Today's fun

I'll not trouble you with a full account of the smaller details of the day,
although these were many. You know that feeling when it seems that you're
being bombarded by irrelevances? You just feel like yelling, "Please leave
me alone so I can get on!"

But anyway, the story of this morning started two months ago when I
re-discovered a row of eight council bungalows that have been in my care, TV
reception wise, since 1980. The problem two months ago was analogue and
routine, but I found that digital reception was terrible. The last time I
was there was in 2004 when I'd been out to check the DTT, specifically.
Although there were trees in the way, reception from Emley Moor was just
about good enough, so I put a tick in the box and forgot the place. Then in
July this year I found that the trees had grown and houses had been built on
the skyline and DTT from Emley Moor was hopeless. I leafletted the bungalows
explaining that work would be done to bring digital television up to
scratch. The response was peculiar, in that four residents took the trouble
to ring up to say that they didn't want digital. They wouldn't have it no
matter what. No way, no how, not never. Ever. So go away and leave us alone.
Two already had DTT, but it didn't really work at all.

The is a central government directive which compels local councils to make
DTT work everywhere where it's possible, so I embarked on a job that ended
up with a huge mast, three aerials, and a fortune spent on amps and filters.
I've had to add Belmont DTT to an Emley Moor system, in a place where
Belmont digital is, by any sensible standards, not useable. I'll put some
pictures on a site somewhere if anyone's interested because it was an
unusual job. Anyway, I allowed two hours for this job today. All I planned
to do was install the new head-end. I didn't intend to go round checking.
Not today. But blow me down, there was a clamour from the old people!
Instead of two digital homes there were now seven! Quite a digital
revolution to have taken place in two months! And since Mrs Taylor 'doesn't
know whether she's on this earth or Fuller's' I think you could call it a
full house. Anyway, I was cajoled with cups of tea and Kit Kats and before I
knew it I was trying to install DTT boxes (alongside antique TV sets and
VCRs) with no time to do it. Eventually I was an hour late for the next job.
I'll have to go back another day because I also discovered that several of
the bungalows have TV sets in the bedrooms, with the aerial cables botched
into the trunk cable in the loft.

So off I went to another call which was of no interest to anyone, then to a
block of flats where a young couple had moved in and found that No Satellite
Signal Was Being Received. What's more, no terrestrial signal was being
received either. The first move was to remove the flylead from the 'return'
socket (feeds the bedrooms from the Sky box) and push it into the correct
port on the wallplate. People do this all the time because for some daft
reason the wallplates commonly used have a male belling for the aerial and a
female for the return. That resulted in very snowy terrestrial reception,
which was greeted with squeals of joy by the (dimwitted but stunning) lady
of the house, if not by me. I connected the analyser to satellite port 1 and
found normal signal levels. Normal levels, but abnormal in that whatever
polarisation/band the analyser asked for it got a different one. Satellite
port 2 was, as expected, dead. No chance of Sky+ or Sky hi-def then.

I went up to the loft, where I found a Televes multiswitch with no earth
bond and no anything else, not even screws to fix it to something. Oh, it
had one surprising accessory given the reception area and the visible
crapness of the aerial, an 18dB attenuator on the terrestrial input.
Checking at a spare output I found that the four feeds from the LNB were
connected to the wrong switch inputs! Bloody hell! The building is three
years old! How come no-one had noticed? Anyway, I put that right then looked
at the terrestrial output, which was at truly pathetic levels. I removed the
attenuator and turned the gain up and the DTT muxes went to a high error
rate and the analogue pictures showed the distinctive S shaped moving
patterns that mean 'FM carrier overloading the amp'. So I looked at the
whole band from 45 to 900MHz and sure enough there was a whacking great
signal from the local FM station. What these pillocks had done was diplex an
FM aerial with the TV aerial at the masthead, then when they saw the wavy
lines, attenuated the whole terrestrial input until they disappeared. The
fact that this left the TV signals 20dB below the minimum can't have
bothered them. When I got to the aerials to attenuate the VHF I found such a
horrible mess that I have pencilled in a day next week for a complete
replecement. Meanwhile I pinned a notice on the wall below the aerial:
"Keep away and do not park here -- dangerous aerial"

Back in the flat the young lady wanted to know if she could have a telly in
the bedroom. The answer was in the negative unless she wants to spend money,
because the return socket in the living room wasn't connected to anything.

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
I'll not trouble you with a full account of the smaller details of the
day, although these were many. You know that feeling when it seems that
you're being bombarded by irrelevances? You just feel like yelling,
"Please leave me alone so I can get on!"

