I think he may be doing a Kenneth Williams quotation

"Infamy, infamy they've all got it in for me"

Joshua - you say it will be announced shortly of course either by the end of this year or next year

Shortly - by the end of this year? Thats 8 months - or next year that could mean at least another 12 months - hardly shortly is it?

Andy

On the Sandy Mast in 2013 all the Multiplexes will be on their Final Channel Allocations and Powers, plus the National Retune Day is also on the same day I think,
whereby the whole country has to Re-Tune their Boxes and/or TVs like the National Retune Day we had on September 2009

If you have check you Postcode on the Digital UK website
about six months ago or before then then it would have come up with the dates of the Re-Tunes and the last one said "Final Situation 2013" with all the Channel Numbers and Powers, but of course as time has moved on some of the Channel Numbers have been changed by now

Also about my previous Posts, I do not think that the Tyne Tees and Ulster Switchover Dates have yet been Planned
or even what the channels will be, so around then I think they will announce the 2013 event, this is an extremely complicated process more than Digital UK and Arqiva had thought that it has taken longer to plan things and to announce the Switchover Dates and so on
If you buy the What Satellite TV Magazine by Future Publishing in the Pro Section at the Back it has all the Digital UK information in there how is the Digital Switchover being planned and what is taking place when, I subscribe to it, so I get it in the Post every month, it also has lots of information about the Sandy Heath Mast
that we did not know about inside

A couple of months ago I got both Sandy Heath (myself) and Emley Moor (my parents) postcode data from the Digital UK website. Yes it has a "Final situation" line in 2013, but all the muxes on both Sandy and Emley are listed as the same channels as the 2012 entries so I thought little of it. I assumed the 2013 date is simply when all switchover is complete nationwide, so that "Final situation" meant that reception conditions wouldn't change any more and I could consider changes to aerials without fear of any further DSO stagess messing things up.

What is any of that doing in a magazine about Satellite TV!? That's the last place I would ever have thought to look for terrestrial DSO information and narging about Sandy Heath.

The "Final Situation" does not involve any retuning; it is a balancing of output power levels, which is something that can only be done when everything is up and running.

If there is another National Retune day, it certainly won't be listed as the "Final Situation". For my address I am seeing "Reception Changes" in 2013 but this is likely to be either a delayed Northern Ireland region DSO or the 800MHz redistribution (moving UHF61 & 62 to UHF39 & 40) and the changes are minor.

Yes the Tyne Tees and Northern Ireland switchovers had been planned in 2007. All the main transmitter channels and power allocations are here http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/transmitt...t-DSO_v2_0.pdf

The only change will be the NI mini mux and other planning which has to be co-ordinated with the Irish government. That could delay the NI DSO.

There will be more fun if local TV ever gets off the ground.

But essentially Joshua you are totally wrong.

What's a mini mux when it's at home?

A specially configured DVB-T2 mux with a big guard interval giving bandwidth for just three SD channels for Northern Ireland only. More over in the main Freeview forum under: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1409523

Isn't that the idea to broadcast the RTE channels from the Republic of Ireland from the transmitters in Northern Ireland?

Andy

Following on from various posts in this thread so far -: I was on the train to London the other day and noticed Market Harborough's aerials - most Waltham, just the odd Sandy Heath one. By the time you're a few miles down the track at Kettering, it's the other way round: most Sandy Heath, just the odd one at Waltham. Nice view of Sandy Heath just coming out the south end of Bedford, however before you know it just south of Flitwick you've got aerials pointing at Crystal Palace just before you reach Luton, where you have a mix of Luton relay and CP. I'm a bit puzzled because I'm sure I saw some aerials between St Albans and Luton pointing east to what can only be Sudbury... is that possible!?

I must admit I didn't think possible - as Sudbury has been co-channel with the Hemel Hempstead relay.

However look at Brian's wesbite

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=TL913377

It seems indeed it could have been Sudbury !

