Look !, no hands (aeriel actually)

[Andrew]

The recent rain has made TV reception a bit iffy in my house.

I am 10 miles from Midhurst and the 15 element group C/D aerial blew down in 2000 so I lashed it up in the loft with some string as a temporary measure ....

19 years and many transmitter retunes later and Quest is impossible (LCN 29 I think), but the main channels are fine.

Anyway I went up to the loft to give the connections a clean (they are exposed and it does get humid up there in winter.

Typically, one of the screw connections snapped so I had to take it down to my understairs workshop to rig up a(nother) temporary repair when I suddenly noticed that Jungle Book on BBC1 HD was playing *perfectly* on my Humax HD FOX T2. They must have damn good tuners, as all the signal was being picked up simply by the original builders 1976 coax !!.

Maybe I'll just get a log periodic from atv and some new coax and stick that in the loft and not bother with an outside aerial.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

are you sure you are using a DIGITAL antenna? ....

[The Natural Philosopher]

Frankly at 15 miles from sudbury, thats all I do.

Well apart from the low gain distribution amp.

[David Woolley]

It's just moved to 12.

[Andrew]

That's the freeview channel, surely, but is it still on transmitter multiplex channel 29 ?.

From Midhurst I get (or could with a proper aerial) these channels :-

29 33 48 54 58 59

I think. All the BBC, ITV, C4 stuff is still in range of my group C/D aerial, I was just surprised to get a perfect BBC1 HD picture and sound with just the coax going up the inside wall (buried in the plaster) plus about 10 feet lopped around in the loft.

[Woody]

Don't bother with post. Toddle along to Screwfix and get a LP (67576), a loft mount pole (34394), and 25m of NX100 (647FK) although you can omit the latter if you don't need so much or cannot use the existing cable to pull the new cable down the wall. You will also need some F-type connectors unless you have some as the aerial has a fitted female output.

A local rigger replaced my neighbours aerial a few weeks ago with an aerial identical to the above and the signal is perfect - and we are 28 miles almost LoS from Emley!

[Andrew]

But that is Labgear s**te, which would never survive outside anyway !.

[Steve Walker]

I don't know about where you are, but I used our Freeview box for the first time in a week or so today and it told me that Quest had moved (from 39 to 12 IIRC) and that I needed to retune.

SteveW

[Bill Wright]

Builders' coax doesn't have much of a screen.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

The stuff of dreams.

Bill

[Woody]

I wonder if we should start a new terminology on here and call then channels and stations? LCN29 in this instance is the RF channel that the transmitter radiates. We could then refer to Freeview as station numbers, i.e. Quest is station 12? How about it?

[Brian Gaff]

It is often the cable that causes the issues. I swear they are made to self destruct,the pvc outer is so poor water gets in and makes the copper go a dark grotty not very connecting colour! At that age I'd suggest the new cable with the old aerial might even work pretty well. Cured my problems. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Don't know you then have the issue over encoding. Now increasing numbers of sd channels are going on hd mpxs, older kit like my smart talk has lost access to them even though in fact they are still there. Brian

[misterroy]

I was helping a neighbour get a better signal on his aerial by watching the signal strength meter on his TV whilst he moved the airiel in the loft. I gave up and moved to the loft to suggest disconnecting the aerial and taking it to the room the tv was in. As we disconnected it hiw wife took over watching the meter, relaying what was happening. "That's it" she shouted as the aerial was disconnected. The aerial was a big digital one.

[Mark Carver]

Yes

Don't get too excited, in October the muxes on 54, 58, and 59 move down to 35, 36, 34

[Andrew]

Ok, thanks for that. I'll get an aerial suitable for the range

29 to 36 inclusive. Sounds like a group B aerial though ?, which is the same as Hannington ??

[Andrew]

I've often wonderd if it was ever possible to remove builders coax embedded in sand/cement basecoat 'plaster' by simply pulling it out.

You might pull the inner core out, but the outer will be stuck firm, and probably clipped (bashed) into place with a few convenient 2.5 t&E clips, or, in the case of the builders of this estate, a couple of 4 inch round nails thumped in and bent over.

[Andrew]

Yes I got that message and did so, but those are just the freeview numbers, not the underlying channel numbers used by the transmitter.

[Andrew]

Brian

All the cable is > It is often the cable that causes the issues. I swear they are made to self

[The Natural Philosopher]

Channel numbers are per multiplex as it were.

The best place to look is here..

use 'detailed view' and you will get yourr local transmitter and what channels the MUXes are on

Using the midhurst transmitter:

shows that the channels in use and changes later this year are

29 33 48 54 => 35 58 => 36 59 => 34

So you need a very wideband aerial now - W - and can use a narrowband A after switchover.