Freeview reception

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I hope this is the right part of the forum to raise the issue of poor (diabolical at times) Freeview reception from the Mendip transmitter. We have been using our TVonics PVR for nearly two years and it has given very good Freeview reception. During the course of this Winter, the signals have steadily deteriorated, with firstly the ITV channels blocking until as of now we cannot get any picture. BBC channels have been fine until the last few weeks and even they are breaking up now. I've checked transmitter work programmes and the weather conditions and neither can be blamed. I noted with interest other discussions about bandwidth in relation to Freesat HD and Freeview+. I was planning to stay with Freeview after the West region switchover (24 March and 7 April) and then look at the HD variant, but I am beginning to doubt what service one can expect - talk about value for licence fee! I am not going to pay premium rate to speak to someone at digitaluk and their website keeps dumping me out of their 'Contact Us' section, so could some kind soul explain what is going on and why I shouldn't stick to radio? Thanks.

 

[8009514]

Hi,

I'm fed from the Mendip txer as well and haven't noticed a problem. However, I live in an area (Chipping Sodbury) where reception is pretty good. So good I can pick up Wenvoe as well which, can be a nuisance when retuning. The Freeview signals are transmitted at fairly low power at the moment. When the analogue signals are finally turned off (April 7th), and the freeview then moved into their vacant slots, there should be an increase in the transmitted power of the digital signals. Hopefully that will sort out your problem.

You could of course have a problem with your aerial/cable. If its been a steady degradation then where the cable joins the aerial could be corroding.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info 8009514. I guess a few more weeks is bearable if the situation improves at the switchover. Then we'll see.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Since it's gone downhill over the winter, I'd suspect some water ingress where the downlead attaches to the aerial itself. May be worth contacting a local aerial installer to find out if there have been general problems locally, and if not get the aerial checked over.

The Confederation of Aerial Industries has a geographical search facility here.

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:

Since it's gone downhill over the winter, I'd suspect some water ingress where the downlead attaches to the aerial itself. May be worth contacting a local aerial installer to find out if there have been general problems locally, and if not get the aerial checked over.

The Confederation of Aerial Industries has a geographical search facility here.

Fully agree - well worth getting the aerial and cable checked out. More so if you are still using the analogue (narrowband) aerial.