Combining Aerials for Freeview

In article ,
Usenet wrote:

[Snip]

Adjacent muxes on 52 and 53, 57 and 58 should co-exist as you are
in an overlap area anyway so there should be no reason why they should
not co-exist after combining.

not entirely true. With a single aerial there will always be some
rejection of the one from the 'other' transmitter. Combined they might
well be the same level.

--
From KT24 - in drought-ridden Surrey

Using a RISC OS5 computer

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Usenet wrote:

[Snip]

Adjacent muxes on 52 and 53, 57 and 58 should co-exist as you are
in an overlap area anyway so there should be no reason why they should
not co-exist after combining.

not entirely true. With a single aerial there will always be some
rejection of the one from the 'other' transmitter. Combined they might
well be the same level.

Good point, although adjacent muxes without offsets towards each other will
always work OK. It would be necessary to adjust the signal levels so that
the muxes are equal. This is the beauty of using TCFLs.

Bill

Bill wrote:
In message , Nigel Cliffe
writes
Bill wrote:
Hi all,
here is my problem, my parents live in CH38AJ post code which
is served by Moel-y-parc my mother is a wanabee Welsh person and
thinks this is great as she can watch Welsh news on TV. My father
much prefers English news! This is readily available from the Wrekin
transmitter which puts a good signal into their location. I believe
it is Wrekin A but I could be wrong.

Wouldn't satellite (free-sat) be easier ? AFAIK, that has all the UK
language variations available to everyone.
I must admit that I hadn't considered that option, I'll go and have a
Google in a moment and see what is available. One problem that does
arise is the fact that both parents have difficulty in remembering how
remotes etc. work so it is handy to have the same system at my home,
200 miles away, so that what ever situation they get into I stand a
chance of working through it with them.

One thing I would add is that the remote for Sky (Free-Sat) is a much better
design than many a Freeview set top box - the buttons are a decent layout,
with sensible groupings, and fairly legible.
If the person installing the box (or you!) spends time reading the Sky box
manual, the Sky remote can be made to control their existing TV, thus
reducing remotes to one (you'll get on/off, volume, mute, channels and
possibly more).

The standard Sky remote is made by Universal Remotes, so stuff in the
All-For-One branded range may be very similar if you want a matched one at
home.
I know that Universal support just about every TV made in their remotes,
chances of finding one not supported is incredibly low; you might have to
make some educated guesses about the actual TV maker if its a very obscure
brand on the front of the TV.


I don't use Sky; only just got round to Freeview at home; but have used
Free-Sat in a few holiday cottages. My work (UI designer) has brought me
into fairly close contact with remote control design from time to time.



- Nigel


--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

In article , Nigel Cliffe
writes
Bill wrote:
In message , Nigel Cliffe
writes
Bill wrote:
Hi all,
here is my problem, my parents live in CH38AJ post code which
is served by Moel-y-parc my mother is a wanabee Welsh person and
thinks this is great as she can watch Welsh news on TV. My father
much prefers English news! This is readily available from the Wrekin
transmitter which puts a good signal into their location. I believe
it is Wrekin A but I could be wrong.

Wouldn't satellite (free-sat) be easier ? AFAIK, that has all the UK
language variations available to everyone.
I must admit that I hadn't considered that option, I'll go and have a
Google in a moment and see what is available. One problem that does
arise is the fact that both parents have difficulty in remembering how
remotes etc. work so it is handy to have the same system at my home,
200 miles away, so that what ever situation they get into I stand a
chance of working through it with them.

One thing I would add is that the remote for Sky (Free-Sat) is a much better
design than many a Freeview set top box - the buttons are a decent layout,
with sensible groupings, and fairly legible.
If the person installing the box (or you!) spends time reading the Sky box
manual,


the Sky remote can be made to control their existing TV,

Not a B&O it can't, those are a law unto themselves . So's they can
charge £70 quid for a new one!....
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Nigel Cliffe
writes

the Sky remote can be made to control their existing TV,

Not a B&O it can't, those are a law unto themselves . So's they can
charge £70 quid for a new one!....

Try one of the following for a B&O TV: 0118 593, 115, 114 (probably
pre-fix the three digit ones with a zero, I think the codes are supposed to
be four digit).


Universal's support site for their One-For-All range suggest that there are
a couple of B&O models which are a bit funny (so called High Frequency
models) and only some of their remotes work with them.



- Nigel


--
Nigel Cliffe,
Webmaster at http://www.2mm.org.uk/

Hi the short answer is yes you can combine them no problem,
just twist the wires togeather.

