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All posts by Jim F

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


Mark: How many dB of attenuation did you try?

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Billy: I've seen both digiboxes and DTVs develop a fault whereby a reset and rescan for channels appears to put everything in as you'd expect.
This situation lasts only until you put the box (or TV) into standby and then switch back on again. For no good reason, some channels may now be "missing", or have "recovered" their previous tuning criteria.
If you suspect your kit, its worth scanning with no aerial connected after a factory reset to confirm that at the end of the scan no channels are found. Then switch off (leave a few seconds) and then switch on again - there should still be no channels. Any box or TV that comes back on to a channel (or shows e.g. BBC1, possibly with a blank screen) isn't working right.
I think this is a fault with memory chip(s), but haven't confirmed.

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J
C21 (474.0MHz) after switchover
Wednesday 28 September 2011 10:02PM

Vikki: If you're using a Panasonic TV, they have a "new service message" option in the menu (sometimes in the picture menu, but more usually in the tuning menu - can take a bit of searching to find it).
If you set this to "off" rather than "on", your TV will come on without asking for a retune every time.

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Syd Wall: Try manual tuning, but not in the "conventional" order. If you're on the Sutton Coldfield transmitter tune UHF channel 43 first (for BBC1 & 2), then 46 (for ITV, Ch4 etc.) then 42, 35 & 39. Hopefully, the last channels tuned will be the ones that get "dropped" by your box, and the first ones will be retained.

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J
C21 (474.0MHz) after switchover
Friday 30 September 2011 4:05PM

Vikki: Can't say I've ever heard of Soundwave - is it a "Freemans" own brand?
Many of these uncommon brands are Vestel products, but I've no idea if Soundwave is actually one of theirs.
Has the constant need to retune at switch on always been happening since new? If so, it sounds like a faulty TV.
I can't find any customer support information - does the user guide provide any contact details for guarantee purposes?

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Evad: Try rebooting the SkyHD box. Switch off the power, and leave it for a few seconds. Then press and hold the "back up" botton on the box, and keep holding this down while you switch the mains power to the box on. Keep holding down the "back up" button until all four LEDs light on the front of the box (can take 15 seconds or so). At this stage, you can release the "back up" button - you should see a message on the screen saying Software Update - do not switch off - may take up to 10 minutes. Leave the box to complete this reboot. After it has finished (and a short delay) the box will typically show a "Sky HD please wait...." message on the screen. Leave it alone whilst this is on. After it has disappeared, the box will go into standby - and then you should be able to power it up.
Occasionally this has to be done a couple of times.

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Anne Renshaw: Truro is a bit hilly, so has its own "fill in" TV relay to provide reception to low lying spots that otherwise would struggle to get a signal from the Redruth Tx.
As you've found, it doesn't transmit the SDN, ArqA and ArqB MUXs.
The relay is on the hill above Truro School, so your aerial is probably pointing in that direction (roughly SE), with vertical polarisation.
Redruth is roughly SW from Truro, and has horizontal polarisation, but reception from there would depend very much on your exact location (generally low = bad & high = good) - chances are you'll need a new aerial.

DVD player not working has nothing to do with digital reception. Is the player "dead", or does it just not seem to connect to the TV (having selected the appropriate input on the TV's remote)?

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James: No - Woodford Halse is a relay and will only have the 3 PSB MUXs, so you'll need to keep the dish (but don't need a subscription for Film4).
Even with 6 Freeview MUXs I still have a dish - used almost exclusively for the additional "red button" sports screens (Freeview provides only one).

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J
Switch over and PC-based systems
Tuesday 4 October 2011 10:19AM

James: Some of the PC TV tuners use a "look-up" table of frequencies / UHF channels for tuning, to speed things up (corresponding to a particular transmitter). The look-up table can be edited, but a re-tune across all channels should find the missing MUXs.
It sounds like your PC may still be "remembering" the data for the MUXs prior to them being moved - I think I have to manually select all my channels and then delete all (involves right clicking in the "all channels" tab to discover the options "select ALL, delete, watch, details).
Once they're all gone, a full rescan gets it all back to normal.

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J
Diagnostics - old version
Tuesday 4 October 2011 10:26AM

alabama: Is there a TV/Radio button on your remote? If there is, pressing it should toggle between the telly programme list and the radio programmes that you're seeing at the moment.
Failing that, there may be a setting in the setup menu (but I've not seen one where the TV list can be turned off).

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