Frustration beyond belief
 

I am in a perfect line of sight to both Crystal Palace and Croydon, and
goodness knows how many relays inbetween. In fact I can see them both
out of my bedroom window. Crystal Palace is about 3.5 miles
south-south-east as the crow flies.

I've not long bought a Samsung SM933HD 19" LCD with integrated Freeview
and CAM slot for the bedroom, but have to rely on an indoor aerial for
it. I have a Topfield TF5800 in the living room which runs into the
wall and through the aerial on the roof, which gives a perfect picture
from which I have never had any breakup.


Every time I want to watch TV in the bedroom I have to adjust the
aerial. It has to find a completely new place in the room to get a
picture on any MUX, and I can rarely seem to get them all at once.
Sometimes I can't get certain MUXes at all, no matter how hard I try,
but then the next day it changes around and I can't get other MUXes.
The pattern is completely random. I'm tired of spending literally 20
minutes every day trying to get a picture when I want to watch a certain
channel.

What can I do? Is there any cheap equioment around that will tell me
the signal level? this trial and error stuff is just not working. I'm
getting sick of it.

Frustration beyond belief
 

....snip...

Haven't got one of those amplified thingimies have you? Perhaps you're
getting TOO MUCH signal and what you're actually doing is finding the place
in the room where the signal is lower than normal.

If you can see CP, I would have thought even the most basic aerial would get
you a reasonable picture. Unless you're actually looking through some trees
of course, in which case the position of the new leaves might be enought to
cause problems.

No chance of teeing the aerial from the roof into the bedroom?

Paul DS

Frustration beyond belief
 

Paul D.Smith wrote:

...snip...

Haven't got one of those amplified thingimies have you? Perhaps you're
getting TOO MUCH signal and what you're actually doing is finding the place
in the room where the signal is lower than normal.

If you can see CP, I would have thought even the most basic aerial would get
you a reasonable picture. Unless you're actually looking through some trees
of course, in which case the position of the new leaves might be enought to
cause problems.

I am about four miles north westish of CP and can get a decent signal
from a flylead given that CP is in plain view from my 5th floor front
room window. Indeed when my Toppy went into a crash restart loop from
the MHEG page being broadcast by a radio station I had to takeoff the
tiny link between the two tuner inputs to get out of it.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

Frustration beyond belief
 

Its not the signal level which is the problem on indoor aerials, its the
multipath effects making the signal unresolvable. Whereas analogue pictures
are viewable with bits of ghosting, digital systems see the displaced data
and lose lock basically.


Often the problems occur in built up areas close to transmitters where the
reflections are themselves powerful.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Cuzman" wrote in message
...

I am in a perfect line of sight to both Crystal Palace and Croydon, and
goodness knows how many relays inbetween. In fact I can see them both out
of my bedroom window. Crystal Palace is about 3.5 miles south-south-east
as the crow flies.

I've not long bought a Samsung SM933HD 19" LCD with integrated Freeview
and CAM slot for the bedroom, but have to rely on an indoor aerial for it.
I have a Topfield TF5800 in the living room which runs into the wall and
through the aerial on the roof, which gives a perfect picture from which I
have never had any breakup.


Every time I want to watch TV in the bedroom I have to adjust the aerial.
It has to find a completely new place in the room to get a picture on any
MUX, and I can rarely seem to get them all at once. Sometimes I can't get
certain MUXes at all, no matter how hard I try, but then the next day it
changes around and I can't get other MUXes. The pattern is completely
random. I'm tired of spending literally 20 minutes every day trying to
get a picture when I want to watch a certain channel.

What can I do? Is there any cheap equioment around that will tell me the
signal level? this trial and error stuff is just not working. I'm
getting sick of it.

Frustration beyond belief
 

In article , Brian Gaff
scribeth thus
Its not the signal level which is the problem on indoor aerials, its the
multipath effects making the signal unresolvable. Whereas analogue pictures
are viewable with bits of ghosting, digital systems see the displaced data
and lose lock basically.


Now correct me if I'm wrong I thought that with this wonderful digital
telly it liked multipath .. unless its overdosing on it!)..

Often the problems occur in built up areas close to transmitters where the
reflections are themselves powerful.

