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digital tv switchover
| blister | 18/08/2011 20:33:53 |
 28 forum posts 3 photos | Oh I get it, we can talk about this crap which has nothing to do with model engineering but we can't talk about 'Gulliver' on this site, to the point where it was suggested that 'Gulliver was told to go somewhere else.
Well moderated David!!
Smells like Hypocracy to me.
Phil |
| David Clark 1 | 18/08/2011 21:07:36 |
 3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Hi Blister
Apart from you no one has complained about this thread.
Whereas Gulliver generated dozens of complaints.
However, I will delete all the posts in this thread except yours so members know why I deleted the posts.
regards David
|
| wotsit | 18/08/2011 21:36:12 |
| 188 forum posts 1 photos | Great - so where is the missing content?. A number of members exchanging information of interest to them, until some miserable Blisterer complains, then suddenly it all disappears. Having just spent an hour putting together a detailed reply to try and help someone, it disappears along with all the other material after 5 minutes. Some days ago I seem to remember some comments in here about a forum being a place to exchange friendly comments and information, then this happens. What is the point of the 'ignore member' facility? Anyone know of any good forums anywhere else where free speech and comment is not deleted with no warning, 'cause that sure aint the case here.? |
| John Coates | 18/08/2011 21:56:24 |
 558 forum posts 28 photos | Jesus David that was so over the top I am genuinely surprised at your reaction
I'd posted about my experience with Freesat HD which I believed contained some useful information and relevant to the topic but now I find it has been the subject of your high handed strop
Obviously we can only talk about stuff that blister finds acceptable
Absolutely appalling and unforgiveable. The worst moderation I have ever experienced in all my years on internet forums
A very pissed off John |
| Rob keeves | 18/08/2011 22:01:25 |
 29 forum posts 5 photos | Humm, 1 thead as opposed to who knows how many, just helping with some good honest free advice. |
| Andrew Johnston | 18/08/2011 22:19:09 |
 7061 forum posts 719 photos | Bizarre, one 'complaint' and the thread gets deleted. Not only that but the complainer has contributed nothing to this forum except sarcasm and whining about free subscription gifts not being available to him. Andrew |
| blister | 18/08/2011 22:40:23 |
28 forum posts 3 photos | wow,
Apologies to all.
David deletes and I get the blame..
You have singled me out beautifully on this one considering I was only making a point and not demanding the thread be erased!
As I said before David, "well moderated"
You have to love a 'knee jerk' reaction
I don't mind taking the fall on this one...someone has to.
Phil
|
| Martin W | 19/08/2011 00:31:38 |
| 940 forum posts 30 photos | Not your fault Blister as was slightly out of the remit of this website. However many people found it informative and it could have saved members money if they were about to be bamboozled by the 'Con Artists', may have been able to afford the subscription for ME or MEW (not shouting) with the money saved. I have seen far worse on this site with personal attacks and backbiting plus personal histories being let run.
By the way there is a link to engineering as the aerials are built to quite tight tolerances with element spacing and length defining optimum working frequency and gain. These are derived from precise mathematical formulae and each type of aerial is ENGINEERED (shouting intended) to meet specific parameters.
Anybody taking bets on how long
 this post will be viewable for  .The Old Scrote Martin
aka
The Wrinkled Retainer |
| Bill Pudney | 19/08/2011 05:08:06 |
| 622 forum posts 24 photos | It's a real shame that despite all the complex engineering involved, the commercial freeview digital channels here in Australia are showing such a load of old, repeated, not at all good, rubbish. Seventeen channels in total, and about twelve channels of digital drivel! Sorry if its OT Bill Pudney |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:41:05 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Hi all
Martin has hit the nail on the head, if you think you require an aerial then pls contact an CAI (Confedration of Aerial Industies) approved installer, who will give good and reliable information. As for the switchover some people may reqire a new aerial due to the channel allocations moving, some aerials are channel banded i.e. 21-36 and this can cause problems, if for instance the BBC multiplex moves to Ch 42 you wont be able to receive the BBC channels. The output power of the transmitters will increse quite a bit when the analogue channels are turned off but if for instace you have what we have at the moment where Oxford TX is still transmitting analogue and Sandy isnt the output power of two multiplexes from sandy are still at reduced power, you may find that your reciver cant receive all the channels untill the other TX has switched off its analogue transmitters. I dont recommend cascading amplifiers all sorts of problems may arise, also a basic amplifier cannot distinguish between signal and noise and amplifi the whole lot together you are very lucky if this works well.
P.S Most aerials sold over the counter these days are wideband and cover the whole spectrum.
i am not employed by the CAI.
16Yrs experiance tho.
Posted By Rob keeves on 17/08/2011 20:11:53. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:41:27 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | The moral is to try your set-top digibox (or brand new digital TV, if you have splashed out) with your existing aerial, before being lured or stampeded into a new one. I''m in South Manchester, with pretty much line of sight to the powerful Winter Hill transmitter about 18 miles away. All my aerials are in the loft, and the old ones have worked fine since changeover a couple of years back.
Another tip - if you have bought a digibox, don''t discard your old video recorder. Take the analogue output from the digibox into the VCR, and thence to the analogue TV. You can then record programs, though you can''t watch one channel while recording another, or do all the fancy tricks which the new digital recorders can manage.
Andy.
