Muxes missing on Winter Hill

On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. * I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. * I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. * I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. *No amplifier or splitter.

Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

hb wrote:
On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. No amplifier or splitter.
Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

Harry,

On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. I did a full
channel delete and rescan last night on a PC card and for Winter Hill
(not B) again got all channels with no repeats.

The boxes are showing 100% for BBC muxes dropping to 60% for ITV (soory
I don't recall any more - I was just checking I could receive them).

These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, for some
reason (possibly Tandle Hills) the signal for analog is quite poor.

On 16 Apr, 16:45, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. * I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. * I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. * I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. *No amplifier or splitter.
Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. * These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. * Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

Harry,

On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. I did a full
channel delete and rescan last night on a PC card and for Winter Hill
(not B) again got all channels with no repeats.

The boxes are showing 100% for BBC muxes dropping to 60% for ITV (soory
I don't recall any more - I was just checking I could receive them).

These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, for some
reason (possibly Tandle Hills) the signal for analog is quite poor.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John,
Thank you for your response (and thanks to all the others who have
responded).

I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and seeing an Alba STB on
sale for £16.95 I bought one.
I also dug out a scart to phono plugs cable.

Connecting the STB to my aerial and the composite phono socket on the
PC card, I now get 95 channels, including all I would expect from the
6 main Winter Hill muxes.
These come in perfectly at about 90% on a bar graph, without
hesitation or stutter. (I also get the WH B channels, at about 50%
strength, and these are not as perfect, but watchable.)
So the fault lies not in low power transmission, or a local aerial
problem - it is to do with the PC card.

The mystery remains what is the problem with two different PC cards
(Hauppage and Pinnacle) on two different softwares on either
computer. I get good analogue, with grain only on channel 5 (almost
out of band on C/D); and digital restricted to the WH B muxes. Surely
I haven't got two faulty cards. And why has this happened in the past
and then gone right?

Still, I can now record any digital program on my PC, using the STB;
and even though the route is digital decode analogue encode digital, I
get an adequate result.

Thanks

Harry

I'm assuming you have trierd attenuating the signal then, as per my earlier
post suggested. It's a common problem with these DVB-T PCI cards.


"hb" wrote in message
...
On 16 Apr, 16:45, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. No amplifier or splitter.
Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of
year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

Harry,

On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. I did a full
channel delete and rescan last night on a PC card and for Winter Hill
(not B) again got all channels with no repeats.

The boxes are showing 100% for BBC muxes dropping to 60% for ITV (soory
I don't recall any more - I was just checking I could receive them).

These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, for some
reason (possibly Tandle Hills) the signal for analog is quite poor.- Hide
quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John,
Thank you for your response (and thanks to all the others who have
responded).

I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and seeing an Alba STB on
sale for £16.95 I bought one.
I also dug out a scart to phono plugs cable.

Connecting the STB to my aerial and the composite phono socket on the
PC card, I now get 95 channels, including all I would expect from the
6 main Winter Hill muxes.
These come in perfectly at about 90% on a bar graph, without
hesitation or stutter. (I also get the WH B channels, at about 50%
strength, and these are not as perfect, but watchable.)
So the fault lies not in low power transmission, or a local aerial
problem - it is to do with the PC card.

The mystery remains what is the problem with two different PC cards
(Hauppage and Pinnacle) on two different softwares on either
computer. I get good analogue, with grain only on channel 5 (almost
out of band on C/D); and digital restricted to the WH B muxes. Surely
I haven't got two faulty cards. And why has this happened in the past
and then gone right?

Still, I can now record any digital program on my PC, using the STB;
and even though the route is digital decode analogue encode digital, I
get an adequate result.

Thanks

Harry

On 21 Apr, 08:11, "Carpy" wrote:
I'm assuming you have trierd attenuating the signal then, as per my earlier
post suggested. It's a common problem with these DVB-T PCI cards.

"hb" wrote in message

...
On 16 Apr, 16:45, Jon Ross wrote:





hb wrote:
On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. No amplifier or splitter.
Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of
year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

Harry,

On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. I did a full
channel delete and rescan last night on a PC card and for Winter Hill
(not B) again got all channels with no repeats.

The boxes are showing 100% for BBC muxes dropping to 60% for ITV (soory
I don't recall any more - I was just checking I could receive them).

These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, for some
reason (possibly Tandle Hills) the signal for analog is quite poor.- Hide
quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John,
Thank you for your response (and thanks to all the others who have
responded).

I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and seeing an Alba STB on
sale for £16.95 I bought one.
I also dug out a scart to phono plugs cable.

