Retune knackered bbc channels

srichards

srichards

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Suz
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Retuned recently as bbc channels went away but they're weak as anything. Non bbc channels are as strong as normal. All signals used to be really strong before but now they're hopeless. Eye TV tuner which I haven't retuned is showing good signal strength on bbc channels. There is one weaker mux but it has junk like really on it so it doesn't matter.

What is more annoying is that brand new humax youview box now claims no channels at all, meanwhile dodgy old icecrypt pvr gets them but bbc are poor. I set the humax to record several things. It was showing TV happily until I put it on standby. It didn't seem to bother starting up to record anything. Strangely after switching the box on with the standby remote button it recorded 14 minutes of 2 programmes on HD while claiming there were no channels. If a youview box can't start up to record from standby its pretty flaming useless for a start!

I've also put some more insulation in the loft. The space blanket kind. Is there any way that could screw up the TV signals? There's still all the roof without it and under the aerial and most of the way round it. The old pvr has lost channels before and claimed no signal without me going anywhere near the loft. Turn it off and on again and it has suddenly found it. Humax is being stubborn and claims 0 % signal even though earlier it found 88 channels so it is lying.

Swapped leads and signal boosters but it is the same. Never had this kind of bother with my old topfield. That just worked until it started to overheat.

Any ideas? I'm fed up of the hassle. I just want something that works. Never had this kind of nonsense with my old video recorder either. Just typed in the video plus number and off it went and did it :)
 
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Your YouView box is wanting a quality antenna to pick up the freeview channels. You can't compare this to what the eye tv receives.

I'm getting all 179 or whatever channels on YouView without any reception issues due to having a decent antenna installed at the same time as I 'acquired' the box.
 
Aerial is a couple of years old and installed in the loft. It's a proper roof aerial not some indoor thing. Signal is strong and quality is high for all channels apart from the BBC ones all of a sudden. TV without a signal booster attached gets all the channels ok so the humax has no excuse.
 
I'm thinking that a recent switch on of 4G may be interfering with your freeview signal as apparently 4G is using up the airspace left behind by analogue TV.
 
If you mean foil covered insulation yes it definitely can interfere with signals as it reflects them but digital tv is reasonably immune to that. Is the aerial in the same place pointing the same way as it was? even a few degrees of angle can make a big difference. Your amplifier might be causing the problem especially if it's a cheap one but again if it works on one it should work for all.
 
I'll recheck the aerial. It can only point one way. I could do with an aerial pointing app to double check.

There was some mention of high pressure weather causing problems at the moment too.

I'll be annoyed if it is 4g causing issues. New systems that interfere with ones already in use shouldn't be allowed. Orange have just turned 4g on this week locally.

I've ordered a new signal booster. Variable strength and a 4g filter. That should make sure I can control how much boost there is and remove the possibility of 4g interference.

Double checked the tv and with no signal booster whatsoever that is about 50% signal strength but no errors. Eyetv tuner is quoting about 75% signal strength, 100% quality with an old labgear booster.
 
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Interestingly I found an aerial alignment app. It says Sutton Coldfield is strongest and puts Fenton & Winter Hill as weaker. I seem to be in a zone which gets coverage from all 3. I Always thought Fenton would be strongest as it is only a couple of miles away....Sutton Coldfield is buggering about at the moment so that is yet another issue to deal with.

Checked the aerial. It's bob on for Fenton which is about the strongest reported signal for this postcode.
 
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I am sure you have checked already, but for completeness, I would mention that doing an automatic retune on our Humax yesterday, as usual, I picked up some weaker stations and it planted them in the default slots. This has happened in the past and I have found the stronger signals stuffed up in the 800s. I now tune each MUX manually thus avoiding the lower numbers where the weaker reception stations are (Sandy Heath in our case rather than the Oxford transmitter which is strongest).

Anthony.
 
I've set the box up from scratch again. Chosen the right area so if it is choosing weak channels over strong ones it is very poorly programmed.

I shouldn't have to do a manual tune to get a single channel. That's hopeless!

Will try north west area as a last ditch then it's getting thrown back to humax as junk.
 
Great. Sitting room aerial connection completely buggered now and can't get a signal on anything. It was perfectly fine only a few days ago and now it's completely useless. Others I hardly use are of course working. Grrrrrr! Can't work out what the hell is wrong. Added the masthead amplifier back in and that didn't even alter the signal strength at all.
 
Broken socket? have you taken any of the connectors apart or had the dog chewing at anything?
 
Dining room socket on a long lead is working better. Signal strength still poor though. 45% even with signal booster. Channel also went off while I was watching it. Think humax maybe faulty and there is something up with the aerial connections. Watched more TV on iplayer than I have managed to record.

Missed derren brown yet again. Bloody freeview.

Wondering if some creature has got in the loft too. May get another masthead amplifier and add that in and see if that helps.
 
Thanks. Looks like I will have to mess around doing a manual search. I think it is pretty poor. I think they're both trying to tune to winter hill which is dumb as I'm the wrong side of the hill and it is the wrong region too. Fenton or Sutton cold field is much more appropriate but the freeview data wants it tuned to a transmitter in Bolton not the one a few miles away.
 
If you are equidistance from 2 or 3 transmitters, which I am, there could be some conflict with the reception causing all sorts of problems, i.e. pixelation etc. This was happening to me until I did a manual tune following the instructions in the link I gave. You will have to do a manual tune after every retune, a bit of a pain, but you soon get used to it.:)
 
Problems now mostly solved! Using old aerial that is casually discarded in the loft and that is working better than the one that is attached to the roof ridge. They look different so I'm assuming the ridge one is the wrong type or something. No manual tune needed. Automatic tune found all the right transmitters.

Signal strength and quality is much better and I've also got a 4g filter to add in. The 4g filter in the signal booster did make some improvement so I think there was an issue with that but if the previous 'wrong' aerial was a wideband I'm assuming that increases interference potential more than using a slightly narrower grouped aerial.

Humax still doesn't work though so it is a duffer. Old pvr is now getting decent HD signals which it never had before.

I can't get bbc4 hd as that is on Sutton Coldfield and not on Fenton :(
 
Good and bad news but at least you're getting there now. If you fit the filter try it before the amplifier first since it should be more effective there as long as it doesn't affect the channels you want to get.
 
The interference is actually lower down the bands ie channel 21 and channel 24. With the other aerial they were problematic and did just evaporate so it tuned to sutton coldfield a lot of the time.

One of the muxes is still pants but it is being transmitted at some minuscule power level. It so frustrating when they do that as it means you can't have a set level of boost that gets the lower strength channels without having the higher ones boosted to buggery.

Someone needs to make a pvr with built in signal boosting/attenuation that will boost weak channels without over boosting the strong ones so they are a more normalised signal strength.
 
It's best to boost a signal near the aerial so you're getting the cleanest signal possible, cable can be cheap and nasty or just long and that can add problems that a booster will amplify if it's by the tv.

Spend a bit of cash on a good quality grouped aerial with a proper balun (Antiference or Triax or Televes or...) as it will help to filter out those 4g problems too. Also a good quality amplifier if the one you have is a no-name model.
 
Now I've got the right aerial I might try loft booster again with the 4g filter plumbed in. It's only the sitting room connection that even needs the extra strength. All the others are 60-80% strength with 100% quality without help.

All the amps I have are slx or lab gear. One in loft is a commtel which might be cheap and nasty but is less than 3db noise so not the worst around.
 
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Labgear is good gear (poetry :) )
 
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