Has Radio Berkshire appeared anywhere other than the London region? There is a potential EPG clash in the South, because in London it is on 719, but Radio Solent already has that number in the South.

Indeed, and launching, say, Radio Lincolnshire across the East Midlands but not in Lincolnshire would have been odd. It's unfortunate, however, that the BBC didn't announce these extra launches in advance.

Let's face it, the BBC hasn't spent the last few weeks reducing the overall bit rate* of Red Button services, creating extra capacity for Local Radio, only to undo the good work by adding dozens of fancy graphic slates. The MHEG slate for local radio is text based and inserts the name of the actual radio station after "Welcome to", that's about as good as it will get.

*The Red Button MHEG stream PID 7201 continues at the original bitrate, as does linked data stream PID 7204. Red Button linked data streams PID 7202 (150 kbps), PID 7203 (6 kbps) and PID 7205 (81 kbps) have been dropped. Further improvements were made by merging individual Radio MHEG slate streams PIDs 1010/1110/1210/1310/1410/1510/1610/1710/1810/1910/2010 into a single stream PID 7210. The Off-air MHEG slates PIDs 311/411/711/811 used by part time channels were merged into a single stream PID 7211 and channel specific data streams PIDs 119/219 merged into stream PID 7219.

Thanks. Does it show the stream data for the T2 muxes if you tune to a DVB-T mux?

Thanks

I would only recommend that type of dongle for rtl-sdr use, as DTT dongles, they only show streams for the original flavour of DVB-T.

PCTV 290e, on my Windows 10 laptop. I just tuned using VLC and dumped the raw TS output to a file!

I tried a 290e and it just does not work for me. BTW which transmitter were you on?

Malvern, Sutton Coldfield, Oxford, Mendip, Lark Stoke or The Wrekin?

Those were the 6 transmitters I used to be able to get when I was at school. If the weather conditions lifted we got Taccolneston as well but I only got that once.

And I suppose it will only dump the data from one transmitter at a time?

We use Sutton Coldfield here (I'm in the North East of Worcester so the high ground around Tolladine Golf Course blocks Malvern reception).

The SFN reception I get is strongest via Bromsgrove (aerial vertical and pointing North East), but there are aerials on my street also using The Wrekin and Lark Stoke. I can just about get weak Mendip reception on a set-top aerial in South facing rooms upstairs so that would probably be OK with an outdoor antenna, but I've never tried for Oxford.

Yes you can only tune in one multiplex at a time.

Noticed last night Three Counties had appeared it was on 800 on my downstairs TV, did a retune and it ended up in 600's.

This morning did a retune on the TV in the Bedroom and it picked up no end of them appears it's locked onto Sandy Heath as BBC1 has gone to East (West). Seem to have Three Counties, Northampton, Cambridge, Norfolk and London. Could be the weather for it to come through so strong (70% / 75%) as it's on a loft aerial and at the moment I have pointing away from Sandy Heath so in theory not to pick it up, if this is going to happen all the time I will have to point it at Sandy Heath so it's there all the time.

My house is 50.31 miles from Sandy Heath according to Google Earth and the direct line goes east of Shotover so that is why my bit of Oxford picks it up.

The Wrekin seems to have lit up on channel 26 with Stoke, H&W, C&W and Shropshire, but although they show up in my on-screen guide with the expected channel numbers, the graphic on H&W and C&W just shows "BBC Radio" rather than the BBC Local Radio -plus-station-name that you usually see. Shropshire and Stoke have the full text.

is it likely that Brierley Hill will take it's stations from Sutton Coldfield rather than The Wrekin.

BBC Radio Derby around Stourbridge, Brierley Hill & Dudley isn't of musch use, yet BBC Radio Shropshire just might be?

Yeah, I've extracted the MHEG/data streams from BBC A and there seems to be an error in the script file used to read the names into the MHEG slate. [ The error is in file sid.cf ]

R Shropshire & Stoke are correctly defined:

@NmBLRShropshire|BBC Radio Shropshire|
@NmBLRStoke|BBC Radio Stoke|

H&W & C&W are not:

@BLRC&WSN|BBC Coventry & Warwickshire|
@BLRH&WSN|BBC Hereford & Worcester|

As you can see, H&W & C&W don't use the correct @NmBLR... format.

Basically, report the absence of names in the Local Radio MHEG slate for these stations to the BBC. Hopefully, they will then fix it.