But anyway, the story of this morning started two months ago when I
re-discovered a row of eight council bungalows that have been in my care,
TV reception wise, since 1980. The problem two months ago was analogue and
routine, but I found that digital reception was terrible. The last time I
was there was in 2004 when I'd been out to check the DTT, specifically.
Although there were trees in the way, reception from Emley Moor was just
about good enough, so I put a tick in the box and forgot the place. Then
in July this year I found that the trees had grown and houses had been
built on the skyline and DTT from Emley Moor was hopeless. I leafletted
the bungalows explaining that work would be done to bring digital
television up to scratch. The response was peculiar, in that four
residents took the trouble to ring up to say that they didn't want
digital. They wouldn't have it no matter what. No way, no how, not never.
Ever. So go away and leave us alone. Two already had DTT, but it didn't
really work at all.

The is a central government directive which compels local councils to make
DTT work everywhere where it's possible, so I embarked on a job that ended
up with a huge mast, three aerials, and a fortune spent on amps and
filters. I've had to add Belmont DTT to an Emley Moor system, in a place
where Belmont digital is, by any sensible standards, not useable. I'll put
some pictures on a site somewhere if anyone's interested because it was an
unusual job. Anyway, I allowed two hours for this job today. All I planned
to do was install the new head-end. I didn't intend to go round checking.
Not today. But blow me down, there was a clamour from the old people!
Instead of two digital homes there were now seven! Quite a digital
revolution to have taken place in two months! And since Mrs Taylor
'doesn't know whether she's on this earth or Fuller's' I think you could
call it a full house. Anyway, I was cajoled with cups of tea and Kit Kats
and before I knew it I was trying to install DTT boxes (alongside antique
TV sets and VCRs) with no time to do it. Eventually I was an hour late for
the next job. I'll have to go back another day because I also discovered
that several of the bungalows have TV sets in the bedrooms, with the
aerial cables botched into the trunk cable in the loft.

So off I went to another call which was of no interest to anyone, then to
a block of flats where a young couple had moved in and found that No
Satellite Signal Was Being Received. What's more, no terrestrial signal
was being received either. The first move was to remove the flylead from
the 'return' socket (feeds the bedrooms from the Sky box) and push it into
the correct port on the wallplate. People do this all the time because for
some daft reason the wallplates commonly used have a male belling for the
aerial and a female for the return. That resulted in very snowy
terrestrial reception, which was greeted with squeals of joy by the
(dimwitted but stunning) lady of the house, if not by me. I connected the
analyser to satellite port 1 and found normal signal levels. Normal
levels, but abnormal in that whatever polarisation/band the analyser asked
for it got a different one. Satellite port 2 was, as expected, dead. No
chance of Sky+ or Sky hi-def then.

I went up to the loft, where I found a Televes multiswitch with no earth
bond and no anything else, not even screws to fix it to something. Oh, it
had one surprising accessory given the reception area and the visible
crapness of the aerial, an 18dB attenuator on the terrestrial input.
Checking at a spare output I found that the four feeds from the LNB were
connected to the wrong switch inputs! Bloody hell! The building is three
years old! How come no-one had noticed? Anyway, I put that right then
looked at the terrestrial output, which was at truly pathetic levels. I
removed the attenuator and turned the gain up and the DTT muxes went to a
high error rate and the analogue pictures showed the distinctive S shaped
moving patterns that mean 'FM carrier overloading the amp'. So I looked at
the whole band from 45 to 900MHz and sure enough there was a whacking
great signal from the local FM station. What these pillocks had done was
diplex an FM aerial with the TV aerial at the masthead, then when they saw
the wavy lines, attenuated the whole terrestrial input until they
disappeared. The fact that this left the TV signals 20dB below the minimum
can't have bothered them. When I got to the aerials to attenuate the VHF I
found such a horrible mess that I have pencilled in a day next week for a
complete replecement. Meanwhile I pinned a notice on the wall below the
aerial: "Keep away and do not park here -- dangerous aerial"

Back in the flat the young lady wanted to know if she could have a telly
in the bedroom. The answer was in the negative unless she wants to spend
money, because the return socket in the living room wasn't connected to
anything.

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill


You can't talk about stunning ladies and not include any pictures. Pictures
of the aerials would also be excellent.

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 01:35:17 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

I'll not trouble you with a full account of the smaller details of the day,
although these were many. You know that feeling when it seems that you're
being bombarded by irrelevances? You just feel like yelling, "Please leave
me alone so I can get on!"

