now on COM6 basically the whole lot, I seem to have lost Notts
TV so I tied it online and it says it is not broadcasting so I should have that too when it come back on air. So all seems well.
Thanks for your input Mike, very helpful, seems the aerial position was most crucial more so than cables etc..
Sky News is up from 2 bar to 7 bar on my USB DVB stick, quite an improvement and nothing to do with the weather.
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Tuesday 27 May 2014 9:13PM
Also Anita can you see your aerial? Does it look OK?
I say that but anything affecting the aerial would affect all your channel pretty similarly, indeed your muxes are all quite close together on the radio frequency spectrum, which if why you can have a grouped aerial (yours is group B) which is specifically designed to pick up a narrow range of signals, mine is a wideband aerial as my signals are much more spread out.
Do you know if any other people in the area are getting problems?
I think as I have said it could be 4G interference, you can probably tell if it is if the big interference squares have a checkered pattern inside them. It was intermittent at times on mine but at other times it would wipe the picture out totally, and as I said if you retune then your TV will think there is no signal there and not look there again until you retune when the reception is good.