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[oldfogy]

The other suggested options are using an attenuator (which I havent got).

Maplins' sell them and from memory they are not very expensive (£2 to £3) £4.99 each
Although there are 2 or 3 different strengths, but do not know which one to advice you use as it is a try it and see process.
Just in-case anyone does not know how they get fitted, they simply fit into the TV aerial socket and then plug the aerial coax/cable into it, so no big job.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=attenuator&source=15&menu=-9

[jeffbb]

Hi
Weird is this digital stuff . At present I have One TV picking up the local transmitter basically Welsh edition. 2 others on a different areal with an amplified splitter tuned to the Granada area (west?) . What I do not understand is how some channels BBC1 wales as an example appear on different Channels bearing in mind they are fed from same areal. Both were retuned last night within minutes of each other

Regards Jeff

[HPsauce]

Just be grateful you don't live where I do.  
I pick up Crystal Palace, Hannington and a few others too. Multiple everything on strange numbers, and sometimes the "main" choice (should be CP though it's a way away) isn't the logical one. Depends on the weather too.
I think mines further confused because, although the TV aerial (with rooftop amplifier) does point straight at CP I have an FM aerial on the same mast all fed into a biggish distribution amp with separation at the sockets. I reckon the FM aerial must be picking up smaller local transmitters.

Hopefully when they all go full power (2012) and I can reduce the complexity this will get a bit more sensible. I have to play all sorts of games with amplifiers and attenuators to get all the TV's to work. They all have different channel allocations too. 

[kitz]

>> if it can be of any use to you your welcome to it (foc)

Thanks very much for the kind offer UB.  I do have one up in the loft.  The ironic thing is I put it up there aftery buying the TV as an all in one to cut down on the clutter :/

Havent had chance to do anything further today, but since I do have at least most of the channels working now Its not as important.
I also managed to manually retune the upstairs one so that it picked up from the correct station.  Just need to put those in the correct order and delete the welsh ones.

Still a PITA though.  They really do need to get it sorted that a transmitter much further away is taking over the nearest for so many thousands of people.

[tonyappuk]

Kitz You have probably found this page http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SJ123701 which shows the service area and the mux frequencies from Moel-y-Parc but I was surprised to see how big the overlap with Winter Hill is.  That's probably why a simple rescan gives so much bother. You could try selecting a Welsh source for a non regional service like Dave for example if it gives you a better signal and it probably won't have an annoying regional identity. Unfortunately the EPG will be wrong I guess and programming your PVR may be difficult.  The fact that the two transmitters are in different directions should help with the discrimination if you stick with Winter Hill and together with the use of a suitable attenuator I would hope you could manually get a usable service. I think from your latest posts you may have managed that.

As far as the Hyundai is concerned my mole has no information yet but I am surprised a set bought so recently cannot provide a sensible service even if it needs manual intervention. I'm sure you will have a claim on the seller if the set was not fit for purpose which you seem to indicate was the result of your conversation with RepairTech Ltd. Maybe a letter to Hyundai's CEO is in order.

There seem to be a wealth of low power relays in your neck of the woods and I have a large list of them with their frequencies. It's too long to include here and in any case the only relays that transmit all the muxes are Pendle Forest, Saddleworth, Storeton and Lancaster. If you are near any of them it might be worth tuning in to them. If you have Channel Numbers or frequencies of unknown transmitters/relays let me know and I can identify them for you.   

I hope some of your other troubles have been alleviated especially the broken boiler and you're feeling better. You are too far away for me to offer a monitor but you would be welcome of course.
Tony

[tickmike]

Our oldest Freeview box Has been the most difficult to set up  , I must have re-loaded the channels many times and in the end I seem to have it right now.
I even tried the set up for '1st time' setting which deletes all.

[kitz]

>>> which shows the service area and the mux frequencies from Moel-y-Parc but I was surprised to see how big the overlap with Winter Hill is

Yes its massive isnt it... and practically the same areas being covered!

>> Unfortunately the EPG will be wrong I guess and programming your PVR may be difficult.

Yes Ive managed to manually retune both sets now for most things...  the downstairs one still cant seem to pick up certain channels and I can find no reason for this.   However as they are mostly ones that I dont watch Im not too fussed...  Think is only BBC3 that I'll miss, but I seem to watch that upstairs where I can get it mostly so no biggy.

Yeah EPG is wrong and I get the welsh ones!.. but most of the time luckily they are similar.

