TV aerial?

[Adrian]

We've recently moved, to the arse end of nowhere - rural Herefordshire.
Finally, we've got the TV out and plugged it in.

It's the same TV and same (Humax) freeview box we had at the old place,
with no problems. Obviously, it's a different aerial setup, with two
boosters in the bedroom.

With them both turned off, there's 0-10% signal strength, according to
the box's setup.

With (either) one turned on, there's 25-30%.
With both turned on, there's 65-75% signal strength.

I can go through the auto tune, and get the usual hundred or so channels
pop straight up.

BUT.

I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No channels
populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a time/date.
Nothing.

Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

[Adrian]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000, Adrian wrote:

> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?

Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked with
digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Adrian explained on 6/12/2013 :

> BUT.
>
> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No channels
> populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a time/date.
> Nothing.
>
> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

Amps boost both the signal and the background noise, so as you found
strength is not everything. The best place for an amp, is at the
antenna, so it is only working on what the antenna receives rather than
extra noise the cable might pick up and introduce.

If the antenna and cabling looks old, replace it/ mount it higher/
check the correct aim to your local transmitter/s on line, check
whether H or V.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Adrian presented the following explanation :

> Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked with
> digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.

Digital / analogue it is the same so far as the antenna is concerned.
The only difference might be the band/s the antenna needs to cover for
digital.

Have you considered satellite? :D

[Java Jive]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No channels
> populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a time/date.
> Nothing.
>
> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?

You could try putting your postcode or location into my reception
checker. Drop the marker on the Google map onto your aerial location,
and then choose either Find the nearest or Find the likeliest from the
Transmitter choices. Then compare the Signal Profiles to see what may
be obstructing the signal ...

http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/AudioVisualTV/TerrestrialTV/TerrestrialCalculator.php

Also, try the official Digital UK one ...

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/

... (choose detailed view).

> I
> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

Why so anti, one hit you on the head recently? Seriously, you should
consider it. As 4G rolls out, Freesat may be the best option for many
people.

If you don't mind revealing your postcode, might be able to give more
specific advice.
--
=========================================================
Please always reply to ng as the email in this post's
header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/JavaJive.html
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/Macfarlane.html

[Tim+]

Have a look and see what the neighbours have aerial-wise and direction that
they're pointing. If no neighbours, unless you have a head for heights,
get a man in. If your neighbours have freesat, that might be your only
option too.

The fact that you have two amps shows that the system is naff and needs
sorting.

Tim

[charles]

In article <kpak4a$rfh$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

You say there are two boosters in then bedroom. Are you sure? and if you
are, what kind are they? Very likely one is simply a power supply for a
"booster" at the aerial. Possibly that has died - it can easily happen
during a thunderstorm. Or poosibly there's another box which was removed
in error by the removal men.

Why not ask the people from whom you bought the house how they made it all
work? It isn't always easy in "Rural Herefordshire".

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[Chris Bartram]

With the proviso that a very weak analogue signal may still display
*something*, but once a freeview signal drops enough it will just pack
in. Sounds like a fucked or misdirected aerial or duff coax to me.

Are there any neighbours nearby? Take a look where their aerial points.

[Dave Liquorice]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:23:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

>> I don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.
>
> Why so anti, one hit you on the head recently? Seriously, you should
> consider it.

A snob? Remembers the time when dishes where only to be found on
council sink estates...

> As 4G rolls out, Freesat may be the best option for many people.

4G aside Freesat gives better quality pictures and more choice than
Freeview. I've yet to watch any Freeview without the 'orrible
compression artifacts being noticable enough to be annoying.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[polygonum]

If it really is the outer sticks, then maybe you could put a dish
somewhere other than slapped on the side of the house? E.g. on a plinth
behind a hedge.

--
Rod

[Bill Wright]

Adrian wrote:

> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

Try a full re-tune (or factory default reset).
Next, if you can discover which cable comes from the aerial to the first
amp, you could connect that cable directly into the TV and see what you
receive (having re-tuned again). However the first 'amp' is likely not
to be an amp but a power supply unit for an amp that's up on the aerial
or in the loft. So try feeding the telly from the output of that
'amp'/PSU. It could be that the second amp has a (common) fault whereby
it 'appears' to work but mangles the data.
It's unlikely that the aerial will be producing absolutely no signals,
so if all this fails I'm guessing the aerial is disconnected in some way.

Bill

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 12/06/13 21:02, Adrian wrote:
> We've recently moved, to the arse end of nowhere - rural Herefordshire.
> Finally, we've got the TV out and plugged it in.
>
> It's the same TV and same (Humax) freeview box we had at the old place,
> with no problems. Obviously, it's a different aerial setup, with two
> boosters in the bedroom.
>
> With them both turned off, there's 0-10% signal strength, according to
> the box's setup.
>
> With (either) one turned on, there's 25-30%.
> With both turned on, there's 65-75% signal strength.

rihght so uou have boosted the noise up to a good level.

> I can go through the auto tune, and get the usual hundred or so channels
> pop straight up.

odd.

> BUT.
>
> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No channels
> populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a time/date.
> Nothing.

hang on you said it found 100 channels?.

> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

[Martin Brown]

On 12/06/2013 21:02, Adrian wrote:
> We've recently moved, to the arse end of nowhere - rural Herefordshire.
> Finally, we've got the TV out and plugged it in.
>
> It's the same TV and same (Humax) freeview box we had at the old place,
> with no problems. Obviously, it's a different aerial setup, with two
> boosters in the bedroom.

First thing to do is isolate the original aerial downfeed from all other
existing wiring and try the TV plugged directly into that.

Do you mean there are two amplifiers as splitters feeding extra output
circuits or a chain of two amplifiers in the coax downlead to the TV?

There might be a masthead amplifier too that is no longer being powered.
(that would be the right way to do it in a borderline signal zone)

> With them both turned off, there's 0-10% signal strength, according to
> the box's setup.
>
> With (either) one turned on, there's 25-30%.
> With both turned on, there's 65-75% signal strength.
>
> I can go through the auto tune, and get the usual hundred or so channels
> pop straight up.
>
> BUT.
>
> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No channels
> populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a time/date.
> Nothing.

Interesting that there is enough for the tuner to decode the rough
channel titles during tuning setup but not the content later. Enabling
whatever engineering mode it has to watch tuning quality and any error
stats it offers might shed some light.

I'd be inclined to borrow a known to be good small digital TV set or buy
one of the cheap PC USB digital tuners and retest the aerial with that
and a PC. They usually come with a small aerial of their own and that
might shed some light on how poor the signal really is. Cheapest and
nastiest on offer for under £20 ought to do it eg.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/August-DVB-T205-Freeview-Tuner-Stick/dp/B002EHVP9C/ref=pd_cp_computers_0

£50 would get you one that also does HDTV.

My parents home behind a high cliff is so radio quiet for UHF that all
TV aerials are on 20' poles. This makes the neighbourhood look really
silly now since most owners have abandonned terrestrial and the fixings
have failed leaving these contraptions high up there high above chimneys
and at rakish angles. The odd one falling down completely.

I expect silly wiring by the previous owner to be a root cause of your
problems. Digital by it's very nature is all or nothing, but usually if
you have >50% signal indicated you get a picture that looks like Picasso
having a bad cubist day and painful ultrasonic clicks on the audio
rather than a completely blank screen and no sound. Comet used to
specialise in having their TVs on display in this state.

Maybe the Humax is smart enough to blank unacceptably bad video or is
just not all that sensitive compared to the modern tuners.

>
> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

Why not? £50 will get you a freesat dish with more HD channels and a
better broadcast signal quality. You don't have to faff around attaching
it to the chimney - it can go out of sight against a wall that faces
East and has a clear line of sight to the sky. Mine is all but
invisible. I took down the old analogue TV aerial last year.

It will probably cost you a lot less than having a TV engineer in to
replace whatever poxy UHF aerial is presently stuck on your chimney with
a longer higher gain even more ugly and brutal one.

It is highly unlikely that the TV aerial can't get any of the channels
it sees at all so there must be something more fundamental wrong.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Adrian]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:19:23 +0100, Harry Bloomfield wrote:

> If the antenna and cabling looks old

The cabling looks new and looks to have been done well. I've not been up
a ladder to the aerial. Yet. But from what I've seen from the ground, it
doesn't look as ancient and shite as many.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:47:19 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

> Try a full re-tune (or factory default reset).

Did that. It found all the channels.

> Next, if you can discover which cable comes from the aerial to the first
> amp, you could connect that cable directly into the TV and see what you
> receive (having re-tuned again). However the first 'amp' is likely not
> to be an amp but a power supply unit for an amp that's up on the aerial
> or in the loft.

No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.

Neither - 0-10%
One - ~25%
Both - 65-75%

Just no signal quality.

I'll have a rummage to see if I can get the aerial to connect directly -
but the bit that comes out the wall is cut-to-length.

[harry]

I live in Herefordshire. The problem is hills. The local TV mast is
at Much Marcle. Failing that it's look NE (towards Birmingham.)
Polarising is horizontal.
Best solution is Freesat but slightly different channels to Freeview.

Analogue shut down round here about two years ago.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 04:32:14 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No
>> channels populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a
>> time/date. Nothing.

> hang on you said it found 100 channels?.

Yep. But there's nothing shows in the EPG, and it says "No signal" if you
choose any channel.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:03:53 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

> Do you mean there are two amplifiers as splitters feeding extra output
> circuits or a chain of two amplifiers in the coax downlead to the TV?

