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My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do? Is it my SCART ca

My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do? Is it my SCART cable?

My ITV/C4 Freeview channels have disappeared - what can I do?
published on UK Free TV

It is a feature of television signals that they can be effected by the weather. Aside from the obvious damaged that can be caused by wind or torrential rain, the onset of summer can cause a more intriguing problem called "inversion".

Basically, when the sun heats up the land, the hot air can get trapped below cold air at high level. This creates an "inversion layer" which acts like a polished mirror to TV signals. This causes two problems: you can receive both the original and a reflected signal from your own transmitter (on analogue TV this appears as "ghosting") or interference from TV transmitters that are normally too far distant.

The ITV/C4 multiplex of channels (ITV-1, ITV-2, ITV-3, ITV-4, CITV, C4, More4, E4, Quizcall) use a transmission "mode" called 64QAM, and it is sadly much more prone to these problems.

So, whilst a loft-mounted aerial will provide reception at some time, it will fail at others. The only real solution is to mount the aerial (or a new Class I aerial) outside on a pole, but some people report that changing the cable from the aerial to the set-top box to the high-grade satellite cable can also help.

The SCART connection, by the way, only carries a single TV picture, not the Freeview transmission multiplexes, so if this is disconnected it will result in degradation to every channel at once.



All questions
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Comments
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
P
Pam Richardson
7:53 PM
Barnsley

Hi there, I can't get channel 20 to stay tuned into my freeview recorder.When i want to record it,i have to retune the recorder.It only happens with this one channel.
Thank you.

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Pam Richardson's 1 post GB flag
Pam's: mapP's Freeview map terrainP's terrain plot wavesP's frequency data P's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Thursday, 19 April 2012
M
Margaret Phillips
4:15 PM
Surbiton

I have re-tuned (Autotuned)yesterday April 18th but after doing so, Channel 4 kept breaking up. I also got a message saying Signal was weak! C4 had always been fine up till yesterday, I noticed today that other channels in the C42 group (ITV 1, ITV2 etc) also broke up or disappeared. I autotuned once more and now I have lost this group of channels altogether! I am in Kingston area KT6 4HP small block of flats, aerial on roof.

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Margaret Phillips's 1 post GB flag
Margaret's: mapM's Freeview map terrainM's terrain plot wavesM's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage
Dave Lindsay
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

4:30 PM

Margaret Philips: C42 is coming from Hannington (Hampshire) which is why you have poor reception.

As your aerial is directed at Crystal Palace, run the automatic tuning scan and unplug the aerial when it gets to 30%. All of Crystal Palace's channels are within the first 30% and Hannington's are after 30%.

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Dave Lindsay's 5,724 posts GB flag
R
Ronald Sutton
5:25 PM

I have retuned several times but No channels appear. The sign on the screen says, No channel found Please check aerial or local signal availability. The signal comes from ROWBRIDGE transmitter. Whats the problem?

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Ronald Sutton's 1 post GB flag
Saturday, 28 April 2012
G
Ghassan Sifri
12:51 PM

Since the recent switch over many TV channels disappeared such as ITV, CH4, BBC 4 etc.
I am a teacher and many of my students had the same problem with their TVs.

I keep reading its an antenna problem, weather etc. What a load of rubbish.

I haven't touched my tv connections and I updated the installation but still half the channels disappeared.

If someone have an answer to this problem please let me know.



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Ghassan Sifri's 2 posts GB flag
Monday, 30 April 2012
W
wingy
11:23 AM

I have no problem using any of the following Freeview boxes from Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic and Estratec albeit I have to use attenuators to step down the signal strength as I live quite close to the Crystal Palace transmitter. I tested the boxes on the same TV and roof aerial.

But then I have a Humax F2-Foxt box which no matter how many times I retuned I couldn't receive BBC4, ITV, CH4 and CH5 post 18 April 2012. I have no issues on the Humax prior.

So, is this no or bad signal issue on BBC4, ITV, Ch4 and CH5 be Freeview box related ?

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wingy's 1 post GB flag
Saturday, 12 May 2012
A
Anne
5:34 PM

I'm having similar problems in that channels 2,4 and 5 disappeared about 3 weeks ago following a retune and despite numerous auto retunes since haven't returned. This is on a Panasonic tv and a friend has the same tv and the same tv. All the other tv's in the house have all channels. Bizarrely, today I swapped over the panasonic with my sony and the sony has all channels and the panasonic does not which implies it is the tv not the areial??

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Anne's 3 posts GB flag
A
Anne
5:35 PM

Oops meant to say channels 3,4 and 5, channel 2 is fine!

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Anne's 3 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:55 PM

Anne: In these type of cases its always best to carry out a "factory reset" on the TV, this sometimes also called "fist time scan" as it deletes everything already stored including programme info that may contain corrupted data, then if a factory reset has been made follow this by another auto-tune, this not being necessary if a first time installation was made as it would have retuned automatically.

If this doesn't cure the problem then you will have to provide the model number of your TV a well as your post code (or one from nearby, shop etc) this info being necessary for signal checking purposes.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
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