>> wealth of low power relays in your neck of the woods

When I checked it suggested Lancaster...  but the signal for that is poorer than winterhill:/
Problem I guess is the Moel-y-Parc signal is strongest. 
When I was looking the other week I did see something official that said Moel-y-Parc wapped their power up on the day that I started having problems.   
Bit silly really cause WinterHill is soooo much nearer than Moel-y-Parc, which at a guess is about 2.5 - 3 hours drive away.
The only thing I can think of is that the Moel-y-Parc trasmitter also points over the sea to us, and therefore would have a much clearer line of sight than via winter hill which is over land/buildings?

>> together with the use of a suitable attenuator I


I may have to try that... although I must admit I dont know yet what or how Id do this... need to research more in that area lol.

[kitz]

PS...  I havent researched the attenuator thing yet...  so perhaps stupid question coming up 

But if you attenuate the signal, surely that would make the winterhill one less strong too?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criteria=attenuator&source=15&menu=-9

[tonyappuk]

The use of an attenuator is really a red herring I think on reflection. It is often used if you do an auto scan where it can persuade the box to select the strongest and hopefully the required muxes. In your case, if you do a manual tune for each mux (if the device allows that) an attenuator would only be useful if the signal was so strong as to cause overloading. That may result in being unable to select that mux reliably because of cross modulation.

I have been corresponding with Tickmike re his aerial distribution system and its effect on Freeview. He feeds several sockets in each room and to other rooms in parallel or from a distribution amp. We have probably identified some of his problems being down to leaving some of the paralleled ones open circuit and the resulting tuning effect of the o/c stubs removing some of the channels getting to the socket in use. Any paralled feeds or even feeds fed via a resistive splitter should be terminated to avoid problems. Tickmike is experimenting with making his own terminators with small 75 ohm resistors and coax plugs rather than buy more dis amps. He has rather a lot of sockets! I mention this in case this effect is contributing to your reception troubles.
Tony

[geep]

Our Freeview recorder - Panasonic DMR-EZ47V - tells us daily, for several days now,
that there are new services available. But every time we do a rescan it finds nothing.
We're in Hertfordshire and receive from Crystal Palace.

My brother-in-law in Cheshire reports chaos with his Freeview.
His 97 year old mother thinks she's going deaf as she can't understand the programmes lately.
But it's just that they are are now in Welsh!

Cheers,
Peter

[kitz]

>> My brother-in-law in Cheshire reports chaos with his Freeview.

Yes this does seem to be affecting parts of Cheshire, Merseyside and West Lancs quite badly. - Well basically Cheshire and the coastal regions like Southport, Blackpool etc.
God knows what they did with signal strength @ Moel-y-Parc and/or Winterhill, but I wish they'd sort it.  However I dont hold out much hope as much of the advise so far is live with it and be prepared for any changes you make  to get screwed up again on during auto-scans. :/

[UncleUB]

God knows what they did with signal strength @ Moel-y-Parc and/or Winterhill, but I wish they'd sort it.  However I dont hold out much hope as much of the advise so far is live with it and be prepared for any changes you make  to get screwed up again on during auto-scans. :/

And they call this moving forward into the digital age.

[geep]

I was just looking at http://www.digitaluk.co.uk postcode checker for the aerial trade.

In 2012, switchover for me at Crystal Palace, all is green "good reception". And only 4 retunes too.
But then in 2013 we drop to orange "variable reception" on Mux C.
It is not obvious what services are on Mux C - probably BBC1 and ITV1  
Looks like I'll be on the roof turning the aerial 180 degrees to get Sandy Heath.
Or have two aerials. Wonder how to join their signals together?
(Lord help the Sandy Heath users, they get 6 retunes in 2011 and another 6 in 2012).
It all makes tweaking ADSL seem easy.

Cheers,
Peter

Post-post edit: this link is interesting http://www.megalithia.com/elect/terrain.html
plus his other pages about setting up aerials, and thanks Tony for the helpscheme link below.

[tonyappuk]

Just to repeat a link I mentioned earlier for those with elderly relatives in trouble with the retune, which I've heard good reports about, even from engineers. It is http://www.helpscheme.co.uk/.  Geep,  perhaps this could help your brother-in-law.
Tony

[sevenlayermuddle]

It is not obvious what services are on Mux C - probably BBC1 and ITV1  

That raises a valid point that I'm not sure it's cropped up yet (or has it?) in this thread...  It's often useful to simply know which mux contains which channel, because problems tend to be per-mux rather than per-channel.

Kitz has obvously already sussed this to get as far as she's got, but I'm not sure I've seen any links to simple channel/mux listings, and I'm not sure any of the 'official' sites provide it.  A few independent sites do, such as:

http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewchannels.html

- 7LM