A chain or two amps.

> Interesting that there is enough for the tuner to decode the rough
> channel titles during tuning setup but not the content later. Enabling
> whatever engineering mode it has to watch tuning quality and any error
> stats it offers might shed some light.

I've not found anything in the menu, but I'll rummage again.

> I'd be inclined to borrow a known to be good small digital TV set or buy
> one of the cheap PC USB digital tuners and retest the aerial with that
> and a PC. They usually come with a small aerial of their own and that
> might shed some light on how poor the signal really is. Cheapest and
> nastiest on offer for under £20 ought to do it eg.
>
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/August-DVB-T205-Freeview-Tuner-Stick/dp/
B002EHVP9C/ref=pd_cp_computers_0

Interesting. Might try that.

>> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
>> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

> Why not? £50 will get you a freesat dish with more HD channels and a
> better broadcast signal quality. You don't have to faff around attaching
> it to the chimney - it can go out of sight against a wall that faces
> East and has a clear line of sight to the sky.

Is that all? Hmm. Might look into that in a bit more detail, then.

[Adrian]

On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:23:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

> You could try putting your postcode or location into my reception
> checker. Drop the marker on the Google map onto your aerial location,
> and then choose either Find the nearest or Find the likeliest from the
> Transmitter choices.

Hmm. All bar "Lat/Long" and "World Place Name" are greyed out for the
transmitter location.

>> I don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

> Why so anti, one hit you on the head recently?

<grin> No.
For the amount of TV we watch (minimal - the fact we've been here a month
and only just got round to trying it all says a lot), the ballache and
expense of buying and installing a dish, cabling, decoder, PVR is all
just total overkill. Or, at least, that's my gut feel.

> As 4G rolls out

4G? I thought that was mobile phones... Does it mean there'll be
something worth watching on? Bear in mind our TV has a tube...

> If you don't mind revealing your postcode, might be able to give more
> specific advice.

My email address is legit.

[DerbyBorn]

If an amplifier is not working then it will be offering a resistance to the
signal I believe. I removed a suspect amplifier and simply coupled the
leads together and there was a massive improvement.

[Brian Gaff]

Why don't you want a dish?If i could get a cheap talking box for freesat i'd
ditch terrestrial into the only in emergencies, box.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Adrian" <tooma...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:kpak4a$rfh$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

[Brian Gaff]

first check online to see where your possible transmitters are then cut down
the current one and try a good quality one of your choice.
Also look what others are doing in the area. If there are lots of dishes
one can suspect reception is a challenge.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Adrian" <tooma...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:kpaksn$tc0$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

[Brian Gaff]

Or the coax is full of that wet stuff.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active

"Bill Wright" <bi...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:kpb1a7$u4o$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

[Halmyre]

On Jun 13, 8:33 am, Adrian <toomany2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:23:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
> > You could try putting your postcode or location into my reception
> > checker.  Drop the marker on the Google map onto your aerial location,
> > and then choose either Find the nearest or Find the likeliest from the
> > Transmitter choices.
>
> Hmm. All bar "Lat/Long" and "World Place Name" are greyed out for the
> transmitter location.
>
> >> I don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.
> > Why so anti, one hit you on the head recently?
>
> <grin> No.
> For the amount of TV we watch (minimal - the fact we've been here a month
> and only just got round to trying it all says a lot), the ballache and
> expense of buying and installing a dish, cabling, decoder, PVR is all
> just total overkill. Or, at least, that's my gut feel.
>
> > As 4G rolls out
>
> 4G? I thought that was mobile phones... Does it mean there'll be
> something worth watching on? Bear in mind our TV has a tube...
>

4G will interfere with Freesat in some areas. People who are affected
will be offered a free replacement - freesat or cable.

--
Halmyre

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 08:33, Adrian wrote:

Go here as a first step

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/coveragechecker/

Enter your house an postcode.

That will tell you what frequency your *new* aerial will need to cover
and which direction to point it in.

If as sounds likely judging by the booster, signal is weak, the very
best aerial and the very best cable is likely to be needed, mounted as
high as you can get it.

The fact that the channels seem to be recognised is hopeful.

But I have never found that channels that are recognised don't end up in
the playlist.

Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
mindful of the need for net security..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah. OK. Try again. If its actually FOUND the channels it has to have
been able to decode the information stream enough to do that, and
therefore the EPG by definition.

You might have a STB that's gone sideways. I had one do similar on me.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 08:57, Brian Gaff wrote:
> first check online to see where your possible transmitters are then cut down
> the current one and try a good quality one of your choice.
> Also look what others are doing in the area. If there are lots of dishes
> one can suspect reception is a challenge.
> Brian
>

+1

[tony sayer]

All basically OK with this but I don't recall that many places in Herts
that have to go to those extents.

Best bet is the OP's location or postcode and post a few pic's close up
of the equipment, amplifiers etc, and the aerial in use and the other
aerials around then we can make better informed judgements
--
Tony Sayer

[The Natural Philosopher]

ITYM interfere with freeVIEW.

essentially all you need to do is get a better STB or booster that has
proper filtering.

4G is near freeview frequencies, but not near enough to be an insoluble
problem.

Unlike transmissions recieved through a windfarm full of whirling
dervish carbon fibre blades..

>
> --
> Halmyre

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:08:08 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
> mindful of the need for net security..

Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".

Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
over the river.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:10:45 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>>>> I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No
>>>> channels populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a
>>>> time/date. Nothing.

>>> hang on you said it found 100 channels?.

>> Yep. But there's nothing shows in the EPG, and it says "No signal" if
>> you choose any channel.

> Ah. OK. Try again.

Tried three times now...

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:51:24 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

> All basically OK with this but I don't recall that many places in Herts
> that have to go to those extents.

Herefordshire, not Hertfordshire... Welsh borders, not M25 borders.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Is an M25 boarder someone who regualrly sleeps in their car somewhere
near Reigate, when the traffic grinds to a halt AGAIN?

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 07:33:51 +0000, Adrian wrote:

>> As 4G rolls out

> 4G? I thought that was mobile phones...

<googles a bit>
Ah, gotcha.

I don't think that's going to be an issue round here. We barely get GPRS.
Hell, we barely get a phone signal.

[Dave Liquorice]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 01:03:16 -0700 (PDT), Halmyre wrote:

> 4G will interfere with Freesat in some areas.

<cough> Freeview.

> People who are affected will be offered a free replacement - freesat or
> cable.

They will first be offered a filter but the technical challenge of
building one that will allow the highest required TV channel through
and provide enough reduction to the 4G signals just above is not
minor.

I doubt anyone will get cable, that is a pure pay system isn't it? So
would incur on going charges to the 4G operators, that ain't going to
happen. Freesat is << £50 for the kit and a couple of hours labour
for someone to install with no on going costs.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[Scion]

Adrian put finger to keyboard:

> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:03:53 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:
>
>> Do you mean there are two amplifiers as splitters feeding extra output
>> circuits or a chain of two amplifiers in the coax downlead to the TV?
>
> A chain or two amps.

There's no point chaining amps, you're taking a low-strength low-quality
signal and amplifying it into a high-strength low-quality signal.

It's a bit like hoping to get a 15x digital zoom as good as a 15x optical
zoom.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 09:15, Adrian wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:08:08 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>> Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
>> mindful of the need for net security..
> Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
> with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".

What does digital UK suggest in terms of likely signal strength and quality?

> Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
> over the river.

Hmm. Using that info does not give me the results you are quoting :-)

[Martin Brown]

On 13/06/2013 08:39, Adrian wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:03:53 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:
>
>> Do you mean there are two amplifiers as splitters feeding extra output
>> circuits or a chain of two amplifiers in the coax downlead to the TV?
>
> A chain or two amps.

That isn't a good sign and suggests an inept DIY installation. If your
signal is as bad as it sounds then you need a higher aerial mast to see
over the hills and a mast head preamp to boost whatever traces of signal
you can snatch from the ether as close as possible to the source.

Not a recommendation - just the cheapest one that came up in a search
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wolsey-WFAV-225-Masthead-Amplifier/dp/B002EW246K/ref=pd_cp_ce_2

Ideally you want one with adjustable gain and the lowest possible noise
figure (the latter will cost you more but give a cleaner signal).

It is possible you have one installed but it is presently unpowered...

>
>> Interesting that there is enough for the tuner to decode the rough
>> channel titles during tuning setup but not the content later. Enabling
>> whatever engineering mode it has to watch tuning quality and any error
>> stats it offers might shed some light.
>
> I've not found anything in the menu, but I'll rummage again.

Should be under Setup Tuning (but the manufacturers all do their best to
make setup menus confusing and difficult to navigate). Important
utilities are usually hidden at the end of a long and unpromising chain
of apparently irrelevant menus or require "magic" knowledge of some
keychord, PIN or other trick to get into the engineering mode.

>
>> I'd be inclined to borrow a known to be good small digital TV set or buy
>> one of the cheap PC USB digital tuners and retest the aerial with that
>> and a PC. They usually come with a small aerial of their own and that
>> might shed some light on how poor the signal really is. Cheapest and
>> nastiest on offer for under £20 ought to do it eg.
>>
>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/August-DVB-T205-Freeview-Tuner-Stick/dp/
> B002EHVP9C/ref=pd_cp_computers_0
>
> Interesting. Might try that.

Again a Hauppage one with HD might be a better investment for not all
that much more (or a remaindered SD one by a reputable maker).

