HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Perhaps you can clarify ?

But this is using interleaved spectrum in between primary use sites and extra power is simply not available; neither should it be allowed. Channel M have no automatic right to increase ERP and they should stick to QPSK, which is the only sensible mode in the present circumstances.

Merry Christmas Channel M

With the greatest respect this is incorrect , who are you to judge that a increase in power shouldn’t be allowed?
.

Ofcom report on local telly

Licensing Local Television

December 2011

Quote

“4.53 In particular, the prospective multiplex operator may be able to develop and suggest alternative technical proposals that achieve improvements in coverage.”

With regards to ERP

Rowridge RSL Licence is 2.5kW ERP and Hannington , 10kW ERP many other RSL,s have been allocated ERP,s above 1kW in the interleaved spectrum .

Divis had a very good detailed report done by Arqiva as to the pros and cons of using the interleaved spectrum , Report No: SPG 01/08.

The powers analysed were from 50kW to 5kW ERP at 64QAM,16QAM and QPSK.

I do not agree with some of the technical conclusions , in particular the limitations proposed by the restriction template ,but engineers are like economist ,put ten in a room and you get ten different opinions.

All that is relevant and this has been made very clear by Ofcom is that the interference template in the licence is adhered to.

Ch M isn’t restricted to QPSK in their licence ,it is only the planning that does this ,in particular they were allocated a frequency as you already know that would be severely restrictive in coverage by the very high power PSB broadcast on the adjacent channel and the extremely narrow antenna radiation pattern proposed I presume by Arqiva .

Similar proposals by the planning of placing low power RSL broadcasts adjacent to very high power PSB broadcasts have been made to other RSL operators.

Fortunately some wouldn’t accept this and again Ofcom were very helpful and in some cases alternatives found.

Ofcom for the last few years with respect to local telly have been very cooperative , helpful and responsive .

It is not Arqivas role via their planning department to dictate policy to Ofcom and now Ofcoms stated policy in the document published this month of being responsive to suggestions how coverage can be improved now mitigates any suspicion of a conflict of interest with regards to Arqiva doing the planning on behalf of Ofcom.

The government has made it very clear that they wish local telly to be a part of UK society I presume apart from providing local telly to restrict the dominance of organizations such as News Corp in our media..

Local telly is very necessary in particular when you see some of the propaganda peddled out by some of the large media organizations.

Fox news here in the US is a prime example of this.

The regional independent TV station infrastructure we used to have provided UK society with some protection from media giants and like a lot of very bad decisions in the past that were made in particular allowing the ITV companies to merge into one national company.
This considerably increases the risk of domination of the media by vested commercial interests.

This merging of media companies was also done in the cable TV industry in the UK another mistake.

Back to coverage in Manchester and ERP!.

A example of one of the restrictions in the ch 57 template is towards Biddulph relay . This is 40 miles from Winter Hill .

The restriction is 6dB with the 1kW ERP Ch M it is currently operating on.

Using the correct number of panel antennas configured to provide -6dB at 5 deg in the vertical mode and some tilt ,this would allow an increase in the ERP for Manchester to 4kW , were it is needed to improve the threshold from 3db to 9dB if 16QAM 2/3 code rate is used .
As important it would help overcome some of the problems with the City building clutter and if a 3deg beam tilt was applied this would add the extra 6dB of protection towards the Biddulph relay cancelling out any effects of increasing the ERP to 4kW .

I have not added any correction for variations in terrain as this requires detailed Satellite Terrain Map analysis, but the point I am making is beam tilt is used often to provide additional protection to other services to allow increases in ERP within the service area.

It's all well & good that Channel M are seeking technical changes to their licence from Ofcon and I wish them good luck, but why are they currently operating at 16QAM with only a 3dB margin? This sort of thing gives local TV a bad name & is a reason why proposed local TV stations should not be involved in engineering decisions.

Ps. The analogue ERPs of various obsolete RSLs have no relevence in today's digital TV plan where frequency use is more efficient & tightly packed.

I do agree though that even Arqiva propose 2kW ERP for local TV in Manchester on UHF 56. Allowing 10kW in certain areas just shows that interference is not a problem in those areas.

Let there be no misunderstanding here as you are aware ,Ch M are part of the Guardian Media group who have various divisions in different media sections including as you are know radio.

They are a long established company with integrity and good old fashion values, a rare thing these days.

As to their technical ability you cannot be serious that they are not competent to run their own mux. They have proved that they can despite in my opinion the very poor coverage and engineering imposed onto them several times over the years by the planners.

