Out of interest, is either the signal strength or signal quality a more important factor than the other or are they pretty much the same when trying to fine tune this aerial with the tv in the loft?. As it strikes me how 1 seems much higher than the other and with the freeview receiver the quality remains pretty much stable but the signal is what seems to be going up and down like crazy.
The signal quality is the important one. If you have too much signal the quality will drop due to overloading, too little signal and your equipment won't know what to make of it. From that you can see the signal strength can vary up & down without it mattering so long as it is within the upper & lower acceptable limits.
The actual figures are to be read with care, 100% for signal strength is probably the most your equipment can display, even if it is 150% and overloading.
Update, turned the aerial 180 degrees properly checked the cables in the booster, had the daughters tv up there (only a 22" flat screen) and got similar levels. Came out of the loft and the signal meter registers a signal of 60dBuv (just about as slightly flashing) out of 80dBuv in our bedroom (was no reading yesterday on signal meter and used tv top aerial last night which confirmed the freeview receiver had not failed.
Anyways just did a total reset and scan and scanned a total of 303 channels, never had anything like that before but selected North West as per usual. Ok, as it is now even after a factory reset, a fresh scan and selecting North West I get the correct BBC 1 North West region but ITV 1 (channel 3) is Wales region as is S4C on channel no 4.
But vitally the levels have massively improved where for most checked channels, both North West & Wales are in the 80's percentage wise for both signal and quality and both bars are very stable. Even though the receiver stored ITV 1 Wales as channel 3 (possibly as both the signal and quality levels are in the 80's percentage wise) even the correct North West ITV 1 region stored in the 800's has very stable signal and quality levels in the 68-70% region.
So wandering if in fact receivers store the strongest signals first regardless of region chosen?. And if the region chosen by the user is different from the strongest region channel scanned in then the chosen user region is then stored as a duplicate alternative in the 800's?.
Going to check the main tv downstairs as more concerned with the HD channels for that tv.
One of the disadvantages of freeview, the tuning in bit.
Most freeview boxes, recorders and built in freeview on tv's generally act dumb and whatever they find first in the tuning range gets put into the primary preset (eg, 12345). So scanning up the scale if it finds a weak distant signal first but it's strong enough to be detected then the channels on that signal will likely take priority.
In areas where there is significant signal overlap, on top some hills etc it can be very tricky to solve. If you know the UHF numbers used by the transmitter u want to use, you can scan manually so the hardware doesn't scan everything. Once stored however, you need to make sure auto scan, or auto update, background scan, etc etc are all disabled. If not done when the hardware next does an auto scan it would just scan everything again in the usual dumb way, back to square one. Prob with turning it off, you don't get the new channels automatically when they launch
Well typically in the past the Wales channels scanned in the range of 0-56% of the way through the scanning process. So taking the aerial out of the back of the tv compensated somewhat. But now the aerial has been turned some 180 degrees I have noted that I scan Wales transmitters channels first, then some North West transmitter channels and.then back to the Wales transmitter channels again.
I guess I could, with practice on the freeview receiver note and compensate for this and still use the aerial out method to avoid scanning and storing the Moel y Parc transmitter for Wales region channels. But that won't work with the youview receiver but can work with that possibly to wipe the unwanted duplicates.
Well typically in the past the Wales channels scanned in the range of 0-56% of the way through the scanning process. So taking the aerial out of the back of the tv compensated somewhat. But now the aerial has been turned some 180 degrees I have noted that I scan Wales transmitters channels first, then some North West transmitter channels and.then back to the Wales transmitter channels again.
I guess I could, with practice on the freeview receiver note and compensate for this and still use the aerial out method to avoid scanning and storing the Moel y Parc transmitter for Wales region channels. But that won't work with the youview receiver but can work with that possibly to wipe the unwanted duplicates.
That's too be expected as winter hill and moel-y-parc overlap and have done since DSO, even more with the new COM multiplexes.
Ideally you want to perform a manual tune of just the correct multiplexes
That's typical behaviour - some boxes don't cope well when channels move number - if the destination number if free then it will work just fine but if not then unpredicatableness can result. What you need to do is delete all the channels which have gone or are currently listed on the wrong number (or just delete all channels) and then rescan
I have a BU10FVZS1 Bush Freeview set-to box and ever since the recent changes, if I tune to a BBC channel, after about 10 seconds, the set-to box becomes unresponsive and locks-up. The picture is fine and remains so after the lock-up but the only way to fix it is to turn off at the plug and turn it back on again, quickly changing the channel away from BBC to avoid it locking again.