>
>>> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
>>> don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.
>
>> Why not? £50 will get you a freesat dish with more HD channels and a
>> better broadcast signal quality. You don't have to faff around attaching
>> it to the chimney - it can go out of sight against a wall that faces
>> East and has a clear line of sight to the sky.
>
> Is that all? Hmm. Might look into that in a bit more detail, then.

Aldi had an all in deal for about £60 a week ago. I don't know if their
TV gear is any good, but their Medion PCs are surprisingly capable.
Vendors on Amazon have all the bits needed dishes from about £25 and old
SCART SD only output decoders are now being remaindered.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 09:25, Dave Liquorice wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 01:03:16 -0700 (PDT), Halmyre wrote:
>
>> 4G will interfere with Freesat in some areas.
> <cough> Freeview.
>
>> People who are affected will be offered a free replacement - freesat or
>> cable.
> They will first be offered a filter but the technical challenge of
> building one that will allow the highest required TV channel through
> and provide enough reduction to the 4G signals just above is not
> minor.

well that depends on who you are. It is actually totally trivial and
costs pence.

But of course pence are pence, and you don't put things into STBS TVS
and boosters that you dont need to - or didnb't need to.

> I doubt anyone will get cable, that is a pure pay system isn't it? So
> would incur on going charges to the 4G operators, that ain't going to
> happen. Freesat is << £50 for the kit and a couple of hours labour
> for someone to install with no on going costs.
>

indeed, and a bloody eyesore compared with a loft aerial.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:40:30 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>>> Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
>>> mindful of the need for net security..

>> Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
>> with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".

> What does digital UK suggest in terms of likely signal strength and
> quality?

Green for BBC A, D3&4, BBC B HD. 86/87 "served" for each.
Yellow/Variable for SDN, ARQ A, ARQ B. 51-58 "served" for each.

[charles]

In article
<21957043-2bcf-4df8...@v17g2000vba.googlegroups.com>, harry

<harry...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> On Jun 12, 9:02 pm, Adrian <toomany2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > We've recently moved, to the arse end of nowhere - rural Herefordshire.
> > Finally, we've got the TV out and plugged it in.
> >
> > It's the same TV and same (Humax) freeview box we had at the old place,
> > with no problems. Obviously, it's a different aerial setup, with two
> > boosters in the bedroom.
> >
> > With them both turned off, there's 0-10% signal strength, according to
> > the box's setup.
> >
> > With (either) one turned on, there's 25-30%. With both turned on,
> > there's 65-75% signal strength.
> >
> > I can go through the auto tune, and get the usual hundred or so
> > channels pop straight up.
> >
> > BUT.
> >
> > I can't actually get anything. The signal quality shows zero. No
> > channels populate in the guide. The clock doesn't come up with a
> > time/date. Nothing.
> >
> > Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step? I
> > don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

> I live in Herefordshire. The problem is hills. The local TV mast is at
> Much Marcle.

The proper name for that transmitter is Ridge Hill (although its near the
vaillage of Much Marcle) and it does serve parts of Gloucestershire &
Herefordshire. There are are also a number of local relay stations as well
as main transmitters at Mendip, The Wrekin & Sutton Coldfield which might
provide signals.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[charles]

In article <kpbv34$va6$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

which side of the river?

[Martin Brown]

How much of a "bit" East? By my reckoning you should have a nearby Welsh
DTV relay station practically sat on top of Hay on Wye at Clyro.

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO204432

vs

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO630333

Local topography can make a very big difference to which of your options
actually work. My parents set in Manchester can (very annoyingly) see
the Welsh channels from Moel y Parc in an antenna sidelobe 60 degrees
off the main axis to Winterhill with enough signal to totally confuse
Panasonic TVs now that the Welsh station is running on full power and
using low band frequencies that are found first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moel-y-Parc_transmitting_station#14_November_2012_-_present

A default retune all fills up important mainstream stations with their
Welsh version since the stupid Panasonic firmware puts the first found
on the master location X and the second on 80X. I understand this very
common problem is well known in Manchester telly menders circles.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:43:15 +0100, charles wrote:

>> Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
>> with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".

>> Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
>> over the river.

> which side of the river?

North.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:14:26 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

>> Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
>> over the river.

> How much of a "bit" East?

Not very far.

> By my reckoning you should have a nearby Welsh DTV relay station
> practically sat on top of Hay on Wye at Clyro.

Ah. That's interesting.

[Scion]

Adrian put finger to keyboard:

> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000, Adrian wrote:
>

>> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?
>

> Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked with
> digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.

Don't think anyone's mentioned yet - but a single-band aerial (if you're
picking up from a single transmitter) will grab a better signal than a
wideband. If your aerial elements vary in width as they go along the
spine, or if you've got one of those X-shaped arrays, then it is not
optimal.

[Java Jive]

That's because it can be used all over the world, and the UK options
are only relevant, and therefore only become enabled, to someone who
enters a UK location for the receiver. You could, of course, have
read the instructions on the page to discover that for yourself.
However, try this for Hay-On-Wye (used to love that area):

http://tinyurl.com/kg6yaxb

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 07:33:51 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hmm. All bar "Lat/Long" and "World Place Name" are greyed out for the
> transmitter location.

--
=========================================================
Please always reply to ng as the email in this post's
header does not exist. Or use a contact address at:
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/JavaJive.html
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Macfarlane/Macfarlane.html

[Java Jive]

Unlike having a nuclear, or any other, power station between you and
the transmitter, which would probably block the signal completely.

What a fatuously irrelevant thing to say. If you can't contribute to
a TV thread without bringing wind turbines into it, you should
definitely be taking something for your paranoia.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:14:26 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
<t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> Unlike transmissions recieved through a windfarm full of whirling
> dervish carbon fibre blades..
--

[The Natural Philosopher]

MM that's not great..
Definitley high gain up a big pole needed

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 11:14, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 13/06/2013 09:15, Adrian wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:08:08 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>>> Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
>>> mindful of the need for net security..
>>
>> Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
>> with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".
>>
>> Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
>> over the river.
>
> How much of a "bit" East? By my reckoning you should have a nearby
> Welsh DTV relay station practically sat on top of Hay on Wye at Clyro.
>

Clyro only caries 3 muxes

> http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO204432
>
> vs
>
> http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO630333
>
> Local topography can make a very big difference to which of your
> options actually work. My parents set in Manchester can (very
> annoyingly) see the Welsh channels from Moel y Parc in an antenna
> sidelobe 60 degrees off the main axis to Winterhill with enough signal
> to totally confuse Panasonic TVs now that the Welsh station is running
> on full power and using low band frequencies that are found first.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moel-y-Parc_transmitting_station#14_November_2012_-_present
>
>
> A default retune all fills up important mainstream stations with their
> Welsh version since the stupid Panasonic firmware puts the first found
> on the master location X and the second on 80X. I understand this very
> common problem is well known in Manchester telly menders circles.
>


--

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/06/13 11:19, Scion wrote:
> Adrian put finger to keyboard:
>
>> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000, Adrian wrote:
>>
>>> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?
>> Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked with
>> digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.
> Don't think anyone's mentioned yet - but a single-band aerial (if you're
> picking up from a single transmitter)

There are 5 muxes and they live on different frequencies. You cant use
a narrow band aerial.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:21:02 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

> That's because it can be used all over the world, and the UK options are
> only relevant, and therefore only become enabled, to someone who enters
> a UK location for the receiver.

That was after I entered the postcode.

[Scion]

The Natural Philosopher put finger to keyboard:

> On 13/06/13 11:19, Scion wrote:
>> Adrian put finger to keyboard:
>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000, Adrian wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?
>>> Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked
>>> with digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.
>> Don't think anyone's mentioned yet - but a single-band aerial (if
>> you're picking up from a single transmitter)
>
> There are 5 muxes and they live on different frequencies. You cant use
> a narrow band aerial.

Sorry, meant Group not Band.

[Java Jive]

Eh? What browser are you using?

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:44:35 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That was after I entered the postcode.

[Java Jive]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:52:50 +0100, Java Jive <ja...@evij.com.invalid>
wrote:

> Eh? What browser are you using?

And what happens when you click the tinyurl I gave?

[Martin Brown]

On 13/06/2013 12:27, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 13/06/13 11:14, Martin Brown wrote:
>> On 13/06/2013 09:15, Adrian wrote:
>>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:08:08 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>>
>>>> Let us know what transmitter you are on, and (roughly) where you are,
>>>> mindful of the need for net security..
>>>
>>> Ridge Hill is the transmitter that DigitalUK suggests - and that ties
>>> with Harry's suggestion of "near Much Marcle".
>>>
>>> Hay on Wye is our nearest town - we're a bit east, half way up a hill
>>> over the river.
>>
>> How much of a "bit" East? By my reckoning you should have a nearby
>> Welsh DTV relay station practically sat on top of Hay on Wye at Clyro.
>>
> Clyro only caries 3 muxes

Maybe, but it is close enough to him that a coathanger plugged into the
aerial socket should be enough to get a signal of some sort.

>
>> http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO204432
>>
>> vs
>>
>> http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SO630333
>>
>> Local topography can make a very big difference to which of your
>> options actually work.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well a group *is* wideband. Mytransmitter goes from 634 Mhz to 785 Mhz.

I think the final INTENTION is to get them all FAIRLY close together,
but that span to me is still 'wide band'
a 'group' really means 'down the bottom' 'up the top' 'in the middle' or
'all over the muckin place'

Anyway a reputable site will tell you which 'band' applies to 'your'
transmitter.

At low signal; strength what you PROBABLY want is a highly directional
aerial with good forward gain and low gain round the back and edges. You
probably are less concerned about in band flatness and sidelobes.

