Welsh digital switch over-Irish reception questions answered

dilljen

martin12 wrote: »

I live near Harristown close to where the Tv deflector/transmitter is located with a clear line of sight of Presili transmitter bbc mux coming in @ 65-70% Signal Strength 100% Signal Quality constant in all weather so far.
I,m using a Televes Dat 75 aerial and a Televes 26db MastHead Amp.

Martin,

Glad to hear that someone in the locality is actually receiving a good signal from Presili. I am located high on a hill in the Crooke area of Passage East and I reckon that I have a good chance of receiving it. Do you have a freeview TV from the UK or a digital decoder? Also, where did you purchase the aerial and masthead amp from?

Any help would be gratefully received.

martin12

I bought them from TLC Direct in the UK.
I'm using a Humax PVR 9150T which has one
of the best tuners available.

whats your analogue like down there?
Any cochannel interference from rte's cairn hill? [lines on picture]

martin12

Analogue from Presili Transmitter was good in the summer but poor in winter especially in stormy weather also High pressure caused co channel.
BBC mux has been consistent since switch.
Rte Analogue has always been good from Mt.Leinster

martin12

martin12 wrote: »

Analogue from Presili Transmitter was good in the summer but poor in winter especially in stormy weather also High pressure caused co channel.
BBC mux has been consistent since switch.
Rte Analogue has always been good from Mt.Leinster

And are you getting the other muxes?
Whats the maximum strength you've seen down there on the new BBC A mux?
And whats the maximum or average on the low power muxes?

I think you will have most channels permanently when the itv high power mux starts on ch46.

Please let people in the area know about it-after all it is free TV

bmaxi

Deleted User wrote: »

Bear in mind that presely analogue goes off on sept 16th so you have only till then to find it and it's a lot easier to find and peak that than it is to find the digital...Reason being you can leave your tv tuned to ch 37 with someone watching it untill they see a picture...thats something that you cannot do with digital.

Let us know how you get on.

Will it be difficult to align aerials to the digital signal, do they have to be more or less spot on like satellite dishes? It often gets quite stormy here in Courtown and I'd be afraid that aerials may have moved or bent a little. While I'm prepared to fiddle with a dish on the wall, no way I'm going on a roof or up a mast.

watty

no. Satellite dishes need 0.7 degree for small dish and 0.1 degree accuracy for a large one.

Aerials are 20 degrees (Medium gain) down to maybe 10 degrees for four 18 element aerials combined together to give 6dB extra gain.

Four professional quality "contract" 18 element aerials on a suitable mast and with 3 combiners is slightly better gain than a Unix100/Kathrien or other monster and more robust. But does need a suitable spaced quad bracket. It's also only one Group.

I did once do a mast with two sets of 4x 18 elements for DX to Divis + a single aerial for local TV at Dundalk and then three downleads (two grouped mast amps on the Quad arrays) and then 5 sets of helical filters to feed the distribution Multiswitches (4x Quattro LNB also all to feed 32 to 1000 set boxes)

If you need this for Presley you're mad and better off with just a Freesat Dish.

@bmaxi

At a guess I'd get BBC A here no problem with the chimney aerial.
The reason we put it up at 60ft was the move to arfon as presely got a lot of co channel.
To get arfon we definitely needed the height to get over a group of tree's and about 20ft of land.

For presely at chimney height,there is also a small hill in the way but only just.
However despite that,presely is possible here in fair weather on an indoor aerial at a window.


The twins are up there now...so theres no taking them down
Analogue from the twins today is quite good despite the weather-Five for instance has no grain at all.
Digitals are all working.

@bmaxi Give Redmond electric in Gorey a ring and they will put you onto Mylie Redmond who will service that aerial for you.
If you have half decent analogue on a rainy day like today,you will be in business.

mrdtv

Deleted User wrote: »

At a guess I'd get BBC A here no problem with the chimney aerial.
The reason we put it up at 60ft was the move to arfon as presely got a lot of co channel.
To get arfon we definitely needed the height to get over a group of tree's and about 20ft of land.

For presely at chimney height,there is also a small hill in the way but only just.
However despite that,presely is possible here in fair weather on an indoor aerial at a window.


The twins are up there now...so theres no taking them down
Analogue from the twins today is quite good despite the weather-Five for instance has no grain at all.
Digitals are all working.

@bmaxi Give Redmond electric in Gorey a ring and they will put you onto Mylie Redmond who will service that aerial for you.
If you have half decent analogue on a rainy day like today,you will be in business.