However the problem is what your set top box will do with
the two sets of signals.

On my box it will only store one set IIRC, however some boxes are
more flexible, for example my parents had a humax fox box which
was picking up two signals on the same aerial, the one we wanted
and another one from from a powerful repeater transmittor which
was 'coming through the back' of the aerial even though it was the
wrong polarity!!! So we had two sets of channels, but one set
was weak and filling the low channel numbers 1, 2,3,4..., pushing the wanted
on to 201,202,203 etc......
I resolved this by lowing the aerial so the weak signals were not picked
up, then retuning and putting the aerial back up.

So it depends on what your box does with extra signals.

Personally I don't think the 'close signals' would be a problem
because the box obviously has a tuner/filter in it anyway.
So I wouldn't buy any expensive filtering kit, your first port
of call is a box which can handle two sets of muxes adaquately.


Also you could use two seperate boxes pluged into seperate scart sockets
but that is not a great solution for 80 year olds erally is it!!





"Bill" wrote in message
...
Hi all,
here is my problem, my parents live in CH38AJ post code which is
served by Moel-y-parc my mother is a wanabee Welsh person and thinks
this is great as she can watch Welsh news on TV. My father much prefers
English news! This is readily available from the Wrekin transmitter
which puts a good signal into their location. I believe it is Wrekin A
but I could be wrong.
Here is my question, can I easily combine the two aerials to
give me Muxes from both TXs? Some of the channels are rather close and I
feel that some severe filtering maybe needed. It has been suggested that
a Johansson Multi Channel Programmable Filter-Amplifier, Profiler Lite
6601,

http://www.johansson.be/instrumentar...al%20tv%20matv
_Febr05.pdf

would do the trick and yes I know it is expensive and overkill but one
only has one mum and dad! And these need looking after. I have a
spectrum analyser, for PMR work, and know how to use it(!) so I can at
least see what is happening at the end of the coaxes.
Has any one any experience of one of these amps and would they care to
pass comment? Winterhill is presently not an option as it is too weak as
is Storeton. Analogue is not really an option as the main aim here is to
make life as simple as possible for them, basically one remote control
and one RX/display. At 80 years old they are finding all this modern
techie stuff a bit confusing, I find it confusing enough @ 50 !

Mux/Channel
BBC1 BBC2 ITV CH4 CH5 1 2 A B C
D
Moel-y-parc 52 45 49 42 --- 54 58 61 64 30
34
Wrekin A 26 33 23 29 35 21 31 24 27 53
57

"Bazzer Smith" wrote in message
...
Hi the short answer is yes you can combine them no problem,
just twist the wires togeather.

However the problem is what your set top box will do with
the two sets of signals.

On my box it will only store one set IIRC, however some boxes are
more flexible, for example my parents had a humax fox box which
was picking up two signals on the same aerial, the one we wanted
and another one from from a powerful repeater transmittor which
was 'coming through the back' of the aerial even though it was the
wrong polarity!!! So we had two sets of channels, but one set
was weak and filling the low channel numbers 1, 2,3,4..., pushing
the wanted
on to 201,202,203 etc......
I resolved this by lowing the aerial so the weak signals were not
picked
up, then retuning and putting the aerial back up.

So it depends on what your box does with extra signals.

Personally I don't think the 'close signals' would be a problem
because the box obviously has a tuner/filter in it anyway.
So I wouldn't buy any expensive filtering kit, your first port
of call is a box which can handle two sets of muxes adaquately.


Also you could use two seperate boxes pluged into seperate scart
sockets
but that is not a great solution for 80 year olds erally is it!!





"Bill" wrote in message
...
Hi all,
here is my problem, my parents live in CH38AJ post code
which is
served by Moel-y-parc my mother is a wanabee Welsh person and
thinks
this is great as she can watch Welsh news on TV. My father much
prefers
English news! This is readily available from the Wrekin
transmitter
which puts a good signal into their location. I believe it is
Wrekin A
but I could be wrong.
Here is my question, can I easily combine the two aerials
to
give me Muxes from both TXs? Some of the channels are rather close
and I
feel that some severe filtering maybe needed. It has been
suggested that
a Johansson Multi Channel Programmable Filter-Amplifier, Profiler
Lite
6601,


http://www.johansson.be/instrumentar...trial%20tv%20m
atv
_Febr05.pdf

would do the trick and yes I know it is expensive and overkill but
one
only has one mum and dad! And these need looking after. I have a
spectrum analyser, for PMR work, and know how to use it(!) so I
can at
least see what is happening at the end of the coaxes.
Has any one any experience of one of these amps and would they
care to
pass comment? Winterhill is presently not an option as it is too
weak as
is Storeton. Analogue is not really an option as the main aim here
is to
make life as simple as possible for them, basically one remote
control
and one RX/display. At 80 years old they are finding all this
modern
techie stuff a bit confusing, I find it confusing enough @ 50 !

