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All posts by Michael Rogers

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


I agree with Les. A multisat receiver with a steerable 60-90cm dish is probably the best all-weather option. Dual LNBs on one dish with the spread between 19°E and 28°E would only be satisfactory on a big dish. Cheaper would be: two budget dishes switchable to one free-to-view receiver. If you only want 19°E (and watch UK on Freeview), then almost any basic digital satellite receiver will work with almost any dish. We would need more details to be more specific. I have a 90cm dish with diy
actuator and whizz back and forth between 28°E and 45°W to keep my
cheapo-but-excellent Technomate 5200 purring merrily.

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Don't hold your breath. Local TV will only be commercially viable where programmes attract enough viewers to render advertising remunerative to bonus-hungry company directors. But, heck, the shopping and even lesser channels thrive, so maybe...

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Andrea, that is somewhat enigmatic. If the signal strength/level (top bar, yellow) is good, the quality bar (bottom, blue) should be good enough for a solid signal. Low quality with high signal strength might be indicative of local interference affecting specific frequencies, which is just conceivable at your location (sic!). Certainly try moving the dish very slightly up, down, left, right on a clear but not full-strength channel to see if you can peak both bars. Then try the elusive ones again. With the dish optimally oriented, try a factory reset and manually tune in the frequencies of greatest interest, including some you received well before. You can find the parameters on kingofsat.net or lyngsat.com If you know of anyone nearby with a dish pointing to 19°E, ask if they have encountered the same. That would suggest interference - for example from security, mobile phone, police (Tetra) or other networks. If this were the case, moving the dish, mounting it at ground level, using a larger dish (narrower beam focus) might help. You might need an expert eye vor Ort to check all the conceivable causes. Viel Glck!

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Pauline, prime-time broadcasts are no longer always free-to-view. You need a Tivu box registered to their codice fiscal in Italy to watch subscription-free as before. See earlier posts on this site for more details.

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Claudia, it doesn't look good. I think such issues should come under human rights. Within the EU, we should all have an entitlement to all EU culture. If, as your name suggests, you have Italian roots, you just might have an even stronger case. But that might be more theoretical than practical. If you get a good broadband download speed, you should be able to find some Italian TV online. If you can "see" 13°E from a window, you could point a dish through an open window when the weather permits. Not ideal, but maybe possible.
Note the tivu requirements in other postings here. I wish you well.

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pat Brown: Reception from Kilvey Hill is fine on the North Devon coast right now. The good weather is due to high atmospheric pressure, which can increase interference from far-away transmitters on the same channels. If this problem persists, depending on your location in Swansea, you might wish to try receiving signals from Preseli, Carmel, Wenvoe - or even Huntshaw Cross.


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We have 22 turbines between the tx and our lofty log. Blocking for a few seconds occurs frequently at irregular intervals. This could be due to almost random relative positions of the 66 blades, or to CCI from France (or Elsewhereistan, or a neighbours' thermostat). The good news for the turbine profiteers is that we will never be able to prove anything, so they keep smiling and counting their profits and bonuses and don't have time to publish the actual kWh production, which just might be very slightly less than projections presented at the planning phase, based on the rare occurance of 11m/s wind-speed.
As I type, Rule Britannia blocking-free lifts my spirits, so all's well.

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If you receive other digital channels on other satellites, you should receive them on 19°E.
Manually tune in a main Astra channel (such as ZDF or CNN) then watch the signal quality and strength bars and move the dish westwards from 28°E until the bars reach maximum. Then save this channel and check it onscreen. If ok, reset your dish motor to this position and retune all channels with an automatic scan (or tune in the multiplexes of interest manually).

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Under atmospheric high-pressure, distant transmissions (from France or the UK) can break through and interefere with the signal you want - Caradon in this instance. If things are back to normal now we have a low, this would be the most likely explanation. If the problem persisits, you might wish to check whether you can get a signal from Huntshaw Cross on a CD aerial.

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Dave Fletcher: Mark's advice is sound. However, you may find that a log-periodic aerial serves you well. I receive Caradon
at 50miles on a log from ATV :-) If Caradon is weak at your location, the group A aerial recommended by Mark would be best, but, being longer, needs a sturdy mount. A log is robust and wideband and normally should give you a good signal at 20miles. It would also allow you to try other transmitters in the Southwest if you were interested in experimenting.

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