Andy

Umm, all the UK Free maps are a bit optimistic, and seem to ignore topography. Here's the actual measured coverage:-

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/sudbury/sudbury-map.php

Isn't that an old map showing analogue coverage? The coverage area looks very similar to this

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=95

And the same map from the same series covering Sandy Heath suggests there is no reception further west than Rugby, Warwickshire. My parents can get adequate Sandy Heath and they live another 12 miles west "outside" of this area

Andy

Well yes, with UHF it's never a clear cut line, and why should an old map be less valid than a more recent one ? (I suspect both versions are derived from the same set of measurements)

The problem is those BBC and IBA maps just show the 54 dBuv contour, it doesn't give the lower field strengths, that more the modern tuners and masthead amps can take advantage of.

I don't trust the UK Free coverage maps, they often seem to be based on guess work

I think the coverage must be somewhere between the mb21 map and the UKfree map - the old maps shown on mb21 predate the current computer models, which show the area covered plotted in pixels and give better hints to radiation patterns, although not factoring local obstacles (neither polar diagrams, see other thread in this forum).

It was only a few houses with aerials pointing east, and I think there was higher ground between them and the direction of Hemel Hempstead. Possibly just a very localised fluke of geography allowing better reception of Sudbury rather than Crystal Palace or Sandy Heath.

Noticed a few of these aerials on the houses near the track just north of Luton station: http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll...2.62,,1,-27.21 (middle one)
What are they?

Ron Smith high gain FM (actually made in Luton, perhaps that is Ron's house !)

http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialp...dern/068.shtml

Thanks for that! I saw three all along the same road that runs parallel with the train track coming northwards out of Luton. Never seen them before!

I live in Market Harborough and it is very much about the choice of regional programming, as far as topography allows. Most people in Market Harborough have an affinity with the East Midlands and Leicester so having aerials pointing at Waltham means they get the 'correct' regional programming. Kettering is a different kettle of fish and I would imagine people feel more of an affinity with Northampton and the East of England - hence an aerial pointing to Sandy Heath provides regional programming from their 'correct' region.

It is interesting that Virgin Media's cable TV service provides the East of England service in the town, whereas Sky provide the East Midlands service. When I was with VM I complained that we were not receiving the correct regional service for the town, but their response was that we were.

My aerial is now turned towards Sandy Heath and I get excellent Freeview reception and the HD channels. The MUXes which have had their power turned up give my nearly a 100% signal.

There are websites which show google maps of broadband coverage across the country based on user experiences. Has anyone ever attempted this with DTT? It would be interesting to see actual coverage, not just computer predictions or years old analogue maps.

There are more variables, such as some muxes having better coverage than others, but these can be displayed quite easily.

Just seen my first popup message about switchover coming in November (Tacolneston) which came on at the start of Frasier on Channel 4 this morning.

That's very premature isn't it? There's six months to go!

Correct. Captions start 6 months before switchover, according to Digital UK information.

I'm glad I mostly watch recorded stuff where the text applications don't do anything. It seems particularly pointless putting up warnings on digital platforms, since you're effectively preaching to the converted.

[LIST][*] On analogue the captions warn people to get ready for the switch.[*] On digital the captions highlight the fact that a retune will be required, and can be removed by pressing Yellow, I think (it's been a month or so since I've seen one here in my area). It is also an opportunity to remind people that 2nd or 3rd TVs in the house will need to be converted.[/LIST]

Or turn interactive services off.

I'd love it if the Humax HDR Fox T2 had an option to turn off interactive services, but it doesn't. I'm sick to death of the "Book me" green button appearing near the middle of the screen, especially on Channel 4 where it stays on for quite some time after the relevant trailer has finished. Equally I'm sick of the "Press Red" hovering constantly over the BBC News, I know perfectly well that it's the red button.

What I'd really like is for the interactive services to still be enabled, but to stop the popups appearing all over the screen. I know what buttons to press!