Connecting the STB to my aerial and the composite phono socket on the
PC card, I now get 95 channels, including all I would expect from the
6 main Winter Hill muxes.
These come in perfectly at about 90% on a bar graph, without
hesitation or stutter. (I also get the WH B channels, at about 50%
strength, and these are not as perfect, but watchable.)
So the fault lies not in low power transmission, or a local aerial
problem - it is to do with the PC card.

The mystery remains *what is the problem with two different PC cards
(Hauppage and Pinnacle) on two different softwares on either
computer. *I get good analogue, with grain only on channel 5 (almost
out of band on C/D); and digital restricted to the WH B muxes. *Surely
I haven't got two faulty cards. *And why has this happened in the past
and then gone right?

Still, I can now record any digital program on my PC, using the STB;
and even though the route is digital decode analogue encode digital, I
get an adequate result.

Thanks

Harry- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, any attenuation just reduced the few "B" channels get very
erratic, and nothing else is even listed when I do a scan, let alone
displayed.

I can't understand why pc tv cards should be less sensitive than
STB's. I do wonder whether they are more subject to cross modulation
- some of the Winter Hill channels have adjacent analogue channels.

I borrowed a digital USB dongle from my grandson, and it gets all the
Winter Hill channels (including the low power "Winter Hill B" ones).
I shall put the cards away until DSO, I think, and buy a similar
dongle.

Harry

In message
, hb
writes
On 21 Apr, 08:11, "Carpy" wrote:
I'm assuming you have trierd attenuating the signal then, as per my earlier
post suggested. It's a common problem with these DVB-T PCI cards.

"hb" wrote in message

...
On 16 Apr, 16:45, Jon Ross wrote:





hb wrote:
On 15 Apr, 12:14, Jon Ross wrote:
hb wrote:
I am situated in East Oldham (OL4 4RS) and receive excellent digital
signals from the Winter Hill muxes on channels 56 60 63 66 67 68. I
also receive reasonable signals from the Winter Hill B transmitter
(directed towards Merseyside) on 40 and 43. I get good analogue
signals on 48, 55, 59, 62, 65. I have a C/D yagi on a short mast
above the rear gutter, with a clear view over Oldham towards Winter
Hill, which I think is about 30 km away. No amplifier or splitter.
Can you give me any channel names & I will check if I have any problems
in Royton?

Having said that I always seem to lose picture quality this time of
year
due to the enormous sycamore tree in next door's garden.

Regards

Jon

Dear Jon

The TV channels I can get and view a=
Film4
ITV2+1
Ideal World
Virgin1
TMF
The HITS

E4+1
Dave
Sky News
Sky Spts News
SKY THREE

The first group are on 626 MHz, the second on 650 MHz. These
correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is
directed towards Merseyside and North Wales for reasons to do with
interference to/from Moel y Parc.

When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill
muxes proper, but none of them can be resolved into a picture.

So none of the 5 basic channels or any other of the Freeview channels
can be displayed.

If your freeview receiver, stb or pccard or whatever can display
frequency and signal strength, in whatever units, I would be very
interested to know say the strength of BBC ONE. Do you get multiple
versions of the channels listed above, i.e. from both Winter Hill and
Winter Hill B?

.
Harry

Harry,

On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. I did a full
channel delete and rescan last night on a PC card and for Winter Hill
(not B) again got all channels with no repeats.

The boxes are showing 100% for BBC muxes dropping to 60% for ITV (soory
I don't recall any more - I was just checking I could receive them).

These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, for some
reason (possibly Tandle Hills) the signal for analog is quite poor.- Hide
quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John,
Thank you for your response (and thanks to all the others who have
responded).

I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday morning and seeing an Alba STB on
sale for £16.95 I bought one.
I also dug out a scart to phono plugs cable.

Connecting the STB to my aerial and the composite phono socket on the
PC card, I now get 95 channels, including all I would expect from the
6 main Winter Hill muxes.
These come in perfectly at about 90% on a bar graph, without
hesitation or stutter. (I also get the WH B channels, at about 50%
strength, and these are not as perfect, but watchable.)
So the fault lies not in low power transmission, or a local aerial
problem - it is to do with the PC card.

The mystery remains *what is the problem with two different PC cards
(Hauppage and Pinnacle) on two different softwares on either
computer. *I get good analogue, with grain only on channel 5 (almost
out of band on C/D); and digital restricted to the WH B muxes. *Surely
I haven't got two faulty cards. *And why has this happened in the past
and then gone right?