I personally wanted very GOOD sidelobes because I am in a medium signal
area and by biggest problem was over the horizon interference from 'Le
continent'

But I didnt need gain.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <kpaksn$tc0$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

Adrian <tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:02:18 +0000, Adrian wrote:

> > Thoughts? Aerial fucked/pointing wrong way/ancient? Best next step?

> Should add - there's no way of knowing if the aerial's ever worked with
> digital. TTBOMK, there's never been a freeview box here before.

Does FreeView there use frequencies outside the old analogue ones?

--
*Eat well, stay fit, die anyway

Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[John Rumm]

On 13/06/2013 08:36, Adrian wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:47:19 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:
>
>> Try a full re-tune (or factory default reset).
>
> Did that. It found all the channels.
>
>> Next, if you can discover which cable comes from the aerial to the first
>> amp, you could connect that cable directly into the TV and see what you
>> receive (having re-tuned again). However the first 'amp' is likely not
>> to be an amp but a power supply unit for an amp that's up on the aerial
>> or in the loft.
>
> No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
> comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
> on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.

With respect, that does not really tell you they are a pair of amps.
Inline PSUs look pretty much the same as some amps, and the coax needs
to loop through them so that they can feed power up it to a remote
preamp nearer the aerial.

> Neither - 0-10%
> One - ~25%
> Both - 65-75%
>
> Just no signal quality.

Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I
know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the
second amp on its own?

> I'll have a rummage to see if I can get the aerial to connect directly -
> but the bit that comes out the wall is cut-to-length.




--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Tim+]

John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> On 13/06/2013 08:36, Adrian wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:47:19 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:
>>
>>> Try a full re-tune (or factory default reset).
>>
>> Did that. It found all the channels.
>>
>>> Next, if you can discover which cable comes from the aerial to the first
>>> amp, you could connect that cable directly into the TV and see what you
>>> receive (having re-tuned again). However the first 'amp' is likely not
>>> to be an amp but a power supply unit for an amp that's up on the aerial
>>> or in the loft.
>>
>> No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
>> comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
>> on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.
>
> With respect, that does not really tell you they are a pair of amps.
> Inline PSUs look pretty much the same as some amps, and the coax needs to
> loop through them so that they can feed power up it to a remote preamp nearer the aerial.
>
>> Neither - 0-10%
>> One - ~25%
>> Both - 65-75%
>>
>> Just no signal quality.
>
> Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I
> know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the second amp on its own?

Also don't forget to take the Belling plugs apart and check to see that
there isn't a "whisker" of copper braid shorting things out. You wouldn't
half kick yourself if you missed this common cause of a duff signal.

Tim

[Martin Brown]

On 13/06/2013 16:40, John Rumm wrote:
> On 13/06/2013 08:36, Adrian wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:47:19 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:
>>
>>> Try a full re-tune (or factory default reset).
>>
>> Did that. It found all the channels.
>>
>>> Next, if you can discover which cable comes from the aerial to the first
>>> amp, you could connect that cable directly into the TV and see what you
>>> receive (having re-tuned again). However the first 'amp' is likely not
>>> to be an amp but a power supply unit for an amp that's up on the aerial
>>> or in the loft.
>>
>> No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
>> comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
>> on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.
>
> With respect, that does not really tell you they are a pair of amps.
> Inline PSUs look pretty much the same as some amps, and the coax needs
> to loop through them so that they can feed power up it to a remote
> preamp nearer the aerial.

One way to tell them apart is that an inline PSU will put some voltage
onto the downlead which a cheap multimeter will be able to measure.

>> Neither - 0-10%
>> One - ~25%
>> Both - 65-75%
>>
>> Just no signal quality.
>
> Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I

Isn't it annoying that these TV diagnostics are in terms of % using an
arbitrary undocumented scale that is probably logarithmic. ADSL modems
at least provide sensible units of dB signal to noise levels whereas TVs
go out of their way not to provide meaningful information.

> know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the
> second amp on its own?

Or no amps at all - direct connection to the decoder. Modern digital
decoders seem to be pretty good as far as sensitivity is concerned.

>> I'll have a rummage to see if I can get the aerial to connect directly -
>> but the bit that comes out the wall is cut-to-length.

Coax cables are cheap.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[tony sayer]

In article <d81c7d71-381c-443b...@dk8g2000vbb.googlegroup
s.com>, Halmyre <flashgord...@yahoo.com> scribeth thus
>On Jun 13, 8:33 am, Adrian <toomany2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:23:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
>> > You could try putting your postcode or location into my reception
>> > checker.  Drop the marker on the Google map onto your aerial location,
>> > and then choose either Find the nearest or Find the likeliest from the
>> > Transmitter choices.

>>
>> Hmm. All bar "Lat/Long" and "World Place Name" are greyed out for the
>> transmitter location.
>>

>> >> I don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.

>> > Why so anti, one hit you on the head recently?
>>
>> <grin> No.
>> For the amount of TV we watch (minimal - the fact we've been here a month
>> and only just got round to trying it all says a lot), the ballache and
>> expense of buying and installing a dish, cabling, decoder, PVR is all
>> just total overkill. Or, at least, that's my gut feel.
>>
>> > As 4G rolls out
>>
>> 4G? I thought that was mobile phones... Does it mean there'll be
>> something worth watching on? Bear in mind our TV has a tube...

>>
>
>4G will interfere with Freesat in some areas.

How?..

BY what mechanism?..

>People who are affected
>will be offered a free replacement - freesat or cable.
>

>--
>Halmyre

--
Tony Sayer

[tony sayer]

>But of course pence are pence, and you don't put things into STBS TVS
>and boosters that you dont need to - or didnb't need to.
>
>> I doubt anyone will get cable, that is a pure pay system isn't it? So
>> would incur on going charges to the 4G operators, that ain't going to
>> happen. Freesat is << £50 for the kit and a couple of hours labour
>> for someone to install with no on going costs.
>>

>indeed, and a bloody eyesore compared with a loft aerial.

Not if rigged with a bit of care and thought into location. There're
three of them here but you'd not notice them where they are;)...

>
>
--
Tony Sayer

[tony sayer]

In article <kpbv4v$va6$3...@speranza.aioe.org>, Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> scribeth thus
>On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:51:24 +0100, tony sayer wrote:
>
>> All basically OK with this but I don't recall that many places in Herts
>> that have to go to those extents.
>
>Herefordshire, not Hertfordshire... Welsh borders, not M25 borders.

;!, Oh There!..

What are you doing wasting time watching the idiots lantern when you
could be out walking in that lovely area;?...

And reading good books too;)..
--
Tony Sayer

[tony sayer]

>
>> I live in Herefordshire. The problem is hills. The local TV mast is at
>> Much Marcle.
>
>The proper name for that transmitter is Ridge Hill (although its near the
>vaillage of Much Marcle) and it does serve parts of Gloucestershire &
>Herefordshire. There are are also a number of local relay stations as well
>as main transmitters at Mendip, The Wrekin & Sutton Coldfield which might
>provide signals.
>

Yes nice place that, theres some pix here and a coverage map too...

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=995
--
Tony Sayer

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:40:32 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

>> No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
>> comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
>> on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.

> With respect, that does not really tell you they are a pair of amps.
> Inline PSUs look pretty much the same as some amps, and the coax needs
> to loop through them so that they can feed power up it to a remote
> preamp nearer the aerial.

Oooh, you're going to make me go and do something to help myself, aren't
you?

Right... <heads out with binoculars and camera>
There IS a small, seemingly-unlabelled box at the base of the aerial mast.

<pries covers off Vision boxes>
Aha. One of them - the aerial-side one - is a V23-100 Power Supply.
The other - the inner one - is a V52-100 2-way Amplifier.

The aerial points the same basic direction as neighbours, which does
appear to be the right basic direction for the Ridge Hill transmitter.

>> Neither - 0-10%
>> One - ~25%
>> Both - 65-75%
>>
>> Just no signal quality.

> Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I
> know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the
> second amp on its own?

I thought I'd tried both, but you know what it's like when you're
shouting instructions upstairs to SWMBO...

<wanders off to DIY>
OK, so both on - 65-75%
PSU for external on, internal off - 15-20%
PSU for external on, internal disconnected from coax - 55-65%
PSU for external off, internal on - 20-25%
PSU for external disconnected from coax, internal on - 30%
Both off - 10%
Coax out of internal, to living room disconnected - 10%...

So it seems as if both are doing _something_, but the interesting thing
is what happens with the internal one disconnected - it's almost as good
as with it powered up, much better than connected but off. There's still
no usable signal, though.

That's with the TV & STB downstairs. The STB's aerial socket won't
connect to the co-ax before the Vision boxes, unless I start fannying
with connectors. The co-ax comes out of the second box, and straight
downstairs to the socket in the living room. I can't easily totally
bypass both boxes, either.

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:23:38 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

>>> All basically OK with this but I don't recall that many places in
>>> Herts that have to go to those extents.

>>Herefordshire, not Hertfordshire... Welsh borders, not M25 borders.

> ;!, Oh There!..
>
> What are you doing wasting time watching the idiots lantern when you
> could be out walking in that lovely area;?...

And that's why it's taken a month to plug the thing in.