I have tried re-scanning the channels, re-scanning without the aerial plugged/re-scanning again with it plugged back in and also doing a 'First Time Installation' set-up scan but still the problem persists. I have also tried selecting the two different Regional setting which are offered, which in my case are Gloucestershire : Central or Gloucestershire : West but to no avail. It only appears to be the BBC channels which cause this issue with all other channels working fine. Even on the BBC channels, the picture is perfect so would not appear to be a tuning issue.
My question is basically has anything happened during the recent changes which may cause this behaviour (particularly to the BBC channels) and if so, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might go about fixing this?
In our case sadly only the freeview built in to the daughters tv seems to have a manual tune\scan function. Neither the 2 freeview receivers and more surprisingly the youview receiver seems to have a manual tune\scan function which is highly frustrating. Because as said the freeview receiver in the bedroom the other day scanned in some 303 channels. Even with the handful of duplicates in the 800's its not stored anything like that many channels of cause Some of the channels are actually quite weak even where a duplicate has be stored. The frustrating feeling is we in theory have a wrong region channel stored first, a weak duplicate but correct region stored in the 800's but an alternative stronger correct region channel not getting stored as a channel will have already been scanned in twice even if the first 2 are both wrong region and a weaker correct region despite an alternative stronger correct region existing and getting overlooked by the receiver. The major issue seems to be a lack of manual tuning\scan on some receivers.
Incidently we only seem to have this problem on lower epg listed channels.
I suppose one solution would be to use a RF filter to exclude the frequency range not required.
Not so easy in the north west. Winter Hill and Moel y Parc main transmitters have a number of overlapping mux frequencies. So it's not so easy to exclude one and just leave the other.
Also, whilst a number of us seem to be having very similar or related issues etc and the transmitter details online don't seem to indicate any issues in most cases. Well what about the 4G signals?. Was it not mentioned a while back that the new 4G transmissions when they start or get boosted could cause major DTT signal interference or issues, more in weaker reception areas on where channels are on a weak transmission?. This would certainly explain why the lower placed epg channels are suffering major reception and breakups if they are on a weaker UHF channel\frequency strength of whatever the correct termanology is.
So could we be looking at the wrong cause to these problems and the issues could be more related to recent 4G mobile transmitter signal changes as much as anything else?.
Also, whilst a number of us seem to be having very similar or related issues etc and the transmitter details online don't seem to indicate any issues in most cases. Well what about the 4G signals?. Was it not mentioned a while back that the new 4G transmissions when they start or get boosted could cause major DTT signal interference or issues, more in weaker reception areas on where channels are on a weak transmission?. This would certainly explain why the lower placed epg channels are suffering major reception and breakups if they are on a weaker UHF channel\frequency strength of whatever the correct termanology is.
So could we be looking at the wrong cause to these problems and the issues could be more related to recent 4G mobile transmitter signal changes as much as anything else?.
There is little to zero correlation between the EPG channel number for a programme service and where in the UHF band the mux carrying that service is located. For instance all the BBC SD channels are on one mux but spread all over the EPG.
From the majority of main sites the six main muxes are pretty much equal power. There are differences in the way the digital data is carried on the different muxes that can have an effect on reception however. Though most of the time you only notice any effect at low signal levels.
The newer muxes, such as the one carrying BBC4 HD, are often at much lower power and may be limited in the geographical area they broadcast to due to interference issues with other transmitters. That can have an effect on reception.
As can the aerial. It is not uncommon for transmitters to group the various signals into a sub-section of the UHF band. And for aerials to be designed to only cover the same sub-section as well. It is by and large a little bit easier to design an efficient aerial for a narrow range of frequencies than a wider range. Trouble is some of these additional muxes are on frequencies outside the main group so an aerial designed to receive this group my struggle to receive the new muxes. Adding to the problems of lower signal to begin with.
To get interference from 4G you would need a mobile phone transmitter on the former 800MHz TV band rather than just 4G by itself (4G mobile also uses frequencies well outside the range of a TV aerial). So it might not be as massive a problem as all that.
