Winter Hill BBC2 analogue QRT schedule.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message ll.co.uk...
On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 20:20:13 +0000, Paul Martin wrote:

Not sure there are any DTTV set top boxes that have an RF out thus
would use a Belling-Lee or F connector. As for RSA lead haven't a
clue what one of those is.

In Sainsburys this evening I saw one that's just larger than a pack of
cards and has only sockets for power, RF in and RF out, and an IR
extension. No SCART socket.

Fairy nuff. Engaging brain most would need RF in and RF out to loop
the signal to other devices, a modulator would be optional though.

Can't say I'm paying all the much attention to DTTV we aren't down
for DSO until 2012 and even then I probably won't bother with it
unless the technical quality improves a massive amount (oink flap).
Might get a box as a standby in case the dish gets blown off the
house.

If anyone knows of a (cheap) DTTV box that has a channel number
display on it I'd be interested for use a radio.

Plenty of Freeview boxes near the checkouts at our local Tesco.
Grundig Freesat boxes too.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 22:14:21 -0000, Graham. wrote:

If anyone knows of a (cheap) DTTV box that has a channel number
display on it I'd be interested for use a radio.

Plenty of Freeview boxes near the checkouts at our local Tesco.
Grundig Freesat boxes too.

Yeah, now read the question again, properly.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"mm" wrote in message
...
I have an old Philips (ITV Digital) box
I have retuned many times today & I still have no BBC 1 & 2
It does not indentify them but my channels start at 3 (ITV)
channel 1 & 2 blank.
Will I need a new Digital box ?

Yes, none of the old On Digital/ITV Digital boxes will recognise the channel
62 signal. On December 2nd, when all WH muxes are transferred over to 8k,
your box will not be capable of decoding any channels (unless it is moved
to a pre-DSO area).

Sheila

On BBC Wales Today this evening (6.30pm bulletin), after a small piece
about the Long Mountain switchover (BBC2 carrier lost 1:01.50), the
presenter then said that not everything had gone according to plan and
that viewers from Winter Hill were watching BBC Wales Today instead of
their usual BBC regional news. Any ideas what happened?

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice writes
If anyone knows of a (cheap) DTTV box that has a channel number display
on it I'd be interested for use a radio.

You might not find one: the commercial aspects would dictate if there's
a decent display nearby (?) it's not worth putting expensive components
on the box itself.

This prompts the thought: is there any metadata in the SP-DIF datastream
you might use?
--
SimonM
----- TubeWiz.com -----
Video making/uploading that's easy to use & fun to share
Try it today! (now with DFace blurring)

Richard W. Jones wrote:
On BBC Wales Today this evening (6.30pm bulletin), after a small piece
about the Long Mountain switchover (BBC2 carrier lost 1:01.50), the
presenter then said that not everything had gone according to plan and
that viewers from Winter Hill were watching BBC Wales Today instead of
their usual BBC regional news. Any ideas what happened?

The post DSO transmission powers are such that in overlap areas
(Manchester is a prime example) digital receivers are often finding the
'wrong' transmissions before the 'correct' ones, resulting in the wrong
regions being assigned Chs 1,2,3 etc, and the intended regions being
pushed to Ch 8**. Particularly when the out of region transmitters are
lower in the UHF band, than the local ones.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

http://www.paras.org.uk/

The message
from Mike Tomlinson contains these words:

In article , Graham.
writes

If it can happen to me, what chance has your maiden aunt got?

My aunt isn't quite so maiden, she cooked me a mean fish pie last night.
Yum.

Even my Mum called me, and she's fiercely independent and highly
intelligent. She had the booklet from Digital TV and couldn't get
anywhere with either of her tellies.

Neither of them were aware of the switchover today. Very, very poorly
publicised IMO.

From my PoV, I have to agree. However, it was my missus who mentioned
the planned ending of analogue BBC2 when she got a strong reminder in
the form of discovering for herself, its actual absence when she tried
to tune to BBC2 analogue this afternoon as a result of the mux that
carried it _also_ being shifted.

Talk about a "Double Whammy"! D'oh! It's bad enough to lose the BBC2
analogue as a 'weening off" of the analogue channel dependency exercise,
but to compound that loss by presenting would be digital viewers with a
'Loss' of that very same channel, along with BBC1 and BBC3 as well,
borders on sheer bloody minded stupidity.

I have to say, with a change of this magnitude (Storeton _Main_ Relay),
I'm surprised there wasn't an intensive publicity campaign.

Once it had become apparent that the BBC2 transmissions had also
disappeared from the digital STBs as well as the analogue channel and I
had gotten over my initial (erroneous) assumption that someone had
pulled the wrong plug somewhere in the system, I did a retune on the
Toppy to confirm the mux change then did the same for the cheap stb in
the back kitchen before retuning the DVB-T USB stick on the laptop and
the PCI tuner in my desktop.

I've already noted the min and max channel frequencies that Storeton
will be using over the whole period of the changeover so that I could
avoid the spurious crap from other transmitters and speed up the tuning
process.

The PCI card managed to retune ok, but no ITV3. The usb stick on the
laptop was intermittently causing the DTVR program to give up with an
error message box during my many attempts to scan all 6 muxes. In the
end, I decided to try an attenuator in line.