Just a note from the other side: corker reception of BBC Mux A Preseli on the North Devon Coast 55 miles away on an indoor antenna and on the external Yagi directed at Preseli (no England transmitters there) which also picked up high power Kilvey Hill and the old Wenvoe DTT transmissions. Its clear Preseli DSO has an omni HRP pattern. Also Caradon Hill DSO BBC A has very good reception all over SW England and is going full DSO on the 9th: should be DX visitor to SE Ireland.

prioryc

i have freeview here in Gorey co. wexford with some 93 radio & tv channels found since the first switch, with the removal of BBC2 analog,Freeview bbc signal is near perfect even in the terrible weather conditions over the last week
here is my results
S4C,S4c2,five,five u.s.a,fiver,virgin1,qvc,bid tv, (QUEST & top up tv channels)-618.00MHz

BBC Radio 1,2,3,4,5 live,6,7, BBC world service,1xtra,bbc4 -642.00MHz

BBC tv 1,2,3,4,Parliment cbbc,cbeebies, bbc radio wales -650.00MHz

Sky 3 ,Dave,sky sports news,sky news,talk sport,premier radio -666.00MHz

4 Music,TMF,ITV4,virgin+1,ITV2,Dave Ja Vu,Film 4,Russia Today,kerrang,kiss radio , smooth,heat radio-698.00MHz

ITV1,2,3,4,E4,channel 4,c4+1 -714.00MHz

mrdtv

prioryc wrote: »

i have freeview here in Gorey co. wexford with some 93 radio & tv channels found since the first switch, with the removal of BBC2 analog,Freeview bbc signal is near perfect even in the terrible weather conditions over the last week
here is my results
S4C,S4c2,five,five u.s.a,fiver,virgin1,qvc,bid tv, (QUEST & top up tv channels)-618.00MHz

BBC Radio 1,2,3,4,5 live,6,7, BBC world service,1xtra,bbc4 -642.00MHz

BBC tv 1,2,3,4,Parliment cbbc,cbeebies, bbc radio wales -650.00MHz

Sky 3 ,Dave,sky sports news,sky news,talk sport,premier radio -666.00MHz

4 Music,TMF,ITV4,virgin+1,ITV2,Dave Ja Vu,Film 4,Russia Today,kerrang,kiss radio , smooth,heat radio-698.00MHz

ITV1,2,3,4,E4,channel 4,c4+1 -714.00MHz

Top man! Find out how to see the signal strength and quality on your receiver. You'll need to look at the ofcom and digital uk web sites to find out all the Preseli frequencies in the transition. Please report back....

mrdtv

mrdtv wrote: »

Just a note from the other side: corker reception of BBC Mux A Preseli on the North Devon Coast 55 miles away on an indoor antenna and on the external Yagi directed at Preseli (no England transmitters there) which also picked up high power Kilvey Hill and the old Wenvoe DTT transmissions. Its clear Preseli DSO has an omni HRP pattern. Also Caradon Hill DSO BBC A has very good reception all over SW England and is going full DSO on the 9th: should be DX visitor to SE Ireland.

yup.
caradon is even available here normally albeit poorly on a group A.

It is regular in high pressure-so yes I'm expecting that.

prioryc

mrdtv wrote: »

Top man! Find out how to see the signal strength and quality on your receiver. You'll need to look at the ofcom and digital uk web sites to find out all the Preseli frequencies in the transition. Please report back....

blaze media player/windows media centre ...whenever i scan i get this result

eg.BBC MUX's 642/650.00MHz.. scan NOW in Rain/slight wind/cloud cover
signal strength |||||||||||||||||||||||||||100%

signal Quality |||||||||||||||||||| 78%


618.00mhz ,698.00 ,714.00MHz all around same Quality 40-65 % depending on weather conditions

666.00MHz Strength 100%, Quality 18-44 % only works in Good weather ..at the moment

hopefully they will all match BBC Quality after the next part of analog switch off

prioryc

prioryc wrote: »

hopefully they will all match BBC Quality after the next part of analog switch off

The public service channels will that move onto ch46.
Anything on ch50 or above won't but you mightn't notice untill it's quite wet and windy.
Wet does lower the signal strength a bit but its wet and windy that does the harm.
My guess is it has a lot to do with the changes in pressure and the water vapour in the air.
This damage is enhanced and always has been on a long sea track.