But anyway, the story of this morning started two months ago when I
re-discovered a row of eight council bungalows that have been in my care, TV
reception wise, since 1980. The problem two months ago was analogue and
routine, but I found that digital reception was terrible. The last time I
was there was in 2004 when I'd been out to check the DTT, specifically.
Although there were trees in the way, reception from Emley Moor was just
about good enough, so I put a tick in the box and forgot the place. Then in
July this year I found that the trees had grown and houses had been built on
the skyline and DTT from Emley Moor was hopeless. I leafletted the bungalows
explaining that work would be done to bring digital television up to
scratch. The response was peculiar, in that four residents took the trouble
to ring up to say that they didn't want digital. They wouldn't have it no
matter what. No way, no how, not never. Ever. So go away and leave us alone.
Two already had DTT, but it didn't really work at all.

The is a central government directive which compels local councils to make
DTT work everywhere where it's possible, so I embarked on a job that ended
up with a huge mast, three aerials, and a fortune spent on amps and filters.
I've had to add Belmont DTT to an Emley Moor system, in a place where
Belmont digital is, by any sensible standards, not useable. I'll put some
pictures on a site somewhere if anyone's interested because it was an
unusual job. Anyway, I allowed two hours for this job today. All I planned
to do was install the new head-end. I didn't intend to go round checking.
Not today. But blow me down, there was a clamour from the old people!
Instead of two digital homes there were now seven! Quite a digital
revolution to have taken place in two months! And since Mrs Taylor 'doesn't
know whether she's on this earth or Fuller's' I think you could call it a
full house. Anyway, I was cajoled with cups of tea and Kit Kats and before I
knew it I was trying to install DTT boxes (alongside antique TV sets and
VCRs) with no time to do it. Eventually I was an hour late for the next job.
I'll have to go back another day because I also discovered that several of
the bungalows have TV sets in the bedrooms, with the aerial cables botched
into the trunk cable in the loft.

So off I went to another call which was of no interest to anyone, then to a
block of flats where a young couple had moved in and found that No Satellite
Signal Was Being Received. What's more, no terrestrial signal was being
received either. The first move was to remove the flylead from the 'return'
socket (feeds the bedrooms from the Sky box) and push it into the correct
port on the wallplate. People do this all the time because for some daft
reason the wallplates commonly used have a male belling for the aerial and a
female for the return. That resulted in very snowy terrestrial reception,
which was greeted with squeals of joy by the (dimwitted but stunning) lady
of the house, if not by me. I connected the analyser to satellite port 1 and
found normal signal levels. Normal levels, but abnormal in that whatever
polarisation/band the analyser asked for it got a different one. Satellite
port 2 was, as expected, dead. No chance of Sky+ or Sky hi-def then.

I went up to the loft, where I found a Televes multiswitch with no earth
bond and no anything else, not even screws to fix it to something. Oh, it
had one surprising accessory given the reception area and the visible
crapness of the aerial, an 18dB attenuator on the terrestrial input.
Checking at a spare output I found that the four feeds from the LNB were
connected to the wrong switch inputs! Bloody hell! The building is three
years old! How come no-one had noticed? Anyway, I put that right then looked
at the terrestrial output, which was at truly pathetic levels. I removed the
attenuator and turned the gain up and the DTT muxes went to a high error
rate and the analogue pictures showed the distinctive S shaped moving
patterns that mean 'FM carrier overloading the amp'. So I looked at the
whole band from 45 to 900MHz and sure enough there was a whacking great
signal from the local FM station. What these pillocks had done was diplex an
FM aerial with the TV aerial at the masthead, then when they saw the wavy
lines, attenuated the whole terrestrial input until they disappeared. The
fact that this left the TV signals 20dB below the minimum can't have
bothered them. When I got to the aerials to attenuate the VHF I found such a
horrible mess that I have pencilled in a day next week for a complete
replecement. Meanwhile I pinned a notice on the wall below the aerial:
"Keep away and do not park here -- dangerous aerial"

Back in the flat the young lady wanted to know if she could have a telly in
the bedroom. The answer was in the negative unless she wants to spend money,
because the return socket in the living room wasn't connected to anything.

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill

Wow! Impressive. I live in a block of four flats with no communal
system, just four bare ends of coax in the (foil lined) loft. The
bloke upstairs has an aerial up there, but he doesn't use it 'coz
receptions so bad. I found that out myself when I put my aerial up
there. Anywhere else, the signal bombs in.

