I have been using a Panasonic PVR with a single digital tuner for the past 2 years and I have also tried a Fusion PVR which worked fine but it did not have the features I wanted. I also have a laptop running Windows Vista Home Media with DVT. All of these pick up all the channels I need from the Waltham transmitter in Leicestershire using a specially installed roof-top antenna and booster amp.

When I turned on my new Humax for the first time today the auto set-up worked fine except that I had a very poor picture on BBC1 and BBC2, it is breaking up to the point of being unwatchable. All the other channels (as far as I can tell) are working fine and I get a good BBC1 picture on Channel 800 and BBC2 on ch 801 is also very good.

I suspect that the problem may be that the signal is too good from more distant transmitters such as Sutton Coldfield, and that the unit is picking up BBC1 and 2 from a more distant transmitter.

I have tried tuning BBC1 manually but it makes no difference. I even found the Channel number for the Waltham BBC MUX and tried to enter that but that did not work. I am used to being able to swap channels about on my other PVR's but I can't see how to do it on the Humax.

I have fitted a signal attenuator (12db) into the antenna lead and reset the unit. This resulted in all except ch1 and ch2 working fine but an error message and no picture on those two channels.

I then tried deleting Ch1 & Ch2 (BBC1 and BBC2) in the hope that I could then move Ch800 and Ch801 into the space left but I could not find a way of doinf that.

I then thought that I could set up a Favourites List but could not find out how to set that up as the default list.
Can anyone help?

You need to manually tune the Humax and you probably don't need the aerial amplifier, I don't and I suspect you live near me. This problem crops up so often that I keep the following as a word document.

The reason for doing a Manual Search is to target the six multiplexes coming only from your prefered transmitter. The UHF channel numbers for your six digital channels (multiplexes) from your prefered transmitter can be obtained from the DTG web-site HERE.

First you need to delete all existing channels.
Menu > Edit Channels > Edit Channel Lists > Password (0000) and delete all TV channels, note there is a Select All button. Go to Group, select Radio and delete all the radio channels. Press Exit on the remote control and when invited, save all the changes.

You will now get a message saying No channels are available……, press OK. You should now be taken to the Installation menu, chose Manual Search. Put the first UHF channel number obtained from the DTG web-site into Channel (actually the order doesn’t matter) and press Search. When the search completes, Save. Put the next UHF channel number into Channel and press Search.....Save. Repeat this for all six UHF channel numbers and you will find all your Freeview channels on the correct numbers with none from 800. Good luck.

Correction to the DTG web-site link.

My aerial picks up signals from both Hannington and Crytal Palace. I have to do a manual tune, exactly as Big-les describes, and it's a right pain. (Had to do it last night so the kids could get CITV again.)

Wouldn't it be great if the box could detect that it is receiving signals from multiple transmitters, and simply ask which one you want to tune to? It must be possible.

Personally I prefer to manual tune, that way I know it's tuned correctly.

Certainly with analogue, all the main transmitters used one of less than a dozen SETS of frequencies.
That is, for all transmitters with an analogue channel on UHF21, they also all used UHF24, UHF27 and UHF31 (although different broadcasters might be allocated to each channel).
If the post DSO mux frequencies are similarly allocated, then it would indeed be simple, to store all the possible six-mux sets in the firmware, and the box on automatic scan could determine which set was most complete and use those six frequencies.

For any given channel, the Humax can already tell you (by name) which transmitter it is being received from, so the information must be encoded in the digital stream.

Not quite true because a relay transmitter near me displays the name of its parent transmitter.

I think something similar is already implemented in the Humax by enabling Network Search in the Manual Search screen. You need to know at least one of the channels to search and then the Humax does the rest. I've only done this once on my 8000T and it did work although a channel was searched that wasn't relevant so I didn't bother again.

Thanks for all your replies. I also sent an email to Humax and got a personalised set of instructions based on my postcode. However, I did not get round to trying any of them because I put the unit on standby over night and when I turned it on again the problem had dissapeared!
Still, I'm most grateful for you all taking the trouble to reply.