All the usual low power muxes are on or about 60% strength and 100% quality today despite heavy rain.
BBC A is up at 90% strength :pac:

Thats using a humax pvr tuners strength meter which i would suggest is more reliable by far than what priory c's inbuilt bar system signal tester on the blaze yoke.
The humax I'd trust more than my sony w4000 tv for instance which is showing 100% on both the BBC A mux and on the others.

mrdtv

Deleted User wrote: »

The public service channels will that move onto ch46.
Anything on ch50 or above won't but you mightn't notice untill it's quite wet and windy.
Wet does lower the signal strength a bit but its wet and windy that does the harm.
My guess is it has a lot to do with the changes in pressure and the water vapour in the air.
This damage is enhanced and always has been on a long sea track.

All the usual low power muxes are on or about 60% strength and 100% quality today despite heavy rain.
BBC A is up at 90% strength :pac:

Thats using a humax pvr tuners strength meter which i would suggest is more reliable by far than what priory c's inbuilt bar system signal tester on the blaze yoke.
The humax I'd trust more than my sony w4000 tv for instance which is showing 100% on both the BBC A mux and on the others.

Certain receivers such as Netgem, elderly Nokia 221T and the newer Philips STBs all give the C/N ratio in the software. So long as this is above 20 dB for 8k 64QAM FEC 2/3 GI 1/32 which is the post DSO UK DVB-T mode the system will work perfectly. In Cornwall last week I had Caradon off a crappy contract aerial some 50 miles distant at 29dB on BBC A post DSO (its a 100kW station), so if you can measure your C/N in all weather you can tell whether its going to be reliable. These receivers bypass the need for expensive meters such as the Horizon, at my home location I have 26dB off a low power DTT service some 10 miles away.

prioryc

[/QUOTE]
Thats using a humax pvr tuners strength meter which i would suggest is more reliable by far than what priory c's inbuilt bar system signal tester on the blaze yoke.
The humax I'd trust more than my sony w4000 tv for instance which is showing 100% on both the BBC A mux and on the others.[/QUOTE]

i agree its only a cheap €10 piece of kit its still delivering the desired result

i agree its only a cheap €10 piece of kit its still delivering the desired result

Of course it is.I actually have one myself but uninstalled it and have lost the cd

marclt

Deleted User wrote: »

Of course it is.I actually have one myself but uninstalled it and have lost the cd

it might work with dvbviewer... I can never get the thing to scan properly... that is a for another thread I think! But if you have windows media centre is might work with that too?

Back on track it would be really useful if we could get a google map going with some markers going on tracing where signals are being received.. might help a bit when it comes to advising others?

prioryc

marclt wrote: »

it might work with dvbviewer... I can never get the thing to scan properly... that is a for another thread I think! But if you have windows media centre is might work with that too?

Back on track it would be really useful if we could get a google map going with some markers going on tracing where signals are being received.. might help a bit when it comes to advising others?

never heard of dvb viewer..but gonna look for it now & the cheapo blaze tuner does indeed work with Media Centre on vista H.P with full 14 day epg & fully working pvr functions..e.g pause live tv,record live ,record daily series etc all worked fine have to use wales/G.B postcode

marclt

On the 9 September all Freeview viewers in Wales will need to do a retune to continue watching S4C. The result of the change will enable all Freeview viewers across Wales to view the S4C channel after digital switchover.

For information on how to retune click here.

For more information on the changes contact S4C Viewers on hotline@s4c.co.uk or 0870 600 4141.

or visit the S4C website: English

I'm guessing it will lead to some other channel changes too... we'll have to keep a watch on that.

mrdtv

marclt wrote: »

On the 9 September all Freeview viewers in Wales will need to do a retune to continue watching S4C. The result of the change will enable all Freeview viewers across Wales to view the S4C channel after digital switchover.

For information on how to retune click here.

For more information on the changes contact S4C Viewers on hotline@s4c.co.uk or 0870 600 4141.

or visit the S4C website: English

I'm guessing it will lead to some other channel changes too... we'll have to keep a watch on that.

Tomorrow is also when the rest of Caradon Hill goes over to high power DSO. With the current weather it'll be interesting to see if Caradon can be received in lift conditions in SE Ireland with the new 100kW transmitters. BTW over on ukfree.tv they've got the HRP patterns for the post-DSO stations following an FOI request to the BBC. That is still being analysed. Retuning is needed this week in Wales, next week at the Preseli cutover, then on the 30th nationwide in the UK and then in ROI later in the autumn for Arfon and Llandona. Blaen-Plwyf is not till next spring which will also be very interesting in Ireland. So Wednesdays are becoming retuning days....

