Post-Switchover Mux Allocations

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:49:56 -0000, "Matti Lamprhey"
wrote:

"widgitt" wrote...
This is just about the cheapest and worst "contract" type areial
available and is in no way suitable as a new aerial for digital tv,
let alone solving problems.
It is true that there are many thousands of these existing which work
perfectly well, even for digital but you would certainly not use them
now.

The other clues are in the use of yellow tape, certainly not a
professional job and in any case it rots in the sun far faster than
black.
Also the cable route at the aerial is poor. It is resting against the
sharp bottom edge of the reflector and it appears to be horizontal or
even slightly downhill to the connecting box on the aerial so is
likely to send water in.

It would be very interesting to know what you were charged.

Your comments are very useful, as I'm contemplating discussing his
services with my local Trading Standards folk and taking him to the
Small Claims Court for the return of my £85. It's cheap for an aerial
swap, but clearly it proved to be unfit for purpose.

Matti


I did actually install one of these contract aerials for a friend's
girlfriend a few years ago. She wanted the cheapest job possible, so
I used bits I had lying around, including cheap brown coax. It works
perfectly, with no drop outs at all, but reception in her area is very
strong, so I got away with it. I must admit though, I drove past the
house the other day, and the aerial is starting to bend in the middle
(where it joins). In your case, you aeren't in a reliable strong
signal area, so you need a proper well made aerial.

Marky P.

"Matti Lamprhey" wrote in message
...
"Doctor D" wrote...

You are not being fussy. I live well over 30 miles south of Sutton
Coldfield, but get perfect and break-up free reception on all mux's
using an Antiference aerial, low gain amplifier and PF100 cable
everywhere. What does the "new" postcode checker say about your
reception http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/?

It assumes I want Wenvoe, but I select Mendip instead. It then says
that I should get "Overall good reception" at all phases of switchover.

presumably good now from Mendip?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I've always used Mendip rather than
Wenvoe because I wanted BBC2 rather than BBC2W and also because Wenvoe
itself is blocked by that hillside monstrosity the Celtic Manor Hotel
which will be familiar to all drivers who venture over the Severn on the
M4.


Good point - vague comment from me. I meant does the predictor show that
Mendip reception should be good for you at the current time as well as
during switchover? I guess so given your other comments.

I'm well familiar with the Celtic Manor Hotel. My brother used to live in
Cardiff (and he chose Mendip as well!) I also used to trundle around Coldra
roundabout twice a week - nice.

It's impossible to say without taking readings, but if the problem occurs on
all MUX's I would be looking for impulse interference rather than weak
signal, although a stronger signal may help overcome the interference.

Good luck with getting it sorted, and bringing the villain to book.

In article ,
Matti Lamprhey wrote:
"Doctor D" wrote...

You are not being fussy. I live well over 30 miles south of Sutton
Coldfield, but get perfect and break-up free reception on all mux's
using an Antiference aerial, low gain amplifier and PF100 cable
everywhere. What does the "new" postcode checker say about your
reception http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/?

It assumes I want Wenvoe, but I select Mendip instead. It then says
that I should get "Overall good reception" at all phases of
switchover.

presumably good now from Mendip?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I've always used Mendip rather than
Wenvoe because I wanted BBC2 rather than BBC2W and also because Wenvoe
itself is blocked by that hillside monstrosity the Celtic Manor Hotel
which will be familiar to all drivers who venture over the Severn on the
M4.

Actually Wenvoe isn't too good at the hotel either. I once 20+ years ago
had to go and look for BBC Wales signals since the BBC Welsh Governors were
due to have a meeting there. From the photos the building seems much
larger now than it was then, so perhaps they can now get decent signal
with a rooftop aerial.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

"charles" wrote...
Matti Lamprhey wrote:

[...] I've always used Mendip rather than Wenvoe because I wanted
BBC2 rather than BBC2W and also because Wenvoe itself is blocked
by that hillside monstrosity the Celtic Manor Hotel which will be
familiar to all drivers who venture over the Severn on the M4.

Actually Wenvoe isn't too good at the hotel either. I once 20+ years
ago had to go and look for BBC Wales signals since the BBC Welsh
Governors were due to have a meeting there. From the photos the
building seems much larger now than it was then, so perhaps they can
now get decent signal with a rooftop aerial.

The hotel used to sit snugly halfway up a hillside, utterly hidden from
Wenvoe, but a few years ago it was substantially enlarged by a huge new
hilltop building, known locally as Colditz Fawr, which can presumably
now receive Wenvoe with a bent hairpin, or even with an aerial like my
new one. It does so at the cost of blocking the signal from a swathe of
Monmouthshire to the east, and a relay was required which has
still not been digitalized (I'm told).

Matti

Actually Wenvoe isn't too good at the hotel either. I once 20+ years ago
had to go and look for BBC Wales signals since the BBC Welsh Governors
were
due to have a meeting there. From the photos the building seems much
larger now than it was then, so perhaps they can now get decent signal
with a rooftop aerial.

Speaking as a Welshman, I suspect they are one of the few groups of people
who would prefer Welsh TV.

I stayed at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff three years ago and was dismayed to
find I had the choice of only 4 channels, one of which was in Welsh!
I'm not a big TV watcher, but the hotel is so noisy that I hardly slept. A
radio or some extra TV channels would have been nice. If you have to stay
here, insist on a room at the back, and take ear plugs.

