DSO question

Can anyone tell me *why* there is a two-week gap between phase 1 and
phase 2 of DSO? i.e. Why not do it all at the same time?

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On 20/01/2011 10:13, Mark wrote:
Can anyone tell me *why* there is a two-week gap between phase 1 and
phase 2 of DSO? i.e. Why not do it all at the same time?

It's a good question. I've been told it's to allow for people who, (for
whatever reason) haven't equipped themselves with a Freeview box in
time, not to be left with nothing to watch. They still have BBC 1, ITV,
and C4 analogue for a fortnight, while they sort themselves out. It also
reduces the workload on Arqiva with the amount of work they have to do
overnight, it's spread over two nights, 14 days apart.

Interestingly however, the Channel Islands were done in one big step
over night, and also interestingly there was no DTT service at all there
until DSO, so everybody who still wanted terrestrial reception had to
buy a box. I suspect because the CI didn't have Freeview until last
year, use and penetration of Sky and Freesat is much higher ?



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Mark
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:37:23 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

On 20/01/2011 10:13, Mark wrote:
Can anyone tell me *why* there is a two-week gap between phase 1 and
phase 2 of DSO? i.e. Why not do it all at the same time?

It's a good question. I've been told it's to allow for people who, (for
whatever reason) haven't equipped themselves with a Freeview box in
time, not to be left with nothing to watch. They still have BBC 1, ITV,
and C4 analogue for a fortnight, while they sort themselves out.

Judging from the amount of nagging that has been going on for years I
would have thought that everyone who cares would have already done
something about it well before switchover ;-)

It also
reduces the workload on Arqiva with the amount of work they have to do
overnight, it's spread over two nights, 14 days apart.

Good point. I'm not sure how much work would be left to do for the
actual switchover. Won't it be a matter of just flicking a switch or
two?

Interestingly however, the Channel Islands were done in one big step
over night, and also interestingly there was no DTT service at all there
until DSO, so everybody who still wanted terrestrial reception had to
buy a box. I suspect because the CI didn't have Freeview until last
year, use and penetration of Sky and Freesat is much higher ?

Probably. People have difficulty with DTT here and most houses have
satellite dishes.
--
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On 20/01/2011 10:58, Mark wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:37:23 +0000, Mark Carver

Judging from the amount of nagging that has been going on for years I
would have thought that everyone who cares would have already done
something about it well before switchover ;-)

Apparently some people, despite months of nagging, don't do anything
until the event has happened, (and then complain !)

It also
reduces the workload on Arqiva with the amount of work they have to do
overnight, it's spread over two nights, 14 days apart.

Good point. I'm not sure how much work would be left to do for the
actual switchover. Won't it be a matter of just flicking a switch or
two?

No ! The old analogue transmitters are connected to the transmission
aerials with 6in feeders, that within the building is more akin to
plumbing. So to connect up the new high power DTT transmitters there's a
lot of mechanical work involved. Of course a lot is prep'ed before hand,
but even so there's an hour or two of frantic effort to switch the
feeders over.

You get some idea of what's involved from Stockland Hill's DSO photos

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/stockla.../dso/index.php

As far as relay stations are concerned, dual operation (analogue and
DTT) transposers are installed in the months leading up to DSO. On DSO
night it is more or less a flick of a switch at most of those, but of
course in some areas there are several dozen to visit overnight.

--
Mark
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"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...
On 20/01/2011 10:58, Mark wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:37:23 +0000, Mark Carver

Judging from the amount of nagging that has been going on for years I
would have thought that everyone who cares would have already done
something about it well before switchover ;-)

Apparently some people, despite months of nagging, don't do anything until
the event has happened, (and then complain !)

It also
reduces the workload on Arqiva with the amount of work they have to do
overnight, it's spread over two nights, 14 days apart.

Good point. I'm not sure how much work would be left to do for the
actual switchover. Won't it be a matter of just flicking a switch or
two?

No ! The old analogue transmitters are connected to the transmission
aerials with 6in feeders, that within the building is more akin to
plumbing. So to connect up the new high power DTT transmitters there's a
lot of mechanical work involved. Of course a lot is prep'ed before hand,
but even so there's an hour or two of frantic effort to switch the feeders
over.