Mux/Channel
BBC1 BBC2 ITV CH4 CH5 1 2 A B
C
D
Moel-y-parc 52 45 49 42 --- 54 58 61
64 30
34
Wrekin A 26 33 23 29 35 21 31 24
27 53
57





Don't see the problem. Any DTTV box should be able to handle any
channels it finds. If it finds a duplicate station name it will
usually put them at a higher location, often 801 upwards. My boxes
normally find about 73 channels, but a Thomson PVR that I had here
last week (took it back to Argos faulty) found 103! Must have been a
lft or something.

If, as in my case where I get Bilsdale (group A) and Emley Moor (group
B,) it will always find and 'prefer' Bilsdale, (Tyne Tees,) where I
want to watch Yorkshire. Simple solution - favourite channels. The
Humax MG-TU1 will put them in your order but retain the channel
numbers, so you have to use the up/down button to find your channel:
my Pace DTF210 has nine separate 'lists' and renumbers the channels
starting at 1 as you store them - but only in the list. If an ad says
'channel xyz' then all you do is left arrow to switch to 'all
channels' and type in xyz!


--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com

Nigel Cliffe wrote:
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Nigel Cliffe
writes

the Sky remote can be made to control their existing TV,
Not a B&O it can't, those are a law unto themselves . So's they can
charge £70 quid for a new one!....

Try one of the following for a B&O TV: 0118 593, 115, 114 (probably
pre-fix the three digit ones with a zero, I think the codes are supposed to
be four digit).


Universal's support site for their One-For-All range suggest that there are
a couple of B&O models which are a bit funny (so called High Frequency
models) and only some of their remotes work with them.



- Nigel


And LG tv's are hard to get working with a Sky remote.

Bazzer Smith wrote:
Hi the short answer is yes you can combine them no problem,
just twist the wires togeather.

And the correct answer is Yes but not by twisting the wires together.
Analogue 52 from Moel-y-parc will corrupt the Digital mux on 53 from
Wrekin A. For the Digital mux to exist beside an analogue channel, It
must have an offset of 167KHz, which is not the case here. The mux will
be corrupt and you will not receive a reliable signal quality.

The same applies to Analogue 33 from Wrekin A and Digital 34 from
Moel-y-parc.

Regards
Glenn..

"Kennedy McEwen" wrote in message
...
In article , harrogate3
writes


Don't see the problem. Any DTTV box should be able to handle any
channels it finds. If it finds a duplicate station name it will
usually put them at a higher location, often 801 upwards. My boxes
normally find about 73 channels, but a Thomson PVR that I had here
last week (took it back to Argos faulty) found 103!

That is what *should* happen, but it doesn't always work out as simple as
that and sometimes there are subtle complications.

For example, my Panasonic IDTV appears to do exactly what you describe -
duplicate stations are given LCNs in the 9xx range (although the Panasonic
DVD recorder puts them in the 800 range). In my case, the main service is
from Crystal Palace and the extra services are from Bluebell Hill - except
in summer when BH gives a stronger signal.

However, if a new service is launched and you tell the set to search for
it, it correctly ignores all the services it finds which are already
stored in the normal LCN range, but not those stored in the 9xx range. As
a result it assigns the same duplicate services new LCNs in the 9xx range
which gets filled up pretty soon. Guess what then happens? It continues
adding duplicate services into the 10xx range until eventually the
software crashes when a search is initiated. When this last happened, I
had 30 9xx LCNs assigned to BBC1 from Bluebell Hill! The only way to
recover the situation is a complete rescan, which loses all of the
personal settings

I reported this fairly irritating problem to Panasonic, and their engineer
(not customer services, who had even less of a clue) response was that
their tuning software isn't intended to cope with services from different
transmitters and they will not be upgrading it to do so since there "is no
need"! They refuse to acknowledge that there are situations, intentional
or otherwise, where reception from different transmitters occurs and
advised me to change my aerial to receive from only one transmitter.
Panasonic know best.

I just had a quick look at you post and I think it would help
if you completely reset it back to the factory setting before
retuning. This usually mean more than a power off, or a retune,
there should be a menu option to restore the factory settting.
Assuming I understood you post correctlly.

I know better than Panasonic!! ;O)

Well worth a try anyway......