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:30:45 -0000, "Doctor D"
wrote:



Actually Wenvoe isn't too good at the hotel either. I once 20+ years ago
had to go and look for BBC Wales signals since the BBC Welsh Governors
were
due to have a meeting there. From the photos the building seems much
larger now than it was then, so perhaps they can now get decent signal
with a rooftop aerial.

Speaking as a Welshman, I suspect they are one of the few groups of people
who would prefer Welsh TV.

I stayed at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff three years ago and was dismayed to
find I had the choice of only 4 channels, one of which was in Welsh!
I'm not a big TV watcher, but the hotel is so noisy that I hardly slept. A
radio or some extra TV channels would have been nice. If you have to stay
here, insist on a room at the back, and take ear plugs.

From what I hear, it sounds as if most people in Wales don't like
Welsh TV? I thought the Welsh were very patriotic and hated anything
to do with the English. Have things changed? I like Wales and Welsh
people. Never understood the point of hating people you don't know.

Marky P.

In article ,
Marky P wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:30:45 -0000, "Doctor D"
wrote:



Actually Wenvoe isn't too good at the hotel either. I once 20+ years
ago had to go and look for BBC Wales signals since the BBC Welsh
Governors were due to have a meeting there. From the photos the
building seems much larger now than it was then, so perhaps they can
now get decent signal with a rooftop aerial.

Speaking as a Welshman, I suspect they are one of the few groups of
people who would prefer Welsh TV.

I stayed at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff three years ago and was dismayed
to find I had the choice of only 4 channels, one of which was in Welsh!
I'm not a big TV watcher, but the hotel is so noisy that I hardly slept.
A radio or some extra TV channels would have been nice. If you have to
stay here, insist on a room at the back, and take ear plugs.

From what I hear, it sounds as if most people in Wales don't like Welsh
TV? I thought the Welsh were very patriotic and hated anything to do
with the English. Have things changed? I like Wales and Welsh people.
Never understood the point of hating people you don't know.

Many years ago, a Welsh clergyman said to me - at the time when BBC Wales
showed a locally made programme instead of the Commonwealth Games, where
Welsh athletes were winning medals - "After all, my congregation do
understand English.". It isn't that the Welsh don't want programmes in
Welsh, they don't like to miss out on the English ones.

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

Marky P wrote:
From what I hear, it sounds as if most people in Wales don't like
Welsh TV? I thought the Welsh were very patriotic and hated
anything to do with the English.

The problem is that the clique who run BBC Wales
are utterly OBSESSED with the Welsh language and rugby,
despite the fact that 80% of people in Wales (in the 2001 census)
have little or no knowledge of the Welsh language, and my guess
is that a similar proportion don't play rugby.

You wouldn't believe how often the lead story on Wales Today
is about rugby - if a rugby player sneezes there'll be a whole
feature item on the poor dab!

And then there are all the rugby trailers between programmes,
network trailers are rarely aired in Wales.

Don't start me on HTV Wales or whatever it's called this week,
totally amateurish with some embarrassingly awful simpering
female presenters. Only good for a laugh!

Little wonder $ky has massive take-up in the Valleys.

and Tetra too...

I've had to put a TV bandpass filter between my Triax Unix 52 and the
masthead amplifier to reject all the rubbish you mentioned....

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
. uk...
Mast head amps tend to pick up all sorts of rubbish like pagers and other
services out of band. These then either desensitise the whole system, or
more likely intermodulate with the wanted signals to produce weird
results.

Brian

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


"Matti Lamprhey" wrote in message
...
I'm having a run-in with a local aerial installer and would appreciate
some info.

The disagreement boils down to whether or not the post-switchover
multiplexes are reliably allocated to known channel slots by now. (I'm a
Mendip digital viewer living in south east Wales.)

I say that the slots have been allocated and publicised for some time; he
says that they are unknown. I can point him to a site such as
http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=ST564488
which purports to list the pre-digital, dual-running and post-switchover
allocations as if the last of these is as fixed as the first two. Is
that really the case? If so, for how long has the allocation been fixed
and publicised? Is there an official site somewhere which states that
the final allocations were to be determined and publicised at an early
stage in the process?

The background is that he replaced a functioning high-gain group CD
aerial with a standard wideband one in order to fix occasional severe
pixellation problems, which I attributed to impulsive interference and he
simply to lack of signal. It turns out that the masthead amp is
unshielded and is perhaps more likely to be the weak link than was the
original aerial.

Matti

wrote:
On 14 Nov,
"Woody" wrote:

Emley Moor will go from 10KW to 174KW, which is a rise of a bit over
12dB - may help but won't go relaibly from nowt to all in most cases.

Some of the gain (~4dB?) will be lost on some muxs by the change from 16QAM
to 64QAM. More bandwidth will be available for better quality, or more
likely, more crap channels.

Yes, the change from 16-QAM rate 3/4 to 64-QAM rate 2/3 is worth about
-4 dB, but you should also include the effective gain from the change
from 2K mode to 8K, which is ~+6 dB (since it's impulsive interference
that sets the minimum usable signal level in practice). Overall gain
then ~+14 dB in this case.

--
Andy