All things are relative;)..
Brian


--
Tony Sayer

Frustration beyond belief
 

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Brian Gaff
scribeth thus
Its not the signal level which is the problem on indoor aerials, its the
multipath effects making the signal unresolvable. Whereas analogue
pictures
are viewable with bits of ghosting, digital systems see the displaced data
and lose lock basically.


Now correct me if I'm wrong I thought that with this wonderful digital
telly it liked multipath .. unless its overdosing on it!)..

Often the problems occur in built up areas close to transmitters where the
reflections are themselves powerful.

My Mendip signal sufferers from multipath, especially in rainy windy
conditions when one can actually see the signal level and ghosting varying
up and down, however this doesn't have the slightest effect on my digital
reception, which remains rock solid, this appears to indicate (to me at
least) that digital is pretty resilient to multipath situations.

Frustration beyond belief
 

Well, I'm only saying what seems to be the case around here according to the
locals. We are also line of sight to Crystal Palace on the top of a hill,
and where one used to be able to shove an indoor aerial on the wardrobe
before, you cannot on Digital, indeed even someone moving around upstairs
can upset it or so it seems. I am aware the powers are lower than they will
be but the strength is good enough to sometimes get a good lock using a bit
of wire dangling out the back of a set so its obviously not as tolerant is
it?
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Brian Gaff
scribeth thus
Its not the signal level which is the problem on indoor aerials, its the
multipath effects making the signal unresolvable. Whereas analogue
pictures
are viewable with bits of ghosting, digital systems see the displaced data
and lose lock basically.


Now correct me if I'm wrong I thought that with this wonderful digital
telly it liked multipath .. unless its overdosing on it!)..

Often the problems occur in built up areas close to transmitters where the
reflections are themselves powerful.

All things are relative;)..
Brian


--
Tony Sayer

Frustration beyond belief
 

....snip...
My Mendip signal sufferers from multipath, especially in rainy windy
conditions when one can actually see the signal level and ghosting varying
up and down, however this doesn't have the slightest effect on my digital
reception, which remains rock solid, this appears to indicate (to me at
least) that digital is pretty resilient to multipath situations.

WARNING: Hand-wavy explanation below. Please don't bother pointing this out
;-).

The key difference is that analogue used a signal where the amplitude
(0-100%) represented something. So adding some multipath (say a couple more
percent, delayed) created the ghosting.

Digital only understands "on" and "off" so if we take "on" as 50% and "off"
as 0%, adding 10% (ghosting, say) anywhere can only change "off" from 0-10%,
still less than 50% and therefore still "off" and "on" from 50-60%, still
"on" so no change at all as far as the digital signal is concerned.

But what if the multipath is strong (as in this case)? Try starting with a
signal that is 0/90% and adding in multipath of 0/80% say. Now original
"off" (0) + multipath "on" (80%) makes 80% i.e. "on". Whoops - it should be
off so we have a problem.

So a question, how to the pros. solve this? Sounds like I would need a very
directional, but low gain, antenna. Would one of Bills fabled "pair,
carefully aligned" work?

Paul DS

Frustration beyond belief
 

In article , Ivan
scribeth thus

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Brian Gaff
scribeth thus
Its not the signal level which is the problem on indoor aerials, its the
multipath effects making the signal unresolvable. Whereas analogue
pictures
are viewable with bits of ghosting, digital systems see the displaced data
and lose lock basically.


Now correct me if I'm wrong I thought that with this wonderful digital
telly it liked multipath .. unless its overdosing on it!)..

Often the problems occur in built up areas close to transmitters where the
reflections are themselves powerful.

My Mendip signal sufferers from multipath, especially in rainy windy
conditions when one can actually see the signal level and ghosting varying
up and down, however this doesn't have the slightest effect on my digital
reception, which remains rock solid, this appears to indicate (to me at
least) that digital is pretty resilient to multipath situations.


Yes its better on multipath than what analogue is but there comes a
point where it too will go to pieces which may well be what's happening
with the OP...

Seems an aerial lead into the loft and a chapie unit there with an
attenuator might be in order...
--
Tony Sayer

Frustration beyond belief
 

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:04:24 +0100, Paul D.Smith wrote:

Now original "off" (0) + multipath "on" (80%) makes 80% i.e. "on".
Whoops - it should be off so we have a problem.

But if there are not too many errors, does not the error checking routines
in the digital decoding take care of this problem?