I suspect that a lot of the issues you seem to be having would be solved simply by having the ability to manually tune only the signals from Winter Hill, Storeton or Moel y Parc depending on your preference. It seems that you are getting a mix of two or possibly all three of these and that is confusing the hell out of your kit.
Odd that only the TV has a manual tune option. I've seen plenty of cheap and nasty boxes that have such an option alongside the auto tune.
I have a BU10FVZS1 Bush Freeview set-to box and ever since the recent changes, if I tune to a BBC channel, after about 10 seconds, the set-to box becomes unresponsive and locks-up. The picture is fine and remains so after the lock-up but the only way to fix it is to turn off at the plug and turn it back on again, quickly changing the channel away from BBC to avoid it locking again.
Same thing happening to us; on a Bush box as you report, and also on a Thomson box with the same user interface - just a different colour - so I guess running the same middleware.
My question is basically has anything happened during the recent changes which may cause this behaviour (particularly to the BBC channels) and if so, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might go about fixing this?
.
I think so. I just tweeted to the BBC Red Button people, to see if they know what has gone wrong. There has obviously been a change that these boxes don't like. I'm in Norwich, if that helps anyone who knows more about these things narrow it down.
We live in Newark Notts and have a Humax 9150T in the conservatory linked to a Philex dome aerial which has worked perfectly well until recently. Strength is around 76% - 78% and during daylight hours the quality is pretty consistently 100%. However, as the evening wears on the quality starts to bounce as other have described and we get stuttering picture. I wondered if it was anything to do with low energy lights as I have heard this can be a problem but turning them off makes no difference.
The transmitter we use for that tv is Belmont and it has been manually tuned to exclude other transmitters and we also had a problem with slow epg after retune although there are no stations on wrong transmitters.
Same thing happening to us; on a Bush box as you report, and also on a Thomson box with the same user interface - just a different colour - so I guess running the same middleware.
I think so. I just tweeted to the BBC Red Button people, to see if they know what has gone wrong. There has obviously been a change that these boxes don't like. I'm in Norwich, if that helps anyone who knows more about these things narrow it down.
You might as well use a bit of wet string. That aerial claims 20dB gain, ±3dB, yet includes a 20dB amplifer, so the actual aerial has approximately 0dB gain (i.e. none whatsoever) on average!
Better to put up a proper aerial aimed at the transmitter, that's what the network was designed for.
My question is basically has anything happened during the recent changes which may cause this behaviour (particularly to the BBC channels) and if so, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might go about fixing this?
Many Thanks.
I thought I read somewhere on this forum, if not this topic, something about having the BBC mux carrying extra info in the form of the message that channels have moved is causing the problem. Nothing to do with 4G, duplicate transmitters, etc. If your equipment worked before then it will resume normal service as soon as these messages are removed (possibly October 1st), so to fix it, just sit back, read a book and wait.
Just wondering if anyone who had this problem after the Sept channel changes if like me there EPG which had serious chunks of Info missing as now kind of settled down and is more or less back to normal
Comments
The actual figures are to be read with care, 100% for signal strength is probably the most your equipment can display, even if it is 150% and overloading.
Anyways just did a total reset and scan and scanned a total of 303 channels, never had anything like that before but selected North West as per usual. Ok, as it is now even after a factory reset, a fresh scan and selecting North West I get the correct BBC 1 North West region but ITV 1 (channel 3) is Wales region as is S4C on channel no 4.
But vitally the levels have massively improved where for most checked channels, both North West & Wales are in the 80's percentage wise for both signal and quality and both bars are very stable. Even though the receiver stored ITV 1 Wales as channel 3 (possibly as both the signal and quality levels are in the 80's percentage wise) even the correct North West ITV 1 region stored in the 800's has very stable signal and quality levels in the 68-70% region.
So wandering if in fact receivers store the strongest signals first regardless of region chosen?. And if the region chosen by the user is different from the strongest region channel scanned in then the chosen user region is then stored as a duplicate alternative in the 800's?.
Going to check the main tv downstairs as more concerned with the HD channels for that tv.
Most freeview boxes, recorders and built in freeview on tv's generally act dumb and whatever they find first in the tuning range gets put into the primary preset (eg, 12345). So scanning up the scale if it finds a weak distant signal first but it's strong enough to be detected then the channels on that signal will likely take priority.