Marky P.

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill

Wow! Impressive. I live in a block of four flats with no communal
system, just four bare ends of coax in the (foil lined) loft. The
bloke upstairs has an aerial up there, but he doesn't use it 'coz
receptions so bad. I found that out myself when I put my aerial up
there. Anywhere else, the signal bombs in.

Marky P.


Its a wonder you haven't fixed up an amp there and really impressed the
neighbours...
--
Tony Sayer

"Owain" wrote in message
...

Could you give a reference for that as it might be useful for people
living in council houses?

It would need digging out. I have seen it on paper but not on the net. It
went out at least two years ago and caused some councils to fly into a silly
panic. For instance I was asked to attend a meeting where the atmosphere was
'crisis'. I was able to say, "You've already done this!" In fact we'd had a
programme running for a year, and had converted every system except the
no-hope ones.

If anyone can find this document on the net I'd be pleased to see it.

I'll have to go back another day because I also discovered that several
of the bungalows have TV sets in the bedrooms, with the aerial cables
botched into the trunk cable in the loft.

You love those jobs don't you... tea, Kit Kats, old ladies, and a botched
trunk cable.
Yes I really do. They are such a change. I'm getting to hate building site
jobs. I like the prison jobs though.


... the (dimwitted but stunning) lady of the house, ....
wanted to know if she could have a telly in the bedroom. The answer was
in the negative unless she wants to spend money,
because

because you don't give freebies even if they are dimwitted and stunning
:-)
Her husband came home like a shot when she rung him to say I was there. When
he saw me he visibly relaxed. Bit insulting really . . .

But not as bad as where the sparky conscientiously wired all the aerial
outlets on a ring...
I don't seem to see as much of that as I used to. I did however visit a
block recently where there were 12 flats fed from one 12-way multiswitch.
Each flat had two outlets and the sparks had looped the cable through the
back of the bedroom outlet (standard non-isol belling single) to the living
room (triplexed SAT/VHF/UHF). The building had been occupied for 12 months
and the complaints were really confusing, as you can imagine!

Bill

"Carpy" wrote in message
...
You can't talk about stunning ladies and not include any pictures.
Pictures of the aerials would also be excellent.

She was so beautiful that the idea of having sex with her seemed somehow
sacrilegious, like supping tea out of priceless china.

Bill

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:35:21 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill

Wow! Impressive. I live in a block of four flats with no communal
system, just four bare ends of coax in the (foil lined) loft. The
bloke upstairs has an aerial up there, but he doesn't use it 'coz
receptions so bad. I found that out myself when I put my aerial up
there. Anywhere else, the signal bombs in.

Marky P.


Its a wonder you haven't fixed up an amp there and really impressed the
neighbours...

Hmmmm......

Marky P.

"Marky P" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:35:21 +0100, tony sayer
wrote:

If you buy a flat I suggest you check out the TV installation very
carefully. The system I've described above is by no means untypical.

Bill

Wow! Impressive. I live in a block of four flats with no communal
system, just four bare ends of coax in the (foil lined) loft. The
bloke upstairs has an aerial up there, but he doesn't use it 'coz
receptions so bad. I found that out myself when I put my aerial up
there. Anywhere else, the signal bombs in.

Marky P.


Its a wonder you haven't fixed up an amp there and really impressed the
neighbours...

Hmmmm......

While you're at it put a camera above your bed and feed the pictures into
the system . . .

Bill

Bill Wright wrote:
"Carpy" wrote in message
...
You can't talk about stunning ladies and not include any pictures.
Pictures of the aerials would also be excellent.

She was so beautiful that the idea of having sex with her seemed somehow
sacrilegious, like supping tea out of priceless china.


I see http://www.dimwittedandstunning.co.uk could be a good web site
address if anyone's interested?

:-)

--
Adrian C

"Owain" wrote in message
...
Or he might have thought you were gay. It's your own fault for being so
well-groomed and dapper.

It was probably the pink shorts that gave the game away.

I don't seem to see as much of that as I used to. I did however visit a
block recently where there were 12 flats fed from one 12-way multiswitch.
Each flat had two outlets and the sparks had looped the cable through the
back of the bedroom outlet (standard non-isol belling single) to the
living room (triplexed SAT/VHF/UHF). The building had been occupied for
12 months and the complaints were really confusing, as you can imagine!

Err.... I had to think about that one :-)

Yes, so did I. I had one of those moments, you know, where I thought, "Am I
going nuts?"

Bill