Yes, it's an odd choice of station to drop in favour of Derby. Not only the above but lots of people in Shropshire get their TV from Sutton Coldfield. Not sure what's a better choice TV though, I'd imagine even though H&W is further away it will have the same issue. AIUI Shropshire is one of their most popular stations (though there's not much competition in the county)

Incidently, as I hoped/suspected if you get SC and The Wrekin you get all 6 stations after a rescan - both Derby and Shropshire

I'm pretty sure that Brierley Hill IS a Sutton Coldfield dependent, but MB21 says it's line fed rather than off-air.

Ridge Hill is going to be the real odd-one-out here. Unless it gets special treatment, it's presumably going to carry the same set as Sutton, which will mean it carries Stoke and WM (to very little purpose).

Unless it gets the same set as The Wrekin, it won't cover Shropshire (and Ridge Hill has coverage into Shropshire and, more to the point, several relays there), but Gloucestershire will be the main loser: Ridge Hill is the main transmitter for the north of the county, including the two biggest towns, and again drives relays deep into the county.

I've not seen anything (that I can recall) about Ridge Hill and it's missing from the a516 lists. I'd take a look myself at what there is hidden there but (like others) cannot get my wretched USB sticks to work in DVB-T mode

It's probably fibre fed from Sutton Coldfield (in the same way Salisbury is from Rowridge), (which still makes it a 'relay' of SC to all intents and purposes)

Ridge Hill should be technically able to have its own version of the local radio line-up, which is likely to be similar to the SC line-up, but with BBC Shrops and BBC Gloucs replacing BBC Derby and BBC Stoke. Chesterfield and Kendal could also have bespoke line-ups as they've all had technical changes to the multiplex configuration over the past few years. Sadly, we don't get reception reports for these!

As for Brierley Hill, there's probably a good business case for it to switch to The Wrekin on the basis of the BBC-A mux changes. Relays originally were constrained by what they could pick up off-air; with Fibre links they could switch to whichever main transmitter feed is actually more suitable for them.

Does anyone have a list for what should be received from Sutton Coldfield, I'm just getting BBC WM and BBC Radio Derby? I suspect this is normal?

This is correct.

BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester, BBC Radio Stoke and BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire are yet to be added.

A potential dogs dinner of a situation regarding Ridge Hill. Surely, if the BBC had done the right thing as people in north Gloucestershire wanted, and transmitted BBC West from Ridge Hill (as ITV West is), there was a way round this mess. Given there are also people just north of Thornbury who can't get Mendip too, an ideal outcome would have been to carry BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio Gloucestershire from Ridge Hill.

Just to let peoople know I was hoping to find all the background data from The WRekin BBCA today. I visited Heseall to visit a friend and was able to test out wht we could get.

In the living room they get Storeton, bits of Winter Hill and bits of Llandonna, but not Moel Y Parc.

In the bedroom, another TV has a different aerial connection that gets PSB2 from The WRekin, plus bits of Llandonna and Winter Hill. Nothing from Moel Y Parc on either TV.

The reception in Helswall is a mish mash and you seem to get different things in differant parts of the same house!

As yet I hve not been able to acertain the PIDsa nd technical info for BBCA from the Wrekin but will try another time.

So anyone know when phase 2 of the rollout is and which regions?

Reports up to the end of last year from Sheffield and Derbyshire showed Sheffield and Chesterfield transmitters (South Yorkshire Network) using a new BBC A transport stream id of 4177. Reports from Ridge Hill (Gloucestershire Network) showed that it had a new BBC A transport stream id of 4176. Sadly, the data source isn't currently available. I would think that Ridge Hill would be very well suited to having a different line-up to SC. Sheffield / Chesterfield, possibly would benefit from carrying Radio Derby and, maybe Radio Nottingham rather than, say Radio York or Radio Humberside. It's a shame that reports haven't been forthcoming for these areas.

As for Kendal, which presumably got a new transport stream id at the same time as the others. By default it would carry Radio Cumbria and Radio Lancashire if it continued to carry the same services as Winter Hill, so I don't see any great benefit in providing such a small area with a unique line-up but... who knows?

I've been tempted to go up onto the hill with a laptop and a mobile mast and pointing a VP aerial towards Crosspool to check out the situation on the Sheffield transmitter mast. Reception is generally poor at the moment due to atmospheric conditions, so I've resisted the temptation. Good luck with your research.

Which model of USB stick? I can't say I've ever had a problem with them working with DVB-T although they don't seem to like QPSK and the local mux.

According to the BBC Reception Advice page:


So keep checking there for news of updates.