I'm impressed!
 

With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000 DVBT
receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over £90.00
trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!) however I
was curious to find out if it would still work on the upgraded 64QAM-8K
transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already completed phase 1 of DSO.

I removed the group A filter from my aerial system (otherwise editing
duplicated and local Welsh channels can be a pain) and did a reset and full
rescan, all of the extra channels were in the EPG and the new 8K
transmissions worked without problem, its a really well put together piece
of kit and has an RF modulator, so the fact that I can probably find a home
for it, instead of having to bin it, is good news.

As I live in North Somerset with a (Bristol postcode) I can normally receive
the full complement of digital channels from both Mendip and Wenvoe, however
whilst flicking through the channels I noticed that instead the usual Points
West local news I was receiving a programme called 'Spotlight', on checking,
this turned out to be coming from the Southwest region Stockland Hill
transmitter.

Back in the 1970s I could receive grainy analogue reception, raddled with
with co-channel interference, from this transmitter using an 18 element roof
mounted group A aerial with a masthead amplifier, however when a high-rise
office block was built in the centre of town the reception became virtually
unusable, now the digital reception is not only rock solid but is being
received off of the side of a group C/D Mendip aerial, facing in the wrong
direction!. Checking the transmitter's power output it's only 50 kW, so I
reckon that post DSO digital transmissions, on vastly higher outputs than
their current levels, is going to be a win-win situation for many thousands
of people who have had to put up with iffy analogue reception for decades..
Like I said I'm well impressed!

I'm impressed!
 

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000
DVBT receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over £90.00
trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!) however I
was curious to find out if it would still work on the upgraded 64QAM-8K
transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already completed phase 1 of DSO.

I removed the group A filter from my aerial system (otherwise editing
duplicated and local Welsh channels can be a pain) and did a reset and
full rescan, all of the extra channels were in the EPG and the new 8K
transmissions worked without problem, its a really well put together piece
of kit and has an RF modulator, so the fact that I can probably find a
home for it, instead of having to bin it, is good news.

As I live in North Somerset with a (Bristol postcode) I can normally
receive the full complement of digital channels from both Mendip and
Wenvoe, however whilst flicking through the channels I noticed that
instead the usual Points West local news I was receiving a programme
called 'Spotlight', on checking, this turned out to be coming from the
Southwest region Stockland Hill transmitter.

Back in the 1970s I could receive grainy analogue reception, raddled with
with co-channel interference, from this transmitter using an 18 element
roof mounted group A aerial with a masthead amplifier, however when a
high-rise office block was built in the centre of town the reception
became virtually unusable, now the digital reception is not only rock
solid but is being received off of the side of a group C/D Mendip aerial,
facing in the wrong direction!. Checking the transmitter's power output
it's only 50 kW, so I reckon that post DSO digital transmissions, on
vastly higher outputs than their current levels, is going to be a win-win
situation for many thousands of people who have had to put up with iffy
analogue reception for decades.. Like I said I'm well impressed!








yyaaawwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

I'm impressed!
 

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000
DVBT receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over £90.00
trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!) however I
was curious to find out if it would still work on the upgraded 64QAM-8K
transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already completed phase 1 of DSO.

I was at my parents house near Brecon last weekend and as they are now in
phase 1 of DSO I was looking forward to fiddling.

They can't receive the Brecon relay, instead using Abergavenny, but have a
weak analogue signal also available from Pennorth via their group B aerial.
I was therefore surprised to see Abergavenny (C49) and Pennorth (C23) both
showing up with a 10 for quality and strength when I did a scan on their
Panny TV. Turning the gain down on their variable masthead amplifier made
little difference to the levels despite the remaining analogue signals
becoming very grainy.

I was also impressed!

I'm impressed!
 

"Doctor D" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000
DVBT receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over
£90.00 trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!)
however I was curious to find out if it would still work on the upgraded
64QAM-8K transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already completed phase 1
of DSO.

I was at my parents house near Brecon last weekend and as they are now in
phase 1 of DSO I was looking forward to fiddling.

They can't receive the Brecon relay, instead using Abergavenny, but have a
weak analogue signal also available from Pennorth via their group B
aerial. I was therefore surprised to see Abergavenny (C49) and Pennorth
(C23) both showing up with a 10 for quality and strength when I did a scan
on their Panny TV. Turning the gain down on their variable masthead
amplifier made little difference to the levels despite the remaining
analogue signals becoming very grainy.

I was also impressed!

It's certainly interesting to see at what distance digital can be reliably
received now that the transmitters are switching over to full power, I can
now receive Mendip, Wenvoe, Stockland Hill (PSBs) and this time next week
the local relay, Backwell, which also uses group A, will start switching
over to digital (although vertically polarised its close enough to provide
reasonable analogue on my horizontal aerial) does anyone have any idea what,
if any, the likely effect will be on reception from Stockland Hill,
considering that both are group A transmitters and share three channels?.
not as it really matters as I will reinstall the A\B filter and continue
using the Mendip transmitter anyway, I'm simply curious that's all.. AIUI
channel numbers are.. Backwell 22-25-28-32. Stockland Hill
22-23-25-26-28-29.

