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Lost all BBC Channels on Freeview????
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[Deleted User]
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Hi, I am in dire need of help here. I put a new aerial in my loft about 12 months ago, which is pointing towards Heathfield and fitted with a 10db boost Masthead amp. I live about 15 miles from Heathfield and until recently I had fantastic reception. I have 2 freeview boxes in the house, 1 in the bedroom, and another (bt vision) in the living room. About a month ago I completely lost all BBC channels, apart from BBC4. I also noticed a dramatic drop in the signal strength and quality on all other channels. For example, before hand ITV 1 had signal strength 45%, signal quality 100%. This is now, signal strength 19%, signal quality 40-50%, so I am getting intermittent dropouts. First thing I did was change the masthead amp and psu, but that made no difference at all.
Can anyone offer me some advice? I am at a complete loss now.
Can anyone offer me some advice? I am at a complete loss now.
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Have you had any work done in the loft recently, eg adding/changing insulation or work on the roof?
Sounds like you are marginal for signal anyway so anything that changes in the loft or roof area could have quite dramatic effect. Digital doesn't decay as noticably as analogue as the signal goes down. What it tends to do is keep working for a long time then start to break up as the errors swamp the error correction circuits then it dies altogether. And the difference between breakup and nothing can be quite small.
Similarly are you sure the aerial is still pointing in the right direction? Trouble with lofts is that you get lots of signal reflections bouncing around inside which cause interference with the direct signal. So positioning of the aerial can be critical and even minor adjustments can make huge changes.
And as these reflections are frequency dependent a position that works OK for one UHF channel might not work so well for another. Hence why you can still get the ITV multiplex reasonably well but not the BBC one. And why it can be a right royal pain in the wotsits getting the aerial positioned correctly in the first place.
I have checked the aerial a number of times, and since it's quite tight for space in my loft, there isn't anywhere for it to move. And I haven't had any work done in the loft at all.
If the latter then have you moved the stuff around at all or cramed more stuff into the space. All of this can have an effect. And it wouldn't take much movement of the aerial to make a change.
Double check the cables and terminations are still in good order. Especially the aerial terminations. If they were not made correctly it is all too easy to give the cable a yank and cause it to disconnect. Or for a stray strand of scren braid to break free and touch the inner conductor which would effectively short circuit the aerial, drastically reducing the signal.
Bends in the cable are another weak point and anywhere the cable is subject to repeated flexing.
And of course check the aerial itself is still complete and none of the elements have got bent for example.
Are there any trees, nearby or on the horizon that are between your aerial and the transmitter? April, May and June are the months when they make their presence felt by attenuating the signal.