ntl: Clonsilla reception

joolsveer

My cable reception has been very poor now for the last week or so. Anybody else in Clonsilla area having similar problems? Ntl say that no complaints have been received.

The tax man

Have you seen what your neighbours reception is like??
Best way to see if its an area thing or something at your house.
How poor is poor?

JDxtra

Could your neighbours be illegally getting cable and have botched up your feed? This always messed up ntl in my parents house.

Also check your internal cabling and connections in case the problem is on your end.

joolsveer

The tax man wrote:

Have you seen what your neighbours reception is like??
Best way to see if its an area thing or something at your house.
How poor is poor?

Most of the neighbours have Sky and don't bother with ntl.
What I call poor is a snowy effect on all channels.
I had split the signal to two other tvs so I removed the splitter/booster and viewed the straight signal on my main telly. It showed improvement but was still short of acceptable. There are scan lines visible on most channels.
BTW it's the basic analogue service that I have.

joolsveer

Here are some samples of my ntl reception

skynews, CNBC and Discovery

The tax man

With pics like that I'd be on to them straight away. CNBC looks like one of those posters from a few years back that you'd stare at for hours until you saw the hidden picture in the pattern.Its a dinosaur.....no wait....its a...ufo....no hang on.....its a blad man with a goatie.

joolsveer

The tax man wrote:

With pics like that I'd be on to them straight away. CNBC looks like one of those posters from a few years back that you'd stare at for hours until you saw the hidden picture in the pattern.Its a dinosaur.....no wait....its a...ufo....no hang on.....its a blad man with a goatie.

I have been on to ntl and they are due to send a guy out sometime between 13:00 and 18:00 tomorrow so I will stay in for five hours in the hope of getting things fixed.

The tax man

Hopefully they'll sort things out for ya.

joolsveer

The tax man wrote:

Hopefully they'll sort things out for ya.

I stayed in for five hours this afternoon and there was no show from ntl. When I rang asking for a reason I was told that the relevant department was closed from six and asked if I would like to make another appointment.

The tax man

joolsveer wrote:

I stayed in for five hours this afternoon and there was no show from ntl. When I rang asking for a reason I was told that the relevant department was closed from six and asked if I would like to make another appointment.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

joolsveer

I received this reply from ntl this morning and I hope the guy will call and fix the signal.

Thank you for your email. Firstly, please accept my sincere apologies for the
delay in replying to your email but I have been investigating this issue since I
came in this morning and I have been trying to retrieve a resolution to this
matter.

I have been advised by our Dispatch Department that the reason this call was
missed by our service technician was due to the fact he had to go and attend a
breakdown close to your area.

I understand your frustration at this point and I agree that if the technician
could not have made the call yesterday at least he could have made a call to
inform you of the situation. Please accept my sincere apologies for the
inconvenience that has been caused to you at this time.

I have spoken with my Team Manager and I have advised her of your situation and
the issues in which you are experiencing with Ntl. She has advised me that
should you wish for her to speak with yourself regarding this issue she can give
you a call today.

I have arranged a priority appointment for tomorrow, Saturday the 02/04/05 in
the morning time between 9.30 -13.30. I have requested and I have been advised
that the our Dispatch Department have made an arrangement that your call is the
first call in the morning.

If this is not suitable to you can you please advise at your earliest
convenience.

Once again please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in having
this matter resolved.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on 1800
321 321 or once again e-mail us on customer.support@ntl.ie

Kind regards

bazzer

Sounds like you have TOO MUCH signal ! Having your VCR picture improve after disconnecing the NTL feed proves that. The VCR channel is being swamped by the harmonics created by the high-level NTL feed.
Call NTL and get them to sort it, although knowing them you could be waiting ages.
In the short term, you could try an in-line attenuator (say 10dB or so, from Maplins, Peats or the like) to reduce the strength of your incoming NTL signal. Also, if you can, re-adjust the output frequency of your VCR to a higher channel and tune your TV back into it.

HTH

The tax man

Ellen Thankful Peacock wrote:

Hi -

In Clonsilla meself too and had a fortnight's worth of very poor reception on analogue NTL. There was an improvement a few days ago but the underlying problem is still there - interference which generally gets worse from 5pm onwards.

Rather oddly, my second NTL point goes through a VCR and then through the regular RF or whatever aerial into a prehistoric Sanyo portable. At the worst of the reception problems, I was getting interference on the screen even when playing back pre-recorded videos. Only disconnecting the NTL input to the VCR solved the problem so I'm guessing they had some pretty weird problems on the supply side.

Digital was mostly unaffected during this time though it seems to me I'm getting more blackouts than I used to.

One thing you can do to see the cause of this fault.
Leave the TV on the vcr channel.Take the cable feed going into the vcr and stick it into the TV.If you see E4,thats your problem. NTL have E4 on ch21 on the UHF band and more then likely your vcr's output is ch21. You have two signals clashing hence the crap vcr pictures(even in tape playback)
Solution is to change the output frequency of the vcr. Consult the manual on how to do this. Standard vcr output is ch36.When you've done this you'll then have to retune the tv to pick up the vcr again.

Hope that helps you out.