menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Archive (2002-)

 

 

Click to see updates

All posts by Gareth Jones

Below are all of Gareth Jones's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

G
Wenvoe (Cardiff, Wales) Full Freeview transmitter
Sunday 20 January 2013 8:56PM
Cardiff

Hi all,

My postcode is CF10 5FS. I live in a second floor flat and the aerial is on the roof. I bought a new LG 32LS570T Smart TV and, separately, a new RF cable two weeks ago. The TV is plugged into a four-plug surge protection adaptor and I only switch my DVD player on at the mains when I'm using it.

Initially I found that I couldn't receive any channels at all. A neighbour who works for PC World/Currys came in to help me the following evening. He took exactly the same steps that I did and, miraculously, the TV started to find channels.

Everything appeared to be fine, until I tried watching the HD channels and found that it was very difficult to watch them due to interference and the picture freezing. Looking here (http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/main/trade/CF10+5FS/41/0/NA), I should be getting a 100% signal on all digital frequencies from the Wenvoe transmitter. I ran a signal strength test on my TV this morning and got the following results:

BBC A: 62% signal strength; 100% signal quality. No picture problems at all.

COM4: 26% signal strength; 49-55% signal quality. Not the best picture on some channels, but fine (plus I'm not that fussed about these channels).

D3+4: 10% signal strength; 38-40% signal quality. Worked fine this morning, but very difficult to watch during the course of last week.

BBC B: 30% signal strength; 83-91% signal quality. Such was the signal quality this morning, but earlier in the week it was between 0 and 10%, making it unwatchable. I'd like the picture to be more reliable, since there's not much point in having bought a HD TV otherwise!

COM5: 8% signal strength; 0% signal quality. Unwatchable.

COM6: I don't receive this multiplex at all.

I mentioned this problem to my landlady and she said that she had been able to receive Film4 (one of the COM6 channels) when she lived in the flat. At her suggestion, I tried hooking the TV up to the aerial point in my bedroom. This has a female rather than a male connection, so I put my adaptor on the RF cable. I used autotune on the set five or six times, but no channels were found. I set the TV up in the living room again, removing the adaptor from the RF cable, and now I'm back to where I was on Day 1, i.e. I have no channels at all.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be happening before I give up and get an engineer in to look at it? It's beginning to drive me mad!

Many thanks

link to this comment
G
Wenvoe (Cardiff, Wales) Full Freeview transmitter
Monday 21 January 2013 9:35PM
Cardiff

JB38: Thanks very much for your reply.

I forgot to say that I did carry out a further retune (several times) on the TV after I moved it back to the living room.

I will try what you say and see what happens.

Thanks again.

link to this comment

JB38: I don't have a set-top aerial and I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a short length of wire" in this context. I've looked at attenuators and they appear to be relatively cheap, but I've no idea which type to get! Do you have any recommendations re decibel rating etc, please?

Thanks

link to this comment
EU flag
G
Wenvoe (Cardiff, Wales) Full Freeview transmitter
Wednesday 23 January 2013 9:31PM
Cardiff

JB38: Thanks again for your advice. Unfortunately, not being the most practical person by any stretch of the imagination, I don't have any spare wire like that. Richer Sounds, where I bought the TV, have said that I can bring it back to them to investigate further. The store is 1.5 miles away from my flat as the crow flies, so the signal level should be very similar, I would have thought.

The aerial on the roof is communal and my RF cable goes straight from the TV to the point on the wall. My neighbours aren't having any problems with their signal.

I hoped that the general retune event might make a difference today, but sadly not...

link to this comment
G
Wenvoe (Cardiff, Wales) Full Freeview transmitter
Wednesday 13 March 2013 11:32PM
Cardiff

JB38: Apologies for not responding sooner. My problem ended up being solved surprisingly easily. Given that my cable was labelled 'RF cable' I connected it to the port labelled 'RF' on the wall behind my TV, which resulted in all the issues I have already described. I did try putting a female adaptor on the end of the RF cable so that it would connect to the port labelled 'TV', but this made no difference. However, when someone came round my flat to help, we repeated this step and the TV has been working perfectly ever since!

Thanks for all your assistance. At least if anyone ever has similar problems again they will be able to read this page first.

link to this comment