[Martin Brown]

On 13/06/2013 17:35, Adrian wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:40:32 +0100, John Rumm wrote:
>
> Right... <heads out with binoculars and camera>
> There IS a small, seemingly-unlabelled box at the base of the aerial mast.
>
> <pries covers off Vision boxes>
> Aha. One of them - the aerial-side one - is a V23-100 Power Supply.
> The other - the inner one - is a V52-100 2-way Amplifier.
>
> The aerial points the same basic direction as neighbours, which does
> appear to be the right basic direction for the Ridge Hill transmitter.
>
>>> Neither - 0-10%
>>> One - ~25%
>>> Both - 65-75%
>>>
>>> Just no signal quality.
>
>> Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I
>> know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the
>> second amp on its own?
>
> I thought I'd tried both, but you know what it's like when you're
> shouting instructions upstairs to SWMBO...
>
> <wanders off to DIY>
> OK, so both on - 65-75%
> PSU for external on, internal off - 15-20%
> PSU for external on, internal disconnected from coax - 55-65%

This ought to be enough to get a signal that might break up but should
work after a fashion. All other permutations could be suffering from
overload (as could this if there is a strong local signal inside the
wide band of UHF & VHF that the mast head amplifier handles).

> PSU for external off, internal on - 20-25%
> PSU for external disconnected from coax, internal on - 30%
> Both off - 10%
> Coax out of internal, to living room disconnected - 10%...
>
> So it seems as if both are doing _something_, but the interesting thing
> is what happens with the internal one disconnected - it's almost as good
> as with it powered up, much better than connected but off. There's still
> no usable signal, though.

My instinct is that your mast head amplifier is already overloaded or
defective and so the digital signal has in effect been scrambled.

>
> That's with the TV & STB downstairs. The STB's aerial socket won't
> connect to the co-ax before the Vision boxes, unless I start fannying
> with connectors. The co-ax comes out of the second box, and straight
> downstairs to the socket in the living room. I can't easily totally
> bypass both boxes, either.

You will probably need an adapter something like:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Screw-Connector-Socket-Aerial-Adapter/dp/B003OSUU14/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1371142737&sr=1-4&keywords=coaxial+f+connector+male+to+male

Maplins should have them too but higher price.

The other thing to try is a cheap and cheerful set top aerial

http://www.amazon.co.uk/digiTop-Amplified-Performance-Freeview-Wideband/dp/B001ACV7E0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1371142991&sr=1-1&keywords=tv+aerial#productDescription

Ugly but seems to review OK and cheap. I just use a conventional
external aerial and a pole when I need a portable TV aerial. YMMV.

Much easier than going up the chimney.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:10:40 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

>> PSU for external on, internal disconnected from coax - 55-65%

> This ought to be enough to get a signal that might break up but should
> work after a fashion. All other permutations could be suffering from
> overload (as could this if there is a strong local signal inside the
> wide band of UHF & VHF that the mast head amplifier handles).

Same results as with everything, though - it can search and find
channels, but no actual usable signal. "Signal quality" still shows as 0%.

>> That's with the TV & STB downstairs. The STB's aerial socket won't
>> connect to the co-ax before the Vision boxes, unless I start fannying
>> with connectors. The co-ax comes out of the second box, and straight
>> downstairs to the socket in the living room. I can't easily totally
>> bypass both boxes, either.

> You will probably need an adapter something like:
>

> http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003OSUU14

Less than a quid and a half, delivered...? Ordered!

[Java Jive]

Really, you need to take a look at the signal profile. It tells you
all you need to know.

I would have thought your chances of getting Ridge Hill were almost
zero, and at very best it would always be very unreliable, relying on
refraction over hilltops. I would say that you need either Freesat or
an aerial pointing at Clyro - it's only Freeview Lite (PSB muxes
only), but it's a clear path.

What happens when you (double) click this link which I posted earlier.
Does the page load and work, and if not, what browser are you using?

http://tinyurl.com/kg6yaxb

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:35:47 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The aerial points the same basic direction as neighbours, which does
> appear to be the right basic direction for the Ridge Hill transmitter.

[tony sayer]

In article <kpcusp$qt4$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> scribeth thus

Could I suggest that you either take some pix of other aerials locally
and your own aerial and post them somewhere. If you are not that happy
with them being public about that mail them over.. discretion
guaranteed..

And/or ask your nearest neighbours what their reception is like and have
they had any troubles and as best they know is it now better or worse
since DSO..?

It might be that something is overloading this setup or picking up
something it didn't ought to and or its unstable and generating spurious
signals over the TV spectrum..
--
Tony Sayer

[Graham.]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:19:08 +0100, tony sayer <to...@bancom.co.uk>
wrote:

He clearly meant to say Freeview.
How could Freesat be a replacement for Freesat?

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

[Windmill]

What 'quality' is being displayed by these things anyway? What are they
measuring? Does anyone know, or is it a secret known only to the
manufacturers?

--
Windmill, Til...@Nonetel.com Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

[Windmill]

I've seen one tucked between two small shrubs in front of a low
dividing wall in someone's front garden which didn't seem to me to be
obtrusive, though that's a matter of taste and maybe I have none!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Bit error rates probably.

> What are they
> measuring? Does anyone know, or is it a secret known only to the
> manufacturers?
>


--

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:05:13 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

> I would have thought your chances of getting Ridge Hill were almost
> zero, and at very best it would always be very unreliable, relying on
> refraction over hilltops. I would say that you need either Freesat or
> an aerial pointing at Clyro - it's only Freeview Lite (PSB muxes
> only), but it's a clear path.

Looking at OS maps and contour lines, it's 50/50 as to which is the
clearer line, tbh. The Clyro transmitter's just the other side of a hill.
OK, I imagine it pokes up over it, but Ridge Hill is a more or less
straight line down the valley.

> What happens when you (double) click this link which I posted earlier.
> Does the page load and work, and if not, what browser are you using?
>
> http://tinyurl.com/kg6yaxb

FF21 on Ubuntu 13.04

That comes up fully populated, but seems to be suggesting the Isles of
Scilly as my most appropriate transmitter, 57 miles away. That's, umm,
not quite right... <grin>

If I put my postcode in, click Submit, it comes back with zero for Lat &
Long, and all bar World Place and Lat/Long are greyed out in the
transmitter list. Same for a very different postcode.

[RobertL]

On Thursday, June 13, 2013 8:33:51 AM UTC+1, Adrian wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:23:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
> >> I don't want a satellite dish. Don't even suggest it.
>

> For the amount of TV we watch (minimal - the fact we've been here a month
> and only just got round to trying it all says a lot), the ballache and
> expense of buying and installing a dish, cabling, decoder, PVR is all
> just total overkill. Or, at least, that's my gut feel.

We have satellite but mainly because of the superior (to DAB) radio sound quality and the foreign stations.

Robert

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 14/06/13 09:07, Adrian wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:05:13 +0100, Java Jive wrote:
>
>> I would have thought your chances of getting Ridge Hill were almost
>> zero, and at very best it would always be very unreliable, relying on
>> refraction over hilltops. I would say that you need either Freesat or
>> an aerial pointing at Clyro - it's only Freeview Lite (PSB muxes
>> only), but it's a clear path.
> Looking at OS maps and contour lines, it's 50/50 as to which is the
> clearer line, tbh. The Clyro transmitter's just the other side of a hill.
> OK, I imagine it pokes up over it, but Ridge Hill is a more or less
> straight line down the valley.
>
>> What happens when you (double) click this link which I posted earlier.
>> Does the page load and work, and if not, what browser are you using?
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/kg6yaxb
> FF21 on Ubuntu 13.04
>
> That comes up fully populated, but seems to be suggesting the Isles of
> Scilly as my most appropriate transmitter, 57 miles away. That's, umm,
> not quite right... <grin>

Not here on FF21 on ubuntu/mint it don't.

> If I put my postcode in, click Submit, it comes back with zero for Lat &
> Long, and all bar World Place and Lat/Long are greyed out in the
> transmitter list. Same for a very different postcode.

Works OK on FF21 here.

maybe you have javascript disabled, or it needs java (iced tea plugin)
to work.

[Adrian]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:41:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>>> What happens when you (double) click this link which I posted earlier.
>>> Does the page load and work, and if not, what browser are you using?
>>> http://tinyurl.com/kg6yaxb

>> FF21 on Ubuntu 13.04
>>
>> That comes up fully populated, but seems to be suggesting the Isles of
>> Scilly as my most appropriate transmitter, 57 miles away. That's, umm,
>> not quite right... <grin>

> Not here on FF21 on ubuntu/mint it don't.

>> If I put my postcode in, click Submit, it comes back with zero for Lat
>> & Long, and all bar World Place and Lat/Long are greyed out in the
>> transmitter list. Same for a very different postcode.

> Works OK on FF21 here.
>
> maybe you have javascript disabled, or it needs java (iced tea plugin)
> to work.

<light dawns>
NoScript is installed, but I'm allowing scripts for his site.

<wanders back to check>
Aha... After allowing that script, it then pops up with scripts from
Ordnance Survey. Allow _those_ and it works. D'oh.

From the postcode, it comes back with Ridge Hill as both "nearest" and
"likeliest", although it does list several relays as being geographically
nearer - some I know will be non-starters for terrain.

[The Natural Philosopher]

This is at least progress.

OK, looking like that tx is all on low channel numbers, and closely
spaced so a high gain antenna for that group is the one to have.

It ain't a huge amount of transmitter power mind you. Used to be 100KW
for analogue, now only 20-KW..Mmm.

Googling around it looks like Ridge Hill is a toss up for the area
around Hay on Wye, but Clyro is the one that works, BUT its only got a
couple of MUXES.

Ok...

Thinking aloud here.

