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All posts by Sally

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


So will we need to retune again, on 18th April?

Which commercial channels are on SDN, ArqA and ArqB? Are all of them on low power until 18th April?

How does that low power level compare to pre-21st March, and post 18th April?

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That's bad news, both yet another retune, and the lower reception, but thanks for it anyway, Brian. I hadn't heard about either issue anywhere else at all.

I see ArqA and ArqB are switching to 64QAM mode. I've read your terrific technical details about the different modes. But what is the governing factor(s) which make that "slightly harder to receive"? Geography? Type/location/orientation of aerial? Freeview receiver's handling? I'm trying to see if there's anything I can do, if the month of under-powered 64QAM proves to be a problem.

Thanks again for this astonishing site. Wishlist item: a bare-bones RSS feed for (just) the faults or engineering work (per postcode/transmitter).

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Thanks Brian, and Mike. So far, so good, with ArqA and ArqB channels (Dave and Film4) showing about 80% signal strength, compared to 100% for BBC1, from a wideband, horizontal, loft aerial. Only time may tell how resilient to interference they'll be.

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But vertical orientation has drawbacks too, no?

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Thanks Mark and KMJ. A little east of Bognor Regis, I'm not *very* near the edge of Rowridge coverage, and mostly receive all channels okay. But it's not unusual to get interference (even aside from mowers and motorbikes, ugh), and already the higher power on the public mux's seem to be much more resistant than the commercial mux's.

So I'd certainly like to have the higher power vertical reception, if feasible. But I see from the maps here that the Findon relay service area overlaps Bognor Regis, and then some. So is there any guessing whether, if I switch to vertical, Findon interference will trump the higher power from Rowridge? Or is it only possible to tell in practice?

Would Findon interference be immediately obvious (e.g. channels not appearing), or would it come and go depending on atmospheric conditions, etc, in the same way as, er, normal interference?

Would a different aerial (wideband at the moment) better grab Rowridge while rejecting Findon (if Findon is likely to be a problem)?


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Thanks again, KMJ and Mark. So, I'll wait for the 18th April, rotate the aerial, and see how things look for a while. If it sucks, I can think about investing in a good Group A aerial (and cable+bits).

Does rotating itself require a re-tune? Or will the current tuning work for either horizontal or vertical?

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Re-tuned at ~10am today: all Freeview SD channels OK. (Sorry John, I don't have any HD equipment, so can't help you there).

All the PSB mux's at 95-100% strength; all Com mux's between 50-70% strength.

Rotated my wideband loft aerial to vertical (thanks to advice given here by Brian, and others): all channels now 95-100%.

So, so far, so good. Thanks again.

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