I'm impressed!
 

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...


"Doctor D" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000
DVBT receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over
£90.00 trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!)
however I was curious to find out if it would still work on the upgraded
64QAM-8K transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already completed phase 1
of DSO.

I was at my parents house near Brecon last weekend and as they are now in
phase 1 of DSO I was looking forward to fiddling.

They can't receive the Brecon relay, instead using Abergavenny, but have
a weak analogue signal also available from Pennorth via their group B
aerial. I was therefore surprised to see Abergavenny (C49) and Pennorth
(C23) both showing up with a 10 for quality and strength when I did a
scan on their Panny TV. Turning the gain down on their variable masthead
amplifier made little difference to the levels despite the remaining
analogue signals becoming very grainy.

I was also impressed!

It's certainly interesting to see at what distance digital can be reliably
received now that the transmitters are switching over to full power, I can
now receive Mendip, Wenvoe, Stockland Hill (PSBs) and this time next week
the local relay, Backwell, which also uses group A, will start switching
over to digital (although vertically polarised its close enough to provide
reasonable analogue on my horizontal aerial) does anyone have any idea
what, if any, the likely effect will be on reception from Stockland Hill,
considering that both are group A transmitters and share three channels?.
not as it really matters as I will reinstall the A\B filter and continue
using the Mendip transmitter anyway, I'm simply curious that's all.. AIUI
channel numbers are.. Backwell 22-25-28-32. Stockland Hill
22-23-25-26-28-29.


This makes it even more appalling and disgraceful that few if any STBs have
any way of choosing which duplicate of each multiplex you want to use and
will happily try to use marginal strength signals if they find them first.

Here we have fair strength signals from both Crystal Palace and Hannington
and I have to resort to all sorts of trickery to make sure the TVs STBs use
only Hannington.

A "re-scan" on our main TV takes over an hour for me to complete properly
due to this and another stupid idiotic design error whereby I can't rescan
digital without also wiping all the analogue channels. Luckily it's not
often necessary since new channels usually seem to be added automatically.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)

To email me remove the letter vee.

I'm impressed!
 

"Brian Gregory [UK]" wrote in message
...
"Ivan" wrote in message
om...


"Doctor D" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
With Mendip DSO imminent I decided to drag out an old Technomate TM6000
DVBT receiver that I had purchased (owing to the shortage of home-grown
receivers) when Freeview first started (don't laugh but I paid over
£90.00 trade for it back then, with MHEG or text not being an option!)
however I was curious to find out if it would still work on the
upgraded 64QAM-8K transmissions from Wenvoe, which has already
completed phase 1 of DSO.

I was at my parents house near Brecon last weekend and as they are now
in phase 1 of DSO I was looking forward to fiddling.

They can't receive the Brecon relay, instead using Abergavenny, but have
a weak analogue signal also available from Pennorth via their group B
aerial. I was therefore surprised to see Abergavenny (C49) and Pennorth
(C23) both showing up with a 10 for quality and strength when I did a
scan on their Panny TV. Turning the gain down on their variable masthead
amplifier made little difference to the levels despite the remaining
analogue signals becoming very grainy.

I was also impressed!

It's certainly interesting to see at what distance digital can be
reliably received now that the transmitters are switching over to full
power, I can now receive Mendip, Wenvoe, Stockland Hill (PSBs) and this
time next week the local relay, Backwell, which also uses group A, will
start switching over to digital (although vertically polarised its close
enough to provide reasonable analogue on my horizontal aerial) does
anyone have any idea what, if any, the likely effect will be on reception
from Stockland Hill, considering that both are group A transmitters and
share three channels?. not as it really matters as I will reinstall the
A\B filter and continue using the Mendip transmitter anyway, I'm simply
curious that's all.. AIUI channel numbers are.. Backwell 22-25-28-32.
Stockland Hill 22-23-25-26-28-29.


This makes it even more appalling and disgraceful that few if any STBs
have any way of choosing which duplicate of each multiplex you want to use
and will happily try to use marginal strength signals if they find them
first.

Here we have fair strength signals from both Crystal Palace and Hannington
and I have to resort to all sorts of trickery to make sure the TVs STBs
use only Hannington.

A "re-scan" on our main TV takes over an hour for me to complete properly
due to this and another stupid idiotic design error whereby I can't rescan
digital without also wiping all the analogue channels. Luckily it's not
often necessary since new channels usually seem to be added automatically.



I totally agree Brian, my old (circa 2002) Daewoo receiver used to display
the actual main transmitter names - on relays the parent transmitter - along
with the strength and quality of the individually received multiplexes in
its tuning menu (pity about split NIT!) which indicates that technically
there shouldn't have been a problem of incorporating a similar feature into
all Freeview receivers.
I'm now waiting to see what will happen when my TV sees two reasonably
strong multiplexes from different transmitters, but on the same channel
number, as I say it doesn't really affect me, as I use Mendip and I know
what's happening, I'm just wondering if in similar circumstances it's likely
to create any problems for the uninitiated?

I'm impressed!
 

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:56:21 -0000, "Ken Tukyfriedturkey"
wrote:

[snip]

yyaaawwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Have you stayed up past your bedtime?