1/. You are not in a good place for freeview at all. Freesat may
ultimately be a better bet. I know nothing about freesat, beyond its
free, and uses satellites.
2/. If you do persist in Freeview, I think you probably can expect to be
spending a fair bit of time exploring whether it will work or not.
3/. I suggest the following.
(a) You have a PC with Ubuntu. So have I, so get a cheap Hauppage
Nova USB TV tuner dongle, and install Kaffeine. And dvb-utils
(b) experiment with the PC and various bits of wet string and
aerials/cables boosters to see what works best.
(c) If the machine is a laptop, you can even use it up a ladder,
wiggling the aerial as you go
(d) You SHOULD be able to get a high gain system mounted high
pointing at Ridge Hill to do something. That's more expense for the
aerial, to see, though. At which point freesat may seem a better option.
(e) The clyro relay is strong enough so that it should 'break
through' the back end of the high gain antenna and allow reception of
that relay too, even though it would pointing almost directly way from it.

I suggest using the Hauppage because clunky though most DVB is on a PC,
it aint half as clunky as a set top box and the hauppage stick I know
works for me, and its cheap - 30 quid IIRC. And as laptop and USB stick
is easier to at around to try outside, and plugged into different
combinations of booster etc.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hauppauge-WinTV-NOVA-T-USB-Stick-freeview/dp/B000F8RPQE

I've got one of those. an EyeTV for the wife's Mac and a couple of Sony
STBS and a Samsung HDTV all plugged into the same distribution amp.
There is nothing to choose between them when the signal quality goes
bad. They all fail in the same way at the same time.

(when using USB sticks attached to Coax cables, ALWAYS use a USB
extender lead between the stick and the computer. The sockets are not
strong and you need to pretty much relieve the USB and coax sockets of
any lateral strain cause by heavy cables. DAMHIKT :-))

I suggest Kaffeine because direct experience shows that in later Ubuntu,
that is the easiest to use, and has its own inbuilt channel scan stuff.
Other options that work reliably here are VLC, but uising a separate
channels.conf file you have to cerate the hardway using DVB-utils and
hand editing ITS 'hints' file from the transitter info, or Me-TV, which
is also reasonably good at autoscanning. Gnome media player (totem) and
gnome DVB simply didnt work for me.

As far as boosting/antenna selection goes, listen to Tony Sayer and
Martin Brown, they are the people who have direct and relevant
knowledge. BUT I THINK its true to say that MOST modern TVs and TV
dongles are sensitive enough and low noise enough make boosting not that
much use. ALL you gain IF you have a mast head amp is that you are
moving the modern low noise amplification as close to the antenna as
possible. So cable losses don't push the signal into the noise level of
the tuner front end.

Having said that, it is likely to be a technical challenge : the quick
route to a stable TV signal is to go freesat.

But I like technical challenges. And maybe you can end up becoming an
aerial installer in Hay on Wye :-)

[Java Jive]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:54:55 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <light dawns>
> NoScript is installed, but I'm allowing scripts for his site.
>
> <wanders back to check>
> Aha... After allowing that script, it then pops up with scripts from
> Ordnance Survey. Allow _those_ and it works. D'oh.

In order to keep the discussion focused on your problem, rather than
my calculator page, please see below.

> From the postcode, it comes back with Ridge Hill as both "nearest" and
> "likeliest", although it does list several relays as being geographically
> nearer - some I know will be non-starters for terrain.

Ok, my earlier comment was based on you being somewhere in Hay-On-Wye,
but it's so hilly around there that you wouldn't have to be very far
outside it to get a very different result. As the official checker,
now my own calculator, and the neighbouring aerials all agree on Ridge
Hill, that is obviously the one to go for.

About the calculator page then ...

There are something like 20 -25 individual script(let)s on that page,
but not all of them will be called, it depends on what choices you
make.

You may think it would be better to have only one big one, but that
has practicability and usability implications. For one thing, not all
of them come from my server, some come from Google (for searching and
maps), the tiles come from OS, etc, etc. For another, the resultant
script would be huge, would likely affect performance on lower spec
machines, and even if it ran, page loading would take so long that
search engine rankings would suffer. In actual reality, by contrast,
loading is staged, so that the calculator form unlocks and becomes
usable as soon as possible, once the scripts to support calculation
have loaded, and the others continue to load in the background while
you are hopefully using the form to fill in the required data. If you
watch carefully as the page loads you can see that, for example, that
the receiver entry parts of the form become ungreyed, showing the form
has unlocked ready for use, a little before the Google button appears,
showing that the Google map script has loaded. This will be more
obvious on first loading the page, so you might have to clear the
cache to see the effect unambiguously.

If you simply had Javascript disabled, you'd see a <noscript> section
at the bottom of the page telling you that you need it, but I'm not
sure what would happen with an add-on like NoScript. Again, you might
think it would be better to put the <noscript> section at the top, but
unfortunately the way search-engine crawling works, it has to be at
the bottom of the page, otherwise my page ranks unhelpfully high on
terms like: "You need JavaScript to run this page", and rather lower
on terms like: "TV Aerial Direction". Worse still, in response to the
latter hits, the quoted piece of the page in the search engine results
is often the contents of the <noscript> tag, rather than something
like: "This page helps you align a TV aerial".

I assure you that the page's design has had great deal of thought put
into it, and it has been tested on many different browsers. Its
weakest point is that was designed before mobile phones really started
to take over in such a big way, and while it does work on mine, I
would accept that it's a bit tricky to use on a mobile. I hope to
improve that soon. However on a PC, even though I says it myself, I
think it's pretty darned good.

[Java Jive]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:14:54 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
<t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> Thinking aloud here.

I suspect that's more that most people would want to do to get a TV
picture, but if the OP is willing ...

> As far as boosting/antenna selection goes, listen to Tony Sayer and
> Martin Brown, they are the people who have direct and relevant
> knowledge.

And Bill Wright, who is a professional aerial installer.

> Having said that, it is likely to be a technical challenge : the quick
> route to a stable TV signal is to go freesat.

Yes, apropos of which ...

Adrian might find these pages helpful, but, please note Adrian, the
Satellite Calculator page needs JavaScript just as much as the
Terrestrial Calculator does! FYI, there are no advertising or other
such scripts anywhere on my site, so there's no real reason to block
any of it (scripts are either absolutely necessary, or else help make
the page easier to read).
http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/AudioVisualTV/SatelliteTV/SatelliteTV.html

[Adrian]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:31:40 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

> Could I suggest that you either take some pix of other aerials locally
> and your own aerial and post them somewhere. If you are not that happy
> with them being public about that mail them over.. discretion
> guaranteed..

Here we go...
Wide view of whole aerial pole
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7441/9040084135_6453983f46_o.jpg
(The house is low two-storey, to give you an indication of overall height
above ground)

Aerial itself
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/9042309740_ecb2a208d4_o.jpg

The thingy at the bottom of the pole
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2812/9040085409_db05ae1da7_o.jpg

Next door have a weeny little bent-tin cheapo crappy thing mounted at
ground floor gutter level. The few other houses in this little enclave
have aerials very similar to ours in both altitude and style.

[Martin Brown]

If next door can get a decent picture on their TV set with that "weeny
little bent-tin cheapo crappy thing" low down on the gutter then you
should talk to them about it and get a similar device yourself.

It isn't compulsory to install your TV aerial as high as possible
although usually it does help if there is a hill in the way.

Unless you are a really massive fan of "Dave" Freesat is the obvious
choice in a remote location where TDTV is so difficult to obtain.

I remain curious as to how it is possible for the system to recognise
the channels and channel IDs in setup without being able to at least
partially decode some of them into jumpy video and broken sound.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 14/06/13 15:03, Martin Brown wrote:
>
> I remain curious as to how it is possible for the system to recognise
> the channels and channel IDs in setup without being able to at least
> partially decode some of them into jumpy video and broken sound.
>

+1.

That's why I thought getting a tv dongle for the puter might be worth doing.

I've never had a case where the scan detected a station that something
didn't appear on screen and in the channels list.

Except one of my sony ST boxes which did similar and is now sitting
behind me for the usual 3 year period before I sigh, realise it wont fix
itself and throw it in the bin/.

[Bill Wright]

Despite the fact that my previous good professional advice was lost to
you because of the mellée of uninformed speculation and sheer bollocks
that surrounded it, I will say this:
The aerial is a Vision V11-441 44. Google it.
It is the right way up so the box won't be full of water.
It appears to have been properly installed, so will most likely be
correctly aligned.
The grey box on the mast is a Vision brand amplifier. It's odd that the
aerial cable goes into the right side. I know some old Vision products
were like that, so maybe it's one of them. That housing is used for
other things, but I should think it's an amplifier. The cables are not
well secured so one of them might have pulled back in the f plug and
thus not be making contact.
The whole installation is quite old, by the looks of it. The amp could
easily have been trashed by nearby lightning.
If not you will definitely need a PSU to feed 12V to the amp. As I
suggested before the first box inside will most likely be a PSU. Note
that this could be faulty even if a simple meter says otherwise. If you
have a telly with the option of putting 5V on the aerial feeder you
could enable that and connect direct to the aerial. 5V will power the amp.

Bill

[John Rumm]

They generally show BERs after the FEC/interleaving etc is unwound, so
it gives you very little information on the actual signal quality until
its right on the edge.


