All posts by Richard Cooper
Below are all of Richard Cooper's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Linda Cannard: Hi Linda. The transmitter you are most likely to be using is called Carmel. True Entertainment is on the group of channels known as COM 4, which is transmitted from Carmel, although at half the power of the main groups of channels. If I were you, I would carry out a retune to see whether True Entertainment is added to your channel list and electronic programme guide ( epg). If it isn't, you may need to have your aerial or the pole it's on hiked up a bit to give you a better chance of pulling in the True Entertainment programme. Worth a try I should think. Richard, Norwich. PS One of the groups of channels around here is also transmitted at only 10 thousand watts and I sometimes have a bit of trouble picking that up!
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Ayshea Perring: Hi, Ayshea. Perhaps you didn't know that there were engineering works taking place on the Lowestoft Freeview Lite transmitter from about half-ten in the evening on Monday 6th June through to early hours of the morning yesterday. What has made things worse is that there has also been atmospheric interference since Sunday evening. If you did a factory reset or first-time installation when you "reset" your receiver it will have forgotten all of the channels it used to get, and if your "reset" didn't re-install your channels, perhaps you tried to do it when the engineers were still working on Lowestoft. I am afraid, therefore, that if you are still not getting any channels, you need to do yet another first-time installation now that the engineers have finished working on the Lowestoft transmitter. You should then find you have all your channels back again. Incidentally, why do you use the Lowestoft transmitter rather than Tacolneston near Attleborough, because that is much, much more powerful and transmits a lot more channels giving you much greater choice of programmes to watch! Richard, Norwich.
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John Jenkinson: Hi, John. According to the Digital UK Coverage checker, you are most likely to be receiving the Durris transmitter, which is one of the 80'ish MAIN FULL Freeview transmitters and one of those which carries 8 groups of channels, which we call "multiplexes". Digital UK predicts that you will get good reception on 31 channels and variable reception on 78 channels. Good reception is likely on logical channel numbers 1 to 6, followed by good reception also of BBC Alba, as well as BBC4 when BBC4 is on. Examples of variable channels are 'Dave', 'Pick', ITV3, 'Really', Yesterday, 4Music, some of the shopping channels and quite a few more of the less viewed channels. If you have a high definition (HD) receiver, you should also obtain good reception of fifteen HD channels too.It would be interesting for you to post back to say whether this is a good representation of what you are actually finding in practice. The coverage map for the Durris transmitter does indeed have quite a scattered pattern exhibiting a number of holes or dead spots, especially as you go North-Eastwards towards Peterhead and Fraserburgh, i.e. in the direction of Fetterangus. Do please post back with your comments on this post. Richard, Norwich, England, 4 p.m. on Weds. 8th. June.
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Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview traWednesday 8 June 2016 4:36PM
Norwich
Paul Evans: Hi Paul. Let me check Ridge Hill engineering for you first. There appears, unfortunately, to be no publicly available information to indicate when the works at Ridge Hill will have been completed and when it will return to full power. I will now quickly investigate the Humax Youview box to see if you can do a manual tune on it. Apparently it is NOT possible to carry out a manual retune on a Humax DTR-T2000 Youview box because Humax doesn't provide manual retune as a menu option.Is this what you are finding, Paul? As I think you have realised, Paul, there is no simple solution to your dilemma other than to wait for Ridge Hill to return to full power. I certainly wouldn't use , or even try to use Bromsgrove, with a measly 400 watts per multiplex, when Ridge Hill has all 8 multiplexes, with the main ones on at least 10,000 watts and multiplex COM8 on 4,200 watts. Richard, Norwich, 4:30 p.m. on Weds. 8th. June.
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Wells next the Sea (Norfolk, England) Freeview Light transmitteWednesday 8 June 2016 4:48PM
Norwich
jb38: Hi, JB38. I must say you have probably hit the nail on the head by saying that my proposal for the viewer in Wells-next-the-sea was unnecessarily complicated /expensive. My problem solutions have been described as such by people in the past. I would like to thank you for correcting me as to the reasons for investing in a grouped aerial for Wells, not making much difference. Feel free to interject in the future if any more of my posts turn out to be technically inaccurate. I must try harder to ensure they are not! Naughty boy, slapped wrist! Richard, Norwich, Weds. 8th. June, 4:45 p.m.
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Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) Full Freeview transmitter Wednesday 8 June 2016 7:28PM
Norwich
John Leather: The transmitter that serves Guisborough is designated by Digital UK as Bilsdale West Moor, rather than Pontop Pike. Whilst Pontop Pike is the key transmitter for most of Northumberland, Bilsdale serves much of Teeside and North Yorkshire. Looks like your aerial installer needs to return to college or something! If you need guidance it is simply that high atmospheric pressure conditions have been disrupting Freeview reception since Sunday night, especially along the Eastern coasts of the UK. You need to wait until we are under the influence of lower pressure conditions, which are forecast to occur within the next couple of days, before your reception improves. What you must NOT do, under any circumstances, is a retune, because your equipment would then forget the channels it used to receive before the high pressure arrived. Hope this helps, Richard, Norwich.
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nick: Hi, Nick. The main advantage of Freeview is that it is less expensive and easier than the other options for watching live television. The number of channels on offer is acceptable to the majority of tv viewers in the UK. The Freeview transmitter network as well as the Freeview digital tv systems in use were both planned as carefully as possible so as to minimise the effects of tropospheric scatter, 'lift', atmospheric or European interference, whatever you want to call it, so, 'Yes', the proponents of Freeview did take this on board! Out of interest, two questions for you for starters: (1). How far are you from the Sudbury transmitter? ( Your postcode would be a bonus) and (2). What is your Freeview equipment? i.e. is it a cheap or more expensive setup? The cheapest Freeview boxes have a poor reputation because they use poor quality electronic components, resulting in poor performance, poor signal sensitivity and poor signal quality. Assuming you've read this post. I'd appreciate your reply to ascertain whether we can advise you further. Richard, Norwich, Thurs. 9th. June, 2016 at 09:20 a.m.
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Adrian Crafer: Hi, Adrian. I have just checked and there are no faults or engineering work on Oxford today. Oxford still has high atmospheric pressure, 1023 millibars this morning, and so you may be experiencing the disruptive effects of high atmospheric pressure conditions on your television sets. Lower pressure weather systems have been forecast to be coming in by Saturday, and so your tv viewing will hopefully be back to normal by then. Don't do any full retunes, because your sets will 'forget' the details of the channels you were receiving ok before the high pressure set in! Richard, Norwich, Thursday, 9th. June at 09:40.
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Adrian Crafer: Hi Adrian. I don't dispute what may have been said prior to digital switchover, however, many of the posts on ukfree.tv this week have been testament to the fact that Freeview has been susceptible to atmospherics! Richard, Norwich. Apparently the atmospherics problems have peaked now and low pressure systems are on their way by Saturday, by which time normal reception should resume if the weather forecasters are correct! Richard, Norwich.
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Tuesday 7 June 2016 5:54PM
Norwich
mark: Very interesting, Mark.