Still, I can now record any digital program on my PC, using the STB;
and even though the route is digital decode analogue encode digital, I
get an adequate result.

Thanks

Harry- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, any attenuation just reduced the few "B" channels get very
erratic, and nothing else is even listed when I do a scan, let alone
displayed.

I can't understand why pc tv cards should be less sensitive than
STB's. I do wonder whether they are more subject to cross modulation
- some of the Winter Hill channels have adjacent analogue channels.

I borrowed a digital USB dongle from my grandson, and it gets all the
Winter Hill channels (including the low power "Winter Hill B" ones).
I shall put the cards away until DSO, I think, and buy a similar
dongle.

Harry

I have an older type Haupaugge TV / FM radio tuner internal PC card
(WinTV2000). Apart from the RF tuner, it's completely unscreened. It
works pretty well on digital but, on a couple of the analogue TV
channels, you can see that there is a lot of very obvious interference
(undoubtedly coming from within the PC itself). You can hear also it on
the FM radio.

It is possible that increasing the TV signal level might alleviate the
interference. I suspect that an external USB dongle type or similar
would be a bit less prone to such problems.
--
Ian

The message
from Ian Jackson contains these
words:

====big snip====

I have an older type Haupaugge TV / FM radio tuner internal PC card
(WinTV2000). Apart from the RF tuner, it's completely unscreened. It
works pretty well on digital but, on a couple of the analogue TV
channels, you can see that there is a lot of very obvious interference
(undoubtedly coming from within the PC itself). You can hear also it on
the FM radio.

It is possible that increasing the TV signal level might alleviate the
interference. I suspect that an external USB dongle type or similar
would be a bit less prone to such problems.

I'd say you've 'nailed it' regarding the low sensitivity of PCI tuners.
There's not much point in making them too sensitive if they've got to
cope with the digital hash that's flying around the innards of a typical
PC.

This will be one of the few times where a back of the set aerial
booster might actually prove beneficial (provided it's on the end of a 2
metre or so's worth of CT100 and there are no problem signals to cause
cross mod issues).

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

- Show quoted text -

Postscript.

I have bought a Hauppage MyTV digital USB stick from PCWorld for
£19.97.
It plugs into a USB socket via a male/female usb lead 10 inches long
and has a standard coax socket at the other end.
While my Pinnacle TV card still will not produce anything watchable,
this device presents a full complement of channels from Winter Hill
(and a duplication of muxes 5 and 6 from Winter Hill B), all without
problem.
So I can now record channels as .mpg's straight from the mux, instead
of having to encode an analog signal, with excellent quality.

I am still surprised that the external device needs a much smaller
signal than the internal card. It appears to have the same order of
sensitivity as my STB.

Thanks to all who replied to my posting.

Harry

In message
, hb
writes

- Show quoted text -

Postscript.

I have bought a Hauppage MyTV digital USB stick from PCWorld for
£19.97.
It plugs into a USB socket via a male/female usb lead 10 inches long
and has a standard coax socket at the other end.
While my Pinnacle TV card still will not produce anything watchable,
this device presents a full complement of channels from Winter Hill
(and a duplication of muxes 5 and 6 from Winter Hill B), all without
problem.
So I can now record channels as .mpg's straight from the mux, instead
of having to encode an analog signal, with excellent quality.

I am still surprised that the external device needs a much smaller
signal than the internal card. It appears to have the same order of
sensitivity as my STB.

Thanks to all who replied to my posting.

Harry

Your success is noted. As several people suggested, there's probably
much less interference outside the computer case. I might even replace
my Hauppauge TV card receiver with the same type as you have.
--
Ian

Your success is noted. As several people suggested, there's probably
much less interference outside the computer case. I might even replace
my Hauppauge TV card receiver with the same type as you have.
--

Ian
Be warned that I have not managed to get the EPG working on the
Hauppage stick!
Nor have I found any way of asking "what am I looking at?".
My grandson's stick is a Pinnacle Dazzle stick which cost about the
same and comes with the rather better (I think) Pinnacle Media Center
software; when I went to PCWorld they had none in stock.
I get the impression all these sticks have the same innards. Mine is
reported as a Microtune MT2060. The Hauppage encapsulation has a
standard coax aerial socket; the Pinnacle has a miniature socket and
an adapter; this looks a bit fragile and I had intended when I bought
a Dazzle stick to araldite the adapter in place.
Apart from the EPG no problems, either with viewing or recording
programmes as .mpg files.
I am well satisfied.
Harry