A quick rummage in my desk drawer revealed a pair of 10 db pads joined
together which I quickly inserted into the USB stick's antenna feed.
Rather noteworthy of the effect was that there was no apparent effect on
the signal meter readings which had been at the max. However, my next
retune attempt successfully tuned all 6 muxes with no loss of the ITV3
channel stream.

Now I know we're quite close to the Storeton relay (about 2 miles or
so) and I'm using, afaicr, a ten ele vertical on a pole lashed to the
main chimney stack with about 10 metres worth of brown 'low loss' co-ax
feeding a four way distribution amp in the attic. I'm not certain but I
think it might be an SLx4B made by Philex (at least it matches the looks
of an SLx2B, complete with obscenely bright blue "power on" indicator
LED (2 way splitter with 6db gain).

I suspect the gain on the fourway is also 6db but that's just an
educated guess since I bought it mainly to allow me to split the feed
and provide just a modest boost to mitigate the effect of feeder loss on
the WH signals we were using at the time (an 18 ele HP Yagi mounted
higher up the same pole as the Storeton antenna which I'd fitted at a
later date),

Both antennas are still in working order but we're now using the
Storeton one, leaving the feeder from the WH antenna hanging by the amp
for a 'quick changeover' in the unlikely event that Storeton ever goes
off the air.

Anyhow, one outlet feeds the original (chopped into) brown co-ax feed
to the ground floor living room with a feed to my son's bedroom and one
to my office on the floor below using white ex-NTL co-ax (double
screened as I recall with F connectors fitted each end (belling lee
adapters used where needed) so I'd expect to get a healthy signal into
my office. However, I've split it using an ex-NTL 3 way splitter so I
can feed the two PC tuners as well as our bedroom next door.

I'd expect the recievers to be seeing the equivilent of an unsplit
unamplified antenna signal as a result, but I was surprised it was so
strong that the pair of 10 db 'Forward Path Attenuators' (also ex-NTL)
that I had cascaded still allowed a healthy signal level to reach the
USB tuner. Since I'd previously had no trouble tuning the muxes prior to
the BBC2 analogue switch off, I'm wondering whether the power has been
turned up on the muxes in spite of the presence of the remaining
analogue services.

Anyway, I suspect I might need to attenuate the signal going to the PCI
tuner (it might solve the issue of the missing ITV3 channel). At the
moment I've taken one of the pads out of the line feeding the USB stick
so I think I'll relocate the remaining pad to the input of the three way
splitter to apply an all round reduction to the PC tuners (and the next
door bedroom feed).

Does anyone know if the mux power levels from Storeton have already
been boosted at this early stage of the proceedings? I thought that
wasn't going to happen until _all_ the analogue transmissions had been
switched off.

--
Regards, John.

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

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in
message
ll.co.uk...
On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 20:20:13 +0000, Paul Martin wrote:

Not sure there are any DTTV set top boxes that have an RF out
thus
would use a Belling-Lee or F connector. As for RSA lead
haven't a
clue what one of those is.

In Sainsburys this evening I saw one that's just larger than a
pack of
cards and has only sockets for power, RF in and RF out, and an
IR
extension. No SCART socket.

Fairy nuff. Engaging brain most would need RF in and RF out to
loop
the signal to other devices, a modulator would be optional
though.

Can't say I'm paying all the much attention to DTTV we aren't
down
for DSO until 2012 and even then I probably won't bother with
it
unless the technical quality improves a massive amount (oink
flap).
Might get a box as a standby in case the dish gets blown off
the
house.

If anyone knows of a (cheap) DTTV box that has a channel number
display on it I'd be interested for use a radio.

--
Cheers
Dave.





May be wrong but I think the Humax FoxT2 has such.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

In article , Graham.
writes

and even I have lost
BBC 1 & 2 and whatever else is on the new WH MUX.

Retuned my Mum's Inverto IDL 7000 PVR last night and it won't pick up
the new BBC1 and 2 mux (is it 62?). Other boxes seem ok.

What do I do now? The firmware in the Inverto hasn't been updated for
years.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

In article , Johnny B Good
writes

Talk about a "Double Whammy"! D'oh! It's bad enough to lose the BBC2
analogue as a 'weening off" of the analogue channel dependency exercise,
but to compound that loss by presenting would be digital viewers with a
'Loss' of that very same channel, along with BBC1 and BBC3 as well,
borders on sheer bloody minded stupidity.

Totally agreed. Letters will be sent as soon as addresses are found.
The pointy hats, burning crosses, and pitchforks are being prepared.

The PCI card managed to retune ok, but no ITV3. The usb stick on the
laptop was intermittently causing the DTVR program to give up with an
error message box during my many attempts to scan all 6 muxes.

H'm. On a working box pointed at WH, I get 8, with a total of 126
programmes.

However, my next
retune attempt successfully tuned all 6 muxes with no loss of the ITV3
channel stream.

Ah. Interesting. Mum (who can't get BBC1 or 2 on an Inverto 7000 PVR)
has an amp. Must try retuning without it.

I also have an Inverto but can't face retuning it just yet.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(") http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png