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[John Rumm]

On 14/06/2013 14:09, Adrian wrote:

> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:31:40 +0100, tony sayer wrote:
>
>> Could I suggest that you either take some pix of other aerials locally
>> and your own aerial and post them somewhere. If you are not that happy
>> with them being public about that mail them over.. discretion
>> guaranteed..
>
> Here we go...
> Wide view of whole aerial pole
> http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7441/9040084135_6453983f46_o.jpg
> (The house is low two-storey, to give you an indication of overall height
> above ground)
>
> Aerial itself
> http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7397/9042309740_ecb2a208d4_o.jpg

Medium to high gain yagi, can't see the colour of the end plug on the
boom, but it looks like its probably a grouped aerial and not a wideband.

> The thingy at the bottom of the pole
> http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2812/9040085409_db05ae1da7_o.jpg

That is likely your masthead preamp. It will be powered by first of the
boxes you identified as "amps" previously.

> Next door have a weeny little bent-tin cheapo crappy thing mounted at
> ground floor gutter level. The few other houses in this little enclave
> have aerials very similar to ours in both altitude and style.

Does it work?

[The Natural Philosopher]

not so sure about that. there are 'how many errors before correction'
and 'how many errors after correction' collected somewhere. errors
before correction can be quite high and yet still give a usable stream.

[Adrian]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:39:55 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

> Despite the fact that my previous good professional advice was lost to
> you because of the mellée of uninformed speculation and sheer bollocks
> that surrounded it

A perennial risk...

> The aerial is a Vision V11-441 44. Google it.

Umm, OK. So that's a decent aerial, the right one for the transmitter,
and shouldn't be my problem, right?

> It is the right way up so the box won't be full of water.

Always a good start. <grin>

> It appears to have been properly installed, so will most likely be
> correctly aligned.

OK, great. Certainly the rough direction appears to be both consistent
with neighbours and fits the map.

> The grey box on the mast is a Vision brand amplifier. It's odd that the
> aerial cable goes into the right side. I know some old Vision products
> were like that, so maybe it's one of them. That housing is used for
> other things, but I should think it's an amplifier. The cables are not
> well secured so one of them might have pulled back in the f plug and
> thus not be making contact.

It's going to be ladder o'clock, isn't it?

> The whole installation is quite old, by the looks of it. The amp could
> easily have been trashed by nearby lightning.

Not sure that's a great risk - it's a long way from being the highest
thing in the immediate vicinity. But, again, I'm quite happy to be wrong.

Basic relevant history - the house was bought in the mid '90s, and a lot
of work done to it - including new roof and a big kitchen extension
(other end of the house to the aerial and all of the coax) - before they
died in the mid-late '00s. Since then, the work to the place was finished
off by their son and the house only used occasionally, but remained
(very) fully furnished. The only TV here was a weeny ancient portable, no
STB. Hence the likelihood that there's never been any Freeview watched
here.

> If not you will definitely need a PSU to feed 12V to the amp. As I
> suggested before the first box inside will most likely be a PSU.

OK, I think you might have missed a post or three, too. Yes, the first
box inside did turn out to be a Vision V23-100 PSU.

Turning that off and/or on makes a fairly big difference to the reported
signal strength. Removing it from the line makes little difference. The
other box is definitely an internal amp (Vision V52-100), which gives
similar results disconnected to on, but a big (downward) difference
connected-but-off.

[Martin Brown]

On 15/06/2013 01:48, John Rumm wrote:
> On 14/06/2013 09:01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 14/06/13 00:56, Windmill wrote:
>>> Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>>
>>>> Isn't it annoying that these TV diagnostics are in terms of % using an
>>>> arbitrary undocumented scale that is probably logarithmic. ADSL modems
>>>> at least provide sensible units of dB signal to noise levels whereas
>>>> TVs
>>>> go out of their way not to provide meaningful information.

>>> What 'quality' is being displayed by these things anyway?
>>
>> Bit error rates probably.
>
> They generally show BERs after the FEC/interleaving etc is unwound, so
> it gives you very little information on the actual signal quality until
> its right on the edge.

Any idea why it is like that? Did the marketing department get to
specify what diagnostics to display and choose the number that looks
most favourable to the set and is minimally informative. The decoder
must know how hard it is having to work and have these other numbers!

It would be much more useful to be able to see the raw BER - you can
basically see the results of uncorrected errors in the output bitstream
as glitches in the MPEG decoder long before "Quality" gets to 0.

IME anything with Q<4 is totally unwatchable and Q>8 is needed for
decent quality picture. I expect these Q numbers vary with maker (in my
case Panasonic). I use FreeSat most of the time these days...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[The Other Mike]

On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:03:17 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Unless you are a really massive fan of "Dave" Freesat is the obvious
>choice in a remote location where TDTV is so difficult to obtain.

Quest and Yesterday are also missing on Freesat but present on Freeview


--

[charles]

In article <kph60j$91o$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,
Adrian <tooma...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[Snip]

> OK, I think you might have missed a post or three, too. Yes, the first
> box inside did turn out to be a Vision V23-100 PSU.

> Turning that off and/or on makes a fairly big difference to the reported
> signal strength. Removing it from the line makes little difference. The
> other box is definitely an internal amp (Vision V52-100), which gives
> similar results disconnected to on, but a big (downward) difference
> connected-but-off.

To get the amplifier working you need to have the PSU switched on. Any
results you get without it being on are meaningless.

In a previous post you said:
> Next door have a weeny little bent-tin cheapo crappy thing mounted at
> ground floor gutter level. The few other houses in this little enclave
> have aerials very similar to ours in both altitude and style.

Is the "weeny little bent-tin cheapo crappy thing" pointing the same way as
yours? or does it have the roads vertical and is pointing to the Clyro
mast. If so, perhaps you should do the same.

One possibility is that the amplifier is being overloaded . If it was
originally installed in the analogue days, the extra muxes, plus Clyro
might well cause the "hundred or so channels" that you see. Or lighting
damage might be the problem. The aerial doesn't need to be the highest
point in the area, a lighting strike in the vicinity is all that is needed.

I don't think it's a DIY job, you need someone with suitable test equipment.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 15/06/13 10:02, charles wrote:
> One possibility is that the amplifier is being overloaded . If it was
> originally installed in the analogue days, the extra muxes, plus Clyro
> might well cause the "hundred or so channels" that you see. Or lighting
> damage might be the problem. The aerial doesn't need to be the highest
> point in the area, a lighting strike in the vicinity is all that is needed.

There are generally 105 or so channels on a full freeview installation.

The Ridge Hill transmitter is now using LESS power than it was when it
transmitted analogue. Down from 100KW to 20KW per mux.
So its doubtful that its overloading. Clyro miht be overloading it, if
its actually pointing that way, but even so, I'd expect to see clyro
stations available when the mast head and other amp are off.
.

The really salient issue is that the 105 channels are detected reliably,
but not displayed.

That suggest to me a fault in the STB, which is why I suggested buying a
cheap PC TV adapter to eliminate that as a problem.

The fact that the fault developed at the exact time the box was shunted
around in a removal van may or may not be coincidental.

> I don't think it's a DIY job, you need someone with suitable test equipment.
>

I think its perfectly possible to DIY it, but it has to be done
methodically.

The first thing to do is try a different STB. Because its easy and its
cheap. And requires no ladder climbing.

Then move further up towards the mast head itself, to see where if
anywhere the signal degrades.

BUT I have to say, degraded signal in my experience of half a dozen
installations, ALWAYS results in 'channels not found' Not in 'channels
found, but not displayed correctly'.

That combinations sounds too much like corrupted software in the STB
itself. And its happened to one of my boxes here. I had the channels
list, but didnt get any stations. Swapping the STB resulted in normality
restored,. so that STB is for the bin.

I dunno how much a cheap STB costs these days - most seem to have
recorders built in and are expensive, hence recommending a sub £30 PC
dongle instead.

Oh. some STBS still available in that price range it seems.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/cheap-freeview-box/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=cheap%20freeview%20box&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acheap%20freeview%20box

[John Rumm]

You may get that level of detail on some of the PC based decoders, but
its rare to see anything that detailed on your average STB.

[John Rumm]

On 15/06/2013 09:29, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 15/06/2013 01:48, John Rumm wrote:
>> On 14/06/2013 09:01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>> On 14/06/13 00:56, Windmill wrote:
>>>> Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Isn't it annoying that these TV diagnostics are in terms of % using an
>>>>> arbitrary undocumented scale that is probably logarithmic. ADSL modems
>>>>> at least provide sensible units of dB signal to noise levels whereas
>>>>> TVs
>>>>> go out of their way not to provide meaningful information.
>
>>>> What 'quality' is being displayed by these things anyway?
>>>
>>> Bit error rates probably.
>>
>> They generally show BERs after the FEC/interleaving etc is unwound, so
>> it gives you very little information on the actual signal quality until
>> its right on the edge.
>
> Any idea why it is like that? Did the marketing department get to
> specify what diagnostics to display and choose the number that looks
> most favourable to the set and is minimally informative. The decoder
> must know how hard it is having to work and have these other numbers!

Not having studied the low level frame format used over the air in DVBT,
I don't know what level of error identification is actually visible in
the coded stream. However, with many FEC systems the small errors in the
source stream simply get fixed in the process of decoding such that you
are not even aware what they were or where they were. Its only once the
stream is decoded and you can attempt to makes sense of the data, and
have access to framing information, and checksums etc that you can tell
what sort of quality of data you actually have.

> It would be much more useful to be able to see the raw BER - you can
> basically see the results of uncorrected errors in the output bitstream
> as glitches in the MPEG decoder long before "Quality" gets to 0.
>
> IME anything with Q<4 is totally unwatchable and Q>8 is needed for
> decent quality picture. I expect these Q numbers vary with maker (in my
> case Panasonic). I use FreeSat most of the time these days...