With all the hurdles that they had to jump over, it is a testament to their competence that they got on the air at all with DVB-T

They I believe have not just sat twiddling their thumbs over the coverage issue and if and what transmission mode they should use.

As to operating the existing transmitter configuration at 16QAM I believe this is a management decision and not an engineering one and they are more than aware of the implications as to coverage.

I am just a mere engineer and it is not for me to judge the strategy of Ch M why they are operating their transmitter in this mode.
I suspect everything is on the back burner until the MuxCo issue is finalised and how the financial support that has been promised is distributed and including any terms and conditions.

Something I don't think has been discussed enough - what's receiver compatibility like for QPSK? The only QPSK mux in this country, to my knowledge, has been DDR7 (the mux in question) and then only for a short period of time. What if GMG changed it because they realised that QPSK wasn't supported on some receivers?

Ofcon were supposed to be conducting research into the subject. But I'd be surprised if it was a serious problem as QPSK is specified in DVB.

Extremely surprised. - at least for all newer receiver chips. QPSK or 4-QAM is the easy case to decode.

QPSK has been used in many places - outside the UK - including in hierarchical modulation tests for use with DVB-H.

Ofcom/DTG 1-2 years ago would check a range of receivers for QPSK compatibility - We would likely have heard if problems had been found.


Lars

But this is GMG who wanted to sell Channel M but no one would buy it. Then they dismantled the only decent local TV station in the kingdom. Then they lost any audience they had at DSO when they failed to have a digital replacement ready for months. This is the company who first promoted mono use of radio from stereo running Smooth Radio in mono on Freeview after being joint stereo.

Channel M is no model for local TV & its obsession with trying to broadcast the entire suite of Dolphin TV channels without the proper technical infrastructure is just plain stupid. It is better to do one thing right rather than many things wrong. So yes I would describe GMG management as incompetence beyond belief. Obviously the 2 or 3 staff have to do what they are told.

I sincerely hope that Channel M do not get the Manchester local TV licence. Any alternative would be an improvement.

Some of the points you made need to be put into perspective.

The banking crash amplified many of the problems for those in the media industry that didn’t have a cash cow such as Sky.

GMG from were I am standing had to dispose of some core assets to repair their balance sheet at the time.

This amongst other things required disposals such as MEN and other businesses.

Ch M was I believe is a venture to dip the toe in the water to see if there the possibility of expanding into the TV sector of the media market.

You must remember other famous media moguls such as captain bob who bankrupted his media empire by taking very large risks that turned our very badly.

His venture into the TV media business some years ago was to spend heavily and buy for example all the old Rediffusion cable TV infrastructure. A complete and utter disaster as he had nobody on his board who understood even the basics of the technology they had acquired and what he had aquired was garbage.

By comparison Rupert Murdock a brilliant strategist and businessman whom I admire greatly ,but do not hold with the way he has manipulated government , and come to dominate media in many countries.

At the launch of Sky he also took a step too far and was lucky to survive and had to give up a large chunk of Sky television in the early days because Sky was haemorrhaging money and could have brought his empire crashing down.

One of the things that Murdoch has done well is to surround himself with technical experts so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes in adopting naff technology that BSB and captain bob did

Fortunately for him his gamble paid of and he has since become a giant in TV media such as his success with Fox television .

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation

GMG on the other hand perhaps was to cautious for its own good and its venture into TV in the form of ch M in my view suffered for several reasons one of which they had very poor coverage at the Manchester transmitter and it could be argued the Urbis building was too much of a cost burden, but I am only guessing at the cost and as I have said before I am just a mere engineer.

The point is here is that GMG management had at the time DSO was happening in Manchester to focus on much more important issues to the group as a whole as ch M in comparison was a side show.

You must remember at the time just preceding DSO all the staff except three lost their jobs at ch M and there would be in any organization at such a time lack of direction.


But what also could be argued is that the management learnt some valuable lessons without spending billions ,because sometimes it is through going through the exercise in a moderate way management can see
what type of team has to be put together if they are to expand in a large way into the TV sector..

I would hazard a guess that GMG,s experiment with ch M was to test the water with the view of expanding into the TV and related sectors of media due to the decline of the printed sector of the media market. So do not write off GMG,s venture into TV broadcasting as a failure.

If you have read past news reports you will see that ch M have recruited some key management to take the helm so do not even consider them as incompetent.

By contrast, for example, since Belfast is one of the first of the 20 towns/cities to get local TV on Freeview, at least they will readily have their digital replacement for NVTV ready!

When is Belfast going on air and is it in QPSK?