Posted By Andyf on 17/08/2011 22:20:14. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:41:55 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Posted by Rob keeves on 17/08/2011 20:11:53:
The output power of the transmitters will increse quite a bit when the analogue channels are turned off but if for instace you have what we have at the moment where Oxford TX is still transmitting analogue and Sandy isnt the output power of two multiplexes from sandy are still at reduced power, you may find that your reciver cant receive all the channels untill the other TX has switched off its analogue transmitters.
Well blow me down; that''s answered a question I had about the changeover, thanks Rob!
I knew that the transmitter power output was supposed to be boosted once all the analogue channels had been switched off. I''m fairly close to Sandy Heath and the reception is worse after the big switchover than before. I couldn''t square that with the supposed power increase; not surprising really since it apparently hasn''t happened yet. Anybody know when it is likely to happen?
Regards,
Andrew
Posted By Andrew Johnston on 17/08/2011 22:34:43. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:42:15 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | I''ve been looking forward to the analogue switchoff with an allegedly increase in DAB transmission power! Handy for 5 live sport in the workshop.
How can you watch TV in a workshop? Shouldn''t you be watching the job?
Derry.
PS just joshing.
Posted By Derry Hincks on 17/08/2011 22:41:31. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:42:41 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Andrew, i like you are fed from sandy here are the dates to look out for:
14th Sept 2011 Arqiva B multiplex (commercal) moves to Ch48 full power
28th Sept 2011 Oxford Analogue switchoff
31st Aug 2011 SDN multiplex (commercal) will move temp to Ch31
23rd Nov 2011 Arqiva A multiplex (commercal) moves to Ch51 full power
18th Apr 2012 SDN multiplex moves to Ch 51 full power
Until 27th June 2012 Digital multiplex 3,4 and HD will be using a temp aerial to transmit on, full power possibly after this date.
Pls note: full power on any multiplex may not be the full 1000KW Avalible and also note that some multiplexes are out of band for older aerials the old ch''s were very close together at the bottom of the fequency spectrum used for tv.
old channels.
21=Ch 4
24=ITV
27=BBC2
31=BBC1
hope this helps
Rob.
Posted By Rob keeves on 17/08/2011 23:23:28. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:43:11 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Hi Rob,
Thanks for the information. Looks like I need to sit tight and wait for things to improve. I had to switch to a broadband antenna when I first got a digital TV (secondhand from a mate who was upgrading). Other than that I don''t watch enough TV to make it worthwhile investing more money. It''s a waste of workshop time!
Regards,
Andrew
Posted By Andrew Johnston on 18/08/2011 09:10:02. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:43:33 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | It''s actually dead easy to install a dish - you don''t need to go through SKY to just get the Freeasat services. Screwfix were doing a Freesat box and dish for under £50 at one time. W.
Posted By WALLACE on 18/08/2011 16:20:19. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:43:53 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Posted by WALLACE on 18/08/2011 16:20:19:
It''s actually dead easy to install a dish - you don''t need to go through SKY to just get the Freeasat services. Screwfix were doing a Freesat box and dish for under £50 at one time. W. And I bought one of the Freesat HD ones for £69. Got a signal quality of 65-70% and it found 200+ channels but once I''d removed the pay for view and the duplicates (several Channel 4''s and BBC for every region) we ended up with 50 channels and no HD (BBC1 or ITV1) so it went back for a refund as it was no better than normal Freeview through the digital telly
Posted By John Coates on 18/08/2011 16:38:44. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:44:14 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Is there an easy way to line the dish to get Sky or Freesat without a meter? The physical installation I understand to be easy, it''s getting the dish pointing the right way that could be the problem, esp. without a meter.
I know the dish has to be aligned both in the correct east/west direction as it were and at an angle to the horizontal, but in which direction and at what angle, and how to do it without a meter?
Chris
PS And I have had to write this again as this website thought I wasn''t logged in when I had just done so. This is getting to be beyond a joke.
Posted By ChrisH on 18/08/2011 17:36:06. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:44:34 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | To install a dish for freesat or sky you need to point the dish 28.2° E with an inclanation of 10° its posibble without a meter but to be honest it would take time and patience, with the Astra satalites there are two bands transmitted, high and low Feq bands these are polarised horizontal and vertical to get all the programs the azimuth has to be pritty well spot on. To add to the problem if you are after freesat than the EPG (electronic programme guide) is transmitted from the Eurobird satalite located 28.5° E whilst its pictures are picked up from the Astra satalites located 28.2° E.
You can get cheep LED type meters from Maplin i dont know how good these are personally but i have heard several people use them with success.
Rob.
Posted By Rob keeves on 18/08/2011 19:53:50. |
| David Clark 1 | 19/08/2011 09:44:51 |
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles | Chris
You can scan the sky but it is a bit needle in a haystack as you need to be within a couple of degrees to get anything. With patience it can be done. Look at the direction and tilt of local dishes to get started. There are a few good websites, googling sky dish direction will find a few. www.satcure.co.uk is not bad. A cheap satmeter is not that useful as you will find loads of other sats but it does give you a clue as to the needed elevation, you then track around the arc of sats in the sky until you find Astra 2 or whatever you want.
For a Sky digibox key Services -4-6 to get the signal strenth and quality indicators, trim the elevation and azimuth to maximise.
As someone who does design, build and evaluate high performance yagi arrays for a hobby, I would advise anyone to suck it and see after the changeover date even if you use a low group antenna and the mpx goes to 42 or whatever. Nearly every TV antenna is very broadband for a yagi, If you get a decent picture AFTER the changeover then goodenough is goodenough.
Billy.
Posted By Billy Mills on 18/08/2011 20:21:54. |
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