Still nothing for Derby

I have doubts about the viability of the Sheffield service which will only cover a small part of Sheffield. It would have made more sense to cover the whole of Sheffield and surrounding towns. Even local radio started with wider coverage and they had to consolidate the service by expanding to cover the whole of South Yorkshire and the North Midlands.

Derby doesn't even have a local DAB service, it's not generally at the front of the queue for these things. There probably isn't a suitable transmitter site and / or available frequency to cover the area.

Just spotted two 'London Live' vans driving down East Smithfield in London. Just large white vans (not specialist broadcast vehicles) with the logo on the sides & back - it's two corners of a yellow TV screen 'frame' with the words London Live in black in the middle, and the channel numbers small at the bottom.

The vans were too fast for me to register the various LCNs but they appear to have already been allocated to other platforms than just Freeview.

"Local TV channel London Live is to recruit more than 50 staff – including on-screen presenters – as it gears up for its launch in March."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ening-standard
Apparently launching in March with 15m budget.. will be interesting to see how well these do, especially as city areas obviously the most lucrative and suited to this model.

Hull's Estuary TV to launch on 26th November

Here's their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Estua...72031052913531

https://twitter.com/comuxUK

So that free up LCN 34.

The digitaluk postcode checker now has data for the local muxes - I think this is new, I've not seen it before:

e.g. for Boothstown, Greater Manchester http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/coveragec...28+1HP/NA/0/NA

scroll down and you'll see a prediction for G-MAN and L-MAN muxes.

(don't worry that's not my own postcode)

Digital UK confirms

"LCN 26 has been reserved for Local PSB services in Scotland and Wales"

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

At some point in the last 7 days (my monitoring script fell over - darn!) the local tv multiplex from Waltham has been testing

Frequency: 514.000MHz
Network: East Midlands
Network ID: 9018
Multiplex ID: 32780
QSPK; 8k
Services
Local TV Test 1; SID: 32896; LCN: 791;
Local TV Test 2; SID: 32960; LCN: 792;
PMT and PCR's both blank.

http://kjs.me.uk/3rdparty/digitalspy/Wal.png

Probably a short test as not all the tuners have identified the network name, although they all saw it on air.

Where I am I'm getting a very poor signal strength (~18%) and no signal quality on ch 26. So I hope this isn't Waltham testing otherwise I won't receive it! (I should say - I've only just this minute checked)
Last edited by EEPhil : 08-11-2013 at 11:09

This is getting a bit silly. If I could come up with a suitable fantasy EPG to resolve this, nationwide, once and for all, I would

Why have they not got channel 100? That is free everywhere?

The other option would be to move ITV2 to 26 nationwide, putting local TV on 6 nationwide, enabling 8 to carry on as C4 in Wales and BBC Alba could still keep their Channel 8.

Freeview channel numbers are far too complicated. Remember it is currently a hybrid service of DVB-T and DVB-T2.

When we switch to T2 surely 1-5 will be HD, getting rid of the need for 101-105, and the numbering can be put in a more logical order once and for all.

The sooner SD simulcasting stops the better.

That's pretty much what my Humax shows on all the channels as soon as an aerial is connected.

My media centre isn't detecting a sausage currently so it looks like it's off air now.

The Digital UK postcode checker is showing it at the same power as the two Arqiva multiplexes were pre-DSO so the combination of QSPK and less co-channel (yay no multiplexes from Sandy to wipe it out with the slightest lift!) should mean that anyone who got those pre-DSO should get it now (provided of course they are in the Nottingham area) - the postcode checker is showing slightly better stats than the two Arqiva multiplexes used to for me (according to to previously published maps I lie just outside coverage (i.e. the houses the other side of the street are just inside)).

Well there are lots of options, which is why I refrained from trying! ITV2 moving seems very unlikely, especially as it would end up lower down than ITV3 and ITV4. Some sort of reshuffle that involved moving ITV3 and freeing up LCN10 might make sense, but why should ITV agree to it?