You get some idea of what's involved from Stockland Hill's DSO photos

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/stockla.../dso/index.php

As far as relay stations are concerned, dual operation (analogue and DTT)
transposers are installed in the months leading up to DSO. On DSO night it
is more or less a flick of a switch at most of those, but of course in
some areas there are several dozen to visit overnight.

--

I still find it puzzling why it takes this country a total of five years to
complete something that most other countries seem to accomplish overnight.

On 20/01/2011 11:29, Rick wrote:

I still find it puzzling why it takes this country a total of five years
to complete something that most other countries seem to accomplish
overnight.

We've got a very extensive UHF network, of 1154 transmitters, which
carried (before DSO started) 4 analogue services. The other extreme is
the Netherlands that has a total network of about 30 transmitters.

We also complicated matters by launching 12 years ago a low power DTT
service of 6 muxes from the 80 largest (in terms of population)
stations. The provision of those 6 muxes was alongside the existing 4 or
5 analogue services. The DTT services were (and are still not) permitted
to interfere with reception of the analogues. That's a directive that is
partially responsible for the slow drawn out process, and in the
Midlands and East Anglia, all those multiple retune events at Sandy
Heath and Waltham this year.

Also, the existing high power analogue transmission aerials and feeders,
are unsuitable for 6 high power DTT muxes, so they've needed to be
replaced at just about all of the 50 main stations. In some cases
(Rowridge, Black Hill, Caldbeck) completely new masts have had to be
constructed.

In other countries the high power DTT services have been added alongside
analogue, because those countries have enough spectrum to dual operate.
Remember VHF is used as well as UHF in some countries, we don't have
that luxury here, as we did for the 405 to 625 switchover for instance.


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Mark
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"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...
On 20/01/2011 11:29, Rick wrote:


In other countries the high power DTT services have been added alongside
analogue, because those countries have enough spectrum to dual operate.
Remember VHF is used as well as UHF in some countries, we don't have that
luxury here, as we did for the 405 to 625 switchover for instance.



Thanks for the explanation Mark (right on the money as per usual although
AIUI, by reading various newsgroups, digital (at least ATSC) doesn't appear
to work too well at lower VHF frequencies, does the same apply to DVB-T?

On 20/01/2011 11:59, Rick wrote:

Thanks for the explanation Mark (right on the money as per usual
although AIUI, by reading various newsgroups, digital (at least ATSC)
doesn't appear to work too well at lower VHF frequencies, does the same
apply to DVB-T?

I don't know, never played with VHF reception of DVB-T. A colleague of
mine has though, no particular problem, and you can get away with using
'rabbit ears' he told me :-)

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Mark
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:19:29 +0000, Mark Carver wrote:

On 20/01/2011 10:58, Mark wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:37:23 +0000, Mark Carver

Judging from the amount of nagging that has been going on for years I
would have thought that everyone who cares would have already done
something about it well before switchover ;-)

Apparently some people, despite months of nagging, don't do anything
until the event has happened, (and then complain !)

Some people live in areas without any terrestrial digital because it can't
be fitted in before switch over without compromising existing analogue
relays.

Of course what they need to do is figure out what type of receiver they
would like and then, before the rush and if they can, go and play with it
somewhere that they can get reception just to make sure it is what they
want.
--
Phil Cook

Mark wrote:

Judging from the amount of nagging that has been going on for years I
would have thought that everyone who cares would have already done
something about it well before switchover ;-)

I've been looking closely at the issue of the 'analogue' rump -- the
people who are still using analogue exclusively as DSO approaches -- in
an East Midlands town, and I'm actually struggling to find any
candidates! I think it's something like 1%, six months before DSO.
However, if you ask people, quite a few will say they need to get a
digital box, yet it turns out that they are using an IDTV. If the
official figure of 93 - 97% is based on asking people rather than
actually looking at their TV equipment, that's why it's wrong.

On a different job I recently had people telling me that they had Sky or
cable, yet it turned out that they had DTT. And one gentleman had a very
nice HDR but was unaware that he could record programmes on it.

And a local businessman recently paid me two bottles of decent wine to
go round and 'empty' his HD HDR.

Bill