prioryc

[QUOTE=Retuning is needed this week in Wales, next week at the Preseli cutover, then on the 30th nationwide in the UK and then in ROI later in the autumn for Arfon and Llandona. Blaen-Plwyf is not till next spring which will also be very interesting in Ireland. So Wednesdays are becoming retuning days....[/QUOTE]
Also the Quest channel goes live on the 30th
looking forward to see what improvements if any happen after dso

prioryc

mrdtv wrote: »

Tomorrow is also when the rest of Caradon Hill goes over to high power DSO. With the current weather it'll be interesting to see if Caradon can be received in lift conditions in SE Ireland with the new 100kW transmitters. BTW over on ukfree.tv they've got the HRP patterns for the post-DSO stations following an FOI request to the BBC. That is still being analysed. Retuning is needed this week in Wales, next week at the Preseli cutover, then on the 30th nationwide in the UK and then in ROI later in the autumn for Arfon and Llandona. Blaen-Plwyf is not till next spring which will also be very interesting in Ireland. So Wednesdays are becoming retuning days....

just got up and retuned the freeview tuners and find just the BBC tv/radio channels only 30 to be exact...anyone else??

Ger Roe

Just for info :

I changed polarity (to Horizontal) on my broad antenna in Kilpedder and aimed it towards Preseli (previously vertical and pointed at Afron)

Following Black Briar's advice I panned for Five UK analogue but the signal strength and quality was poor, even in the best position. I went ahead and scanned for digital anyway and while the BBC mux could be received, it was prone to breakup and was not reliable enough to view.

It just might help someone to know that it doesn't look like Preseli is receiveable as far north as Kilpedder Co Wicklow. I will try to receive digital from Afron when it becomes available.

marclt

prioryc wrote: »

just got up and retuned the freeview tuners and find just the BBC tv/radio channels only 30 to be exact...anyone else??

They are all transmitting as normal. May be worth doing a manual search on the frequencies you're not picking up as expected...

Ch. 39, 42, (43), 45, 47, 49 and 51.

Let us know how you get on...

mrdtv

prioryc wrote: »

just got up and retuned the freeview tuners and find just the BBC tv/radio channels only 30 to be exact...anyone else??

You might have a S/W retuning issue after the S4C changeover today...

mrdtv

Ger Roe wrote: »

Just for info :

I changed polarity (to Horizontal) on my broad antenna in Kilpedder and aimed it towards Preseli (previously vertical and pointed at Afron)

Following Black Briar's advice I panned for Five UK analogue but the signal strength and quality was poor, even in the best position. I went ahead and scanned for digital anyway and while the BBC mux could be received, it was prone to breakup and was not reliable enough to view.

It just might help someone to know that it doesn't look like Preseli is receiveable as far north as Kilpedder Co Wicklow. I will try to receive digital from Afron when it becomes available.

Good feedback. You are probably too far north for Preseli and much closer to Arfon which is coming later in the year. I presume everybody roundabout used Arfon analogue for years?

marclt

It seems that at some point yesterday S4C began broadcasting a MHEG stating people shoud retune. It deffo wasn't there first thing. My Tv picked it up overnight.

Anyone who hasn't rescanned will see it on LCN 4, otherwise it has moved up to 800, pushing the other temp BBC channels to 801-803.

Ger Roe

mrdtv wrote: »

Good feedback. You are probably too far north for Preseli and much closer to Arfon which is coming later in the year. I presume everybody roundabout used Arfon analogue for years?

Yes, Arfon was always the analogue provider around here for the UK services.
I thought I would try for Preseli because of the higher power output, I understand that the Arfon DTT signal will not be as strong.

I will give it a go when available and see what happens - worth a try anyway.

mrdtv

Ger Roe wrote: »

Yes, Arfon was always the analogue provider around here for the UK services.
I thought I would try for Preseli because of the higher power output, I understand that the Arfon DTT signal will not be as strong.

I will give it a go when available and see what happens - worth a try anyway.

DTT powers are always 1/5th analogue peak ERP so Preseli DSO is 20 kW (analogue was 100kW), Llandona is 20kW (analogue: 100kW) and Arfon DTT is going to be 2kW (same as current remaining Preseli low power muxes). These DSO ERPs replicate analogue coverage so provided you have good analogue Arfon it should work and there is an omnidirectional HRP pattern. Arfon also benefits from a very tall mast on a very tall site! Blaen-Plwyf will also be very interesting as that is going to be 40KW and in Group A. If its an omnidirectional it will be very useable in Ireland but Arfon is being switched over in October whereas Blaen-Plwyf isn't being converted till next March. Arfon will be well worth a try but it only will have 3 PSB muxes vs the others.