Hmm, just noticed that it's appeared in the SDT

on the BBC Multiplex
alongside the following in the NIT

Wonder if my media centre has picked this up rather than the real service? Waltham does normally carry all the EIT entries from Belmont (and Sutton Coldfield and Sandy Heath) so it may be needed for that - but then again it why carry info about 514MHz if that's not ready to air yet?

Yes, I've noticed some of the same info on the BBC Mux in the NIT. Didn't look elsewhere. Or, put another way, the "network" from Waltham has had the local mux added - I was wondering whether you had picked up an actual transmission or just some of this info inserted into the other multiplexes.

The problem with your observation on the postcode checker (I haven't looked yet) is that the radiation pattern for the local mux is facing away from Nottingham. So although the power might be the same as before DSO it isn't coming our way. Just have to keep an eye on it and see what happens.

[Added] Now that I've checked, it seems that I should get a 99% service here. So what did the radiation pattern mean
Last edited by EEPhil : 08-11-2013 at 19:58

The NIT itself doesn't carry the network name but one of my four tuners managed to find that - had the same prior to the last DSO (when the beeb moved frequency), I'd assumed then it was an overnight test but it might well be getting it from the NIT. Anyway crond is now doing a 30 second dump of the whole multiplex every 30 minutes through the day so I might get to catch some real tests next time

The Waltham predicted coverage map makes no sense - terrain shields me from the Nottingham transmitter so the signal has always been none existent on an indoor aerial (unlike Belmont and Waltham which are easy catches on the PSBs with Waltham doable on the COMs too) and the prediction is obviously poor (with no local tv), yet it shows coverage next door after a massive void around the airport where you can see the transmitter mast clear as a bell (with Smooth Radio belting in on a hand held radio).

The map the only settlements that get complete coverage are Lowdham and Spalding, everywhere else it gives up as soon as it hits the urban area (see Peterbrough, Boston, Sleaford) or only covers part (see Nottingham, Newark, Bingham). I guess with a decent install (especially one which got the pre-DSO Multiplex 5 and 6) you'll probably get them okay - but then places like Thorneywood use Sutton Coldfield / Belmont anyway so may not do.

Hopefully the maps are more pessimistic than optimistic and we just need to wait and see

Crond ??? (sounds like linux?)

I suspect the void is caused by the large hill to the east (or SE) of Cotgrave and the woods nearby.
I also seem to be shielded from Nottingham. However, not far away from me I've seen aerials pointing every which way.
I assume you're referring to Tollerton Airport (or whatever the City council renamed it to). I've never managed to see Waltham's mast from there. Did once see it as far away as University Park - so anything's possible.

Crond = Linux

Yeah Nottingham (Tollerton) Airport - seen the red lights on it before when walking/on my bike round there but not as easy to see as when your along the canal parallel to the A46 - but as you say there is a bit of a hill between it and Cotgrave. The (FM Radio) signal does come in well strong round there though - presumably from reflections

I'm getting a distribution system retuned to add Mux 7 and 8
to a system for Hannington (Ch 32 and 34). The location Basingstoke, has just had Ofcom advertise a local TV licence for the town, so it would be a good idea to include that as well, or else I'll have to go through the whole thing again

Originally Ch 51 was earmarked for the service, however the latest document I can find now talks about Ch 29 ?

http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/binari...erage-note.pdf

It's 18 months old though, anyone seen any Ofcom or Arqiva documents that are more recent ?

Already this Arqiva document from November 2011 uses channel 29 for two antennas - 10kW towards Reading and 2kW towards Basingstoke (to create a null towards CP) - from page 65..

It seems to me the channel 51 listed in tabel A2-2 and A8-1 should have been corrected to channel 29 already in 2011.

Lars

This document is from August 2012 and has Reading and Basingstoke both using channel 29, but now listed as channel 29 petal 1 and channel 29 petal 2.

Ofcom has invited to apply for Basingstoke and Reading as two independent local licenses.

Lars

Oh dear God...

Something wrong?