Freeview in the South East

TAPlank

My location is South Wexford, overlooking Rosslare and the Irish Sea. I get Freeview Lite from Preseley using a 32 element wideband aerial with a masthead amplifier and a Goodmans GDB 12 receiver. Reception was excellent up to this week when it became intermittent, with pixellation at times. Up to September 2009 I also had got the full number of Freeview channels, again of excellent quality – not sure from what transmitter. The channel numbers were from 39 to 52. Many of these disappeared at that time and re-appeared for only a couple of days recently, from the “South West” transmitter.

I would like to recover as many of these channels as possible and am thinking of installing a high gain “B” group aerial to see if this works. Can someone recommend one and a suitable amplifier and where they can be sourced? Or is there a better option? Would a different receiver help? If so please suggest a make and type.

I can get a TELVES DAT75 triple array aerial, what is the experience of users of this type?


Does Preseley transmit the full number of channells?

RTE are mar dhea testing at Mt Leinster on the carlow wexford border on some of presely's frequencies [they are allowed to as those frequencies are also allocated to mt leinster].

Thats why you lost presely's extra channels on uhf ch's 49,42 and 45.

It's the only transmitter in Ireland that they are doing this on,24/7 since last november at high power and at considerable cost to RTE and the licence payer.

In a word they are deliberately jamming the presely services from being received in wexford under the guise of this so called and patently unnecessary testing.
They will have to stop this eventually as it will be found out[it has to be a money haemorage that the accountants and newspapers will eventually cop on to] and big questions will be asked as to what they are at given theres no hope of a commercial broadcaster taking on the extra frequencies.

Your loss of the other channels in the past few days is due to a rare weather set up with banks of fogs over the irish sea.
That plays havoc with seapath transmissions.
It's only for a few seconds at a time though so when it goes,you will usually have it back in a few seconds.
It used happen with analogue too in these conditions where reception from presely would go very snowy and fade out.
I observed this in the summer of last year when the first high power BBC mux started on presely and analogue was still on .
The BBC A mux only dropped out for a brief few seconds coinciding with a total fade out of the analogue.

The difference now is that what you experience is perfect pictures one minute ,then freeze and gone for a few seconds.
Whereas on analogue you used see the picture gradually fade and then get better.
The drop outs are a mirror of the same effect,only that you have picture crystal clear all the time untill the signal gets that momentary low that used be the analogue at it's worst fade [to nothing] back last year in the analogue days.

Theres little need for changing your aerial if you are only experiencing these drop outs today and yesterday.
I have a twin system and I'm experiencing them but as I say only now and again and for brief seconds at a time eg once during Eastenders tonight.

As I alluded to at the start of this post -Presely has a full freeview service.
You won't be able to get the extra channels untill RTENL quit the jamming.

You might want to get on to your local T.D and ask them to ask a Dáil question as to why MT Leinster is broadcasting 4 transmitters with the same channels when one is needed and unnecessarally at this stage jamming local reception of UK channels in wexford and is this what we pay our licence fee for...
Get them to ask how much the ESB bill is up at mt leinster.

TAPlank

Thanks for your very interesting and infoormative reply about the signal jamming, skulduggery afoot it would appear. However as I am on the lee of a hill relative to Mount Leinster I would hope they cannot affect me as badly as you suggest. Is there any chance they will interfere with the Preseley signal in Wales?
It was to try and recover the channels lost in Sept 09 that I was thinking of changing the aerial.
The recent reception problems are just as you describe, drops out and returns in maybe 30 seconds with a good picture. Hopefully they will return to normal shortly.
I should say that I am not in any way an expert on TV reception. This reminds me of an old friends definition of an expert: An ex is a "hasbeen" and a spert "is a drip under pressure".

Mt Leinster is 2796ft above sea level and the mast is another couple of 100ft do it will and does jam your extra presely channels untill they stop the jamming.

They are not allowed broadcast on ch's 43 and 46 which carry the bbc's,ITV,4 and 5 and more 4 and some radio so they are safe.

The very brief drops outs will continue spradically whilst theres fog in th eirish sea between you and presely.
It depends on where the fog is though and sometimes it won't affect your reception at all.

Another thing that will affect it will be in high pressure when distant channels co channel with presely may come in strong due to that weather and interfere.

RTE are jamming 30 to 40 channels on you by the way and not providing a replacement...

How nice of them eh?

I wonder what their plan will be for when the NI transmitters go full power in 2012? Kidnap the people watching UK terrestrial TV ,tie them up and put them in front of RTE in black and white to re runs of Halls pictorial weekly?
They won't be able to stop that overspill at all.

Gerry Wicklow

Deleted User wrote: »

I wonder what their plan will be for when the NI transmitters go full power in 2012? Kidnap the people watching UK terrestrial TV ,tie them up and put them in front of RTE in black and white to re runs of Halls pictorial weekly?

Stop giving them ideas:D

TAPlank

I recently got a Ferguson Ariva combo to receive Saorview along with most of the Welsh Freeview channels. Freeview and satellite reception is quite good, my problem is with Saorview.

I am aware of the Freeview channel 45 iinteraction with Mt Leinster broadcasts, but from time to time I can get the Freeview programmes that are on it. Saorview reception is also intermittent and seems to be at its best in the afternoons. I have not found that one of them is available when the other is not.

Is it likely that Saorview, being also on channel 45 is being affected by the Freeview broadcast on the same channel? Is there an aerial set up that I could try that might help. The aerial I am using gives good (non-Saorview) reception on TV3 and TG4.

.

Peter Rhea

TAPlank wrote: »

Is it likely that Saorview, being also on channel 45 is being affected by the Freeview broadcast on the same channel? Is there an aerial set up that I could try that might help.

Different transmissions can't share the same UHF channel, either find another transmitter for Saorview or remove the Presely aerial from the system.

If your aerial is grouped for the Mt. Leinster analogue channels it won't perform anywhere near its best for Saorview.

Vince Cable

. . . If you do indeed have a seperate aerial for Irish broadcasts.

Has anyone that's posted in these 'Mt Leinster v Presely' threads actually been using a single, decent aerial pointed at Mt. L. & still been having longer than 'normal' Saorview outage periods caused by CCI?

St Senan

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Different transmissions can't share the same UHF channel, either find another transmitter for Saorview or remove the Presely aerial from the system.

If your aerial is grouped for the Mt. Leinster analogue channels it won't perform anywhere near its best for Saorview.

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