In areas where there is significant signal overlap, on top some hills etc it can be very tricky to solve. If you know the UHF numbers used by the transmitter u want to use, you can scan manually so the hardware doesn't scan everything. Once stored however, you need to make sure auto scan, or auto update, background scan, etc etc are all disabled. If not done when the hardware next does an auto scan it would just scan everything again in the usual dumb way, back to square one. Prob with turning it off, you don't get the new channels automatically when they launch
I guess I could, with practice on the freeview receiver note and compensate for this and still use the aerial out method to avoid scanning and storing the Moel y Parc transmitter for Wales region channels. But that won't work with the youview receiver but can work with that possibly to wipe the unwanted duplicates.
Ideally you want to perform a manual tune of just the correct multiplexes
Thanks a lot, worked a treat.:)
I have a BU10FVZS1 Bush Freeview set-to box and ever since the recent changes, if I tune to a BBC channel, after about 10 seconds, the set-to box becomes unresponsive and locks-up. The picture is fine and remains so after the lock-up but the only way to fix it is to turn off at the plug and turn it back on again, quickly changing the channel away from BBC to avoid it locking again.
I have tried re-scanning the channels, re-scanning without the aerial plugged/re-scanning again with it plugged back in and also doing a 'First Time Installation' set-up scan but still the problem persists. I have also tried selecting the two different Regional setting which are offered, which in my case are Gloucestershire : Central or Gloucestershire : West but to no avail. It only appears to be the BBC channels which cause this issue with all other channels working fine. Even on the BBC channels, the picture is perfect so would not appear to be a tuning issue.
My question is basically has anything happened during the recent changes which may cause this behaviour (particularly to the BBC channels) and if so, does anyone have any suggestions as to how I might go about fixing this?
Many Thanks.
Incidently we only seem to have this problem on lower epg listed channels.
One word; freesat
Not so easy in the north west. Winter Hill and Moel y Parc main transmitters have a number of overlapping mux frequencies. So it's not so easy to exclude one and just leave the other.
So could we be looking at the wrong cause to these problems and the issues could be more related to recent 4G mobile transmitter signal changes as much as anything else?.
From the majority of main sites the six main muxes are pretty much equal power. There are differences in the way the digital data is carried on the different muxes that can have an effect on reception however. Though most of the time you only notice any effect at low signal levels.
The newer muxes, such as the one carrying BBC4 HD, are often at much lower power and may be limited in the geographical area they broadcast to due to interference issues with other transmitters. That can have an effect on reception.
As can the aerial. It is not uncommon for transmitters to group the various signals into a sub-section of the UHF band. And for aerials to be designed to only cover the same sub-section as well. It is by and large a little bit easier to design an efficient aerial for a narrow range of frequencies than a wider range. Trouble is some of these additional muxes are on frequencies outside the main group so an aerial designed to receive this group my struggle to receive the new muxes. Adding to the problems of lower signal to begin with.
To get interference from 4G you would need a mobile phone transmitter on the former 800MHz TV band rather than just 4G by itself (4G mobile also uses frequencies well outside the range of a TV aerial). So it might not be as massive a problem as all that.
I suspect that a lot of the issues you seem to be having would be solved simply by having the ability to manually tune only the signals from Winter Hill, Storeton or Moel y Parc depending on your preference. It seems that you are getting a mix of two or possibly all three of these and that is confusing the hell out of your kit.
Odd that only the TV has a manual tune option. I've seen plenty of cheap and nasty boxes that have such an option alongside the auto tune.
Same thing happening to us; on a Bush box as you report, and also on a Thomson box with the same user interface - just a different colour - so I guess running the same middleware.
I think so. I just tweeted to the BBC Red Button people, to see if they know what has gone wrong. There has obviously been a change that these boxes don't like. I'm in Norwich, if that helps anyone who knows more about these things narrow it down.
The transmitter we use for that tv is Belmont and it has been manually tuned to exclude other transmitters and we also had a problem with slow epg after retune although there are no stations on wrong transmitters.
You might as well use a bit of wet string. That aerial claims 20dB gain, ±3dB, yet includes a 20dB amplifer, so the actual aerial has approximately 0dB gain (i.e. none whatsoever) on average!
Better to put up a proper aerial aimed at the transmitter, that's what the network was designed for.
The only exception is that some regional changes have occurred 'up north'. See http://www.a516digital.com/2014/08/localised-technical-changes-to-bbc.html