The difficulty here is there is there not being a standard way of
presenting this information - each box maker does their own thing, so
you never know if you are comparing like with like.

[John Rumm]

On 15/06/2013 08:44, Adrian wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:39:55 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:
>
>> Despite the fact that my previous good professional advice was lost to
>> you because of the mellée of uninformed speculation and sheer bollocks
>> that surrounded it
>
> A perennial risk...
>
>> The aerial is a Vision V11-441 44. Google it.
>
> Umm, OK. So that's a decent aerial, the right one for the transmitter,
> and shouldn't be my problem, right?

Ridge Hill has all its muxes in group A (on channels 21, 22, 24, 25, 27,
28), so yes the aerial is correct for the area.

>> The whole installation is quite old, by the looks of it. The amp could
>> easily have been trashed by nearby lightning.
>
> Not sure that's a great risk - it's a long way from being the highest
> thing in the immediate vicinity. But, again, I'm quite happy to be wrong.

Sadly, its not just a direct strike that can fry it...

[John Rumm]

On 13/06/2013 17:35, Adrian wrote:

> On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:40:32 +0100, John Rumm wrote:
>
>>> No, it's a pair of amps. Vision brand, no model number visible. Coax
>>> comes into one, out and into the other, then out. Switching either/both
>>> on makes a BIG difference to the signal strength.
>
>> With respect, that does not really tell you they are a pair of amps.
>> Inline PSUs look pretty much the same as some amps, and the coax needs
>> to loop through them so that they can feed power up it to a remote
>> preamp nearer the aerial.
>

> Oooh, you're going to make me go and do something to help myself, aren't
> you?

;-)

> Right... <heads out with binoculars and camera>
> There IS a small, seemingly-unlabelled box at the base of the aerial mast.
>
> <pries covers off Vision boxes>
> Aha. One of them - the aerial-side one - is a V23-100 Power Supply.
> The other - the inner one - is a V52-100 2-way Amplifier.

Right, that all makes sense...

> The aerial points the same basic direction as neighbours, which does
> appear to be the right basic direction for the Ridge Hill transmitter.

Good.

>>> Neither - 0-10%
>>> One - ~25%
>>> Both - 65-75%
>>>
>>> Just no signal quality.
>
>> Can result from too much amplification, plus a number of other causes. I

>> know you have tried one and then both, but have you tried just the
>> second amp on its own?
>
> I thought I'd tried both, but you know what it's like when you're
> shouting instructions upstairs to SWMBO...

Now we know that the first box is just a PSU (as a few of us suggested!)
my suggestion to try just the second is less relevant.

> <wanders off to DIY>
> OK, so both on - 65-75%
> PSU for external on, internal off - 15-20%
> PSU for external on, internal disconnected from coax - 55-65%

Well that seems plausible in raw number terms... IIUC the splitter amp
has about 13dB of gain (I could not find detailed specs for it - but
Bill will have accurate figures I am sure), so overcoming the loss from
the split etc, you would expect it to add about 10dB to the total -
obviously we have know way of knowing how your STB translates power
levels into percentages.

As you have discovered though, there is more to the game than just
signal strength, and here is where it gets difficult to diagnose what is
going on without access to test equipment.

Assuming that the aerial itself is receiving a good quality but weak
signal, you will need the masthead amp to get a decent level of signal
into the downlead before you start worrying about distributing it about
the house.

However there are a number of ways in which you can run into problems
here. The masthead amp might not be working as well as it should - it
might have the expected gain, but for whatever reason is distorting its
output. It could be its shagged. It may be its working perfectly, but
there is a strong unwanted signal on its input that is within its
bandwidth. This can overdrive it, and as a result the output is driven
to its limits where it starts to "clip". That can then spray unwanted
harmonics all over other parts of the spectrum including the channels
you are after. Lastly the coax itself is old, and may be damper inside
than we would like. Its also probably just "low loss" coax, rather than
the modern type with an additional foil screen under the copper braid.
The dampness etc (and poor connections from where its been flapping
about unrestrained) can degrade the signal anyway, and the lack of
screening will let more noise into the system in the first place.


> PSU for external off, internal on - 20-25%
> PSU for external disconnected from coax, internal on - 30%
> Both off - 10%
> Coax out of internal, to living room disconnected - 10%...
>
> So it seems as if both are doing _something_, but the interesting thing
> is what happens with the internal one disconnected - it's almost as good
> as with it powered up, much better than connected but off. There's still
> no usable signal, though.
>
> That's with the TV & STB downstairs. The STB's aerial socket won't
> connect to the co-ax before the Vision boxes, unless I start fannying
> with connectors. The co-ax comes out of the second box, and straight
> downstairs to the socket in the living room. I can't easily totally
> bypass both boxes, either.

In an ideal world you would need to meter the output from the aerial
itself, and then work your way back down the system to see where the
problem is actually being introduced. Needless to say the solution to
fix a problem caused by a strong unwanted local RF signal is going to be
different to say dealing with the effects of a knackered coax.

Without test gear, the best you can probably do is divide it up,
eliminate as many unknowns as possible (e.g. internal distribution
wiring), and test in stages.

Say for example connect your TV/STB directly to coax from the aerial,
and turn on the power feed in the STB to power the mast head amp. If
that get you a good result there then you could then introduce the
Vision PSU and move to after it and so on.

[John Rumm]

On 15/06/2013 10:40, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 15/06/13 10:02, charles wrote:
>> One possibility is that the amplifier is being overloaded . If it was
>> originally installed in the analogue days, the extra muxes, plus Clyro
>> might well cause the "hundred or so channels" that you see. Or lighting
>> damage might be the problem. The aerial doesn't need to be the highest
>> point in the area, a lighting strike in the vicinity is all that is
>> needed.
>
> There are generally 105 or so channels on a full freeview installation.

Some (typically older) STB boxes have a habit of sticking the first
channels they find into the allocated "slots" and then moving duplicates
found later to the high numbers. Annoying where the later ones are the
better quality ones you are after.

> The Ridge Hill transmitter is now using LESS power than it was when it
> transmitted analogue. Down from 100KW to 20KW per mux.

Which IIRC due to the way the DTV system works amounts to the same level
in practice...

> So its doubtful that its overloading. Clyro miht be overloading it, if
> its actually pointing that way, but even so, I'd expect to see clyro
> stations available when the mast head and other amp are off.

Overloads can come from signals other than the ones you are attempting
to capture though. I used to find it was a delicate balancing operation
here prior to DSO to get enough gain to lift the DTV channels to a
usable level, without over driving the amp with the analogue signals
that were at the time 30 - 40dB stronger.

[tony sayer]

In article <kpf4mr$apo$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, Adrian
<tooma...@gmail.com> scribeth thus

OK...

I think this is what's happened and what is happening. Originally in
analogue days this was aimed at Ridge Hill prolly then the only usable
TX around. Since then the Clyro relay has come into use and that as far
as relay stations go is quite a decent sized one, most small ones are a
few aerials on a telephone pole!.

Now in DSO days the signals from Ridge Hill are being affected by
what's coming from Clyro and of course thats on a different frequency
group (B) its also behind the aerial but I rather suspect that there are
a lot of reflections from other buildings, hillside's trees etc. So the
TV is "seeing" a lot of rather confused crap termed intermodulation
products.

So what do you do?. I suspect the home alluded to across the way with
the "weensey" aerial is on Clyro and thats covering the town quite well
but now that has a reduced number of MUX's and some progs are going to
be missing and also as it's in Wales it does carry the output of Wenvoe
a main Welsh station.

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=498


I very much suspect the first Amplifier is working OK you can check this
by seeing what's coming out of it on power then off power and if theres
a lot less power off then its ticking OK they very rarely half fail and
if it has been spiked by lightning then its prolly won't be going at all
apart from in the bin!.

Now that amp is being fed with stuff it can't handle mainly the output
of the local relay hence its generating the multitude of signals the TV
is responding to but none of them are of any use!.

I rather suspect that the original problem here is a decent "clean"
aerial signal the set top box I'd think is OK. Is there anywhere else
you could tale it to test it at another location?..

Now you could filter off the local signal from your aerial but that
would have to be done -before- the aerial amplifier which isn't easy to
do!. Else get another aerial in B group and aim that less amp/s at the
local relay and enjoy the TV albeit fewer muxes than otherwise and that
area isn't to only one suffering the problem its usually down to
insufficient frequencies available for the area the relay is located
in..

Or go Freesat and do away with a lot of problems. A second hand sky box
will suffice and dish and they as long as they can "see" the satellites
are fine they needn't be that high of the ground ours are out in the
back garden surrounded by shrubs, else get a digital satellite receiver
or a sat card for your TV and they do work well the wife uses one here
for French satellite TV.

FWIW This ng has some very well informed people hereon for TV, Bill
Wright must be one of the most experienced aerial riggers in the UK and
has a very interesting website. He has even rigged receiver aerials for
the broadcasters!.

http://www.wrightsaerials.co.uk/index.shtml

Also mention to Charles Hope a long time member of the BBC reception
advice team now a shadow of its former self as well as Martin and Mac
and also andy wade if he puts in an appearance as well as TNP etc...

As to the latter person don't be too concerned by the lack of ERP as
regards any TX they are differing systems and now Digital is more of a
mean power whereas analogue was peak powers . Here in Cambridge I find
that Digital reception is less demanding on "metal in the sky" than
analogue!...

--
Tony Sayer