No idea - it's not even been advertised yet! QPSK seams to be Ofcoms preferred option though. It is however possible that the local tv licence for Belfast is awarded to someone other than the analogue incumbent too.

From Oxford: County Channel hoping to go on air. Person behind Six TV Oxford wants to relaunch a local TV service, this time on Freeview, but not behind the adult channels, please!


Perhaps DMOL got one letter wrong in Six TV?


http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/yo...medium=twitter

#localtv

I am sure that slapper channels are much more important in the EPG listing than local telly.

DMOL are doing a fine job .

Must be all the very skilled talent at DMOL making such decisions to ensure DMOL is even handed .

Hmm wonder were the very fine talent employed at DMOL came from.

I am absolutely certain there is no undue influence from any vested interest .

This sort of stuff doesn’t happen in good old blighty.

Well I certainly don't want local TV at LCN8.

LCN200 has been established for over a year.

Hopefully porn will get moved to something like 380 with the EPG reshuffle.

DMOL decisions are taken according to its policy with 1 vote per national multiplex owner at director level. This means that when the BBC & Arqiva agree on policy, no other opinion is needed, as they have 66% of the vote. Also Arqiva & ITV have more than 50% when their interests are all voted together. This means that all 3 COM muxes can get what they want,

I suspect the forthcoming EPG consultation will see commercial interests prevailing.

As I said .

I am absolutely certain there is no undue influence from any vested interest
Peeing in the same pot comes to mind in how they protect their interests.

That's pretty much a regurgitated article, SixTV were complaining about the Ch200 allocation over a year ago. Also I don't see how their RTSL can still be valid since they were supposed to all have been changed to end "shortly after DSO in that area", and Oxford have been done already. That's not to say Ofcom wouldn't grant them a temporary licence though.


Then you are likely to be very disappointed. The government are putting the necessary legislation in place to grant the new local channels PSB status and the due prominence that goes with it. I believe DMOL have largely agreed to keep Ch 8 free in England and NI for the new local channels in those areas.

The 200s are a rubbish allocation that were made when DMOL expected hundreds of channels on local muxes to start up. Ofcom stopped licencing them due to the Channel 6 plan so this scenario never happened and likely never will. Placing them after the text channels was a mistake from the beginning, they should have started at 100 and moved text services to 200. There is no reason now to have a separate block of channels for local multiplexes, any oddities can be mixed in with the national/regional channels.

Just shows how stupid that policy is; where will they be placed in Scotland & Wales? No doubt they will hog other LCNs so that those numbers can't be used in England & Northern Ireland.

I wasn't aware of this, must pay more attention!.

Local channels needs a prime slot in the EPG to survive and this is a bit of good news .
Well done politicians.
Did I just say that?,must be losing it.

Sorry that the post by chrisy pops your balloon Ray .

By the way Ray , you have every right to have a beef about local telly as they have not been a roaring success to date ,but clearly you are not some dumb schmuck, far from it judging by your posts.
But what have you against local telly and why it seems you do not wish them to thrive?.

Somewhere else. I doubt anything will get displaced, but if DMOL create a gap by, eg, moving shopping channels into their own genre, then the chances are they will utilise that. I suspect this will be a hot topic in the LCN policy consultation!


No different to Ch 8 not being usable in England and NI, and probably preferable as it will be further down the EPG. In NI it could always be used for RTÉ or TG4 anyway.

Heres an idea. ITV give up their channel 6 allocation in return for being allowed to drop local news entirely from their line up.

Whatdaya reckon?

I have a better idea that will never be adopted. Every mainstream general entertainment channel (ie not porn) should be allocated a LCN based on moving average ratings. (Moving average so that changes are smoothed out). Therefore the most popular channels would get the lowest numbers. Local TV will be at no 555.

Only Channel M and its management should be put out of its misery. It is giving every other local TV station a bad name.

Hi

We already have regional news, do I really want news even more local to me just to report on all the benefit fraud, burglaries, muggings, firearm incidents etc that all happen within a stones throw of my home everyother day, all watched through a fog of compression artefacts due to limited bandwidth. I don't think so, seems like a complete waste of time.

If you live in a nice town/city where the above doesn't happen, consider yourself very lucky, and then all your local news will be is the national news some how linked to the local region by something tenuous. That happens now on the regional news!

It's only because someone thinks someone will make some money from it is happening at all.

Freeview is full of dubious channels with low audiences, shopping channels galore, not to mention soft porn into every single home, do we really want space made for even more low quality rubbish?

We once laughed in the UK at the US cable TV model and it's poor quality and more advertising than content, so how is it that is exactly what we have ended up with in the UK?

Regards

Phil