Bad reception on freeview

[Sharpie]

Thanks Keef - actually the trees have grown slightly smaller as neighbour had the top lopped off his large Ash right in the ariel sightline and heavily pruned it.

The house is in Halton village:
51.46'57.85" N
0.44'01.87" W
and the ariel orientation is ~300 degrees true.

TIA!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Thanks Keef - actually the trees have grown slightly smaller as neighbour had the top lopped off his large Ash right in the ariel sightline and heavily pruned it.

The house is in Halton village:
51.46'57.85" N
0.44'01.87" W
and the ariel orientation is ~300 degrees true.

TIA!

For what it's worth, I live a few miles from you, on top of a hill, and when Mrs.G and I moved in, freeview reception was erratic but seldom actually good. Discussing with neighbours, this was a common experience in the area.

We gave up after a year, bought a Panasonic satellite receiver and went freesat. It was a good decision that we've not regretted.

G

[Keef]

If the aerial's at 300° then it's a fair way off heading.
I'm assuming you're very close to St Michael and All Angels Church, Halton (give Mark Dearnley my regards if you bump into him).

There are two freeview transmitters that serve your area:
Sandy Heath in Beds (52° 7' 47" N 0° 14' 33" W) 180kW bearing 041° and 51km from you, and
Oxford (51° 47' 25" N 1° 10' 46" W) 100kW bearing 271° and 30km from you.

The TV check site thinks Sandy Heath is the better of the two, but you're in the coverage area for both. Unless there are any hills between you and the Oxford transmitter, I'd go with Oxford. It's got about 60% more effective power at your aerial, assuming nothing's in the way. If all the other aerials around you are pointing at Oxford, that's a fair indication that someone, sometime, may have checked it.

If your TV aerial is a half-decent Yagi (which I would expect it is) then 30 degrees off heading will make a fair mess of the signal unless there's something on heading 300 that's reflecting the TV signal to it.

First action (if you can do it) would be to put a ladder up to the aerial, get your spanners, and turn it to point 271°.

[Keef]

For what it's worth, I live a few miles from you, on top of a hill, and when Mrs.G and I moved in, freeview reception was erratic but seldom actually good. Discussing with neighbours, this was a common experience in the area.

If that was a few years ago, the freeview signal was low power and probably from a separate aerial at the bottom of the tower.
They're now high power, using the main aerial, and should be excellent. And you don't need a wok on the side of the house to receive it.

[Genghis the Engineer]

For what it's worth, I live a few miles from you, on top of a hill, and when Mrs.G and I moved in, freeview reception was erratic but seldom actually good. Discussing with neighbours, this was a common experience in the area.

If that was a few years ago, the freeview signal was low power and probably from a separate aerial at the bottom of the tower.
They're now high power, using the main aerial, and should be excellent. And you don't need a wok on the side of the house to receive it.

Probably 2 years ago.

To be fair, we still have a freeview capability, and the odd occasions we use it, it does work fine nowadays, but the choice and quality does seem to us inferior to freesat.

When we priced the choice of a freesat HD box + satellite dish, and a freeview HD box, surprisingly there wasn't much difference at the top end. The satellite receiver contraption was cheaper than the equivalent freesat contraption by about the cost of getting a satellite dish stuck on the back of the house.

G

[Ian Melville]

It should be feasible to use flight planning software to plot a line between home and mast to see if any hills are in the way. I am sure there is other software that can do it as well.

Living in Thame, my gut feeling is you may have an issue with Beckley mast

[Edit] A very quick check shows that you should be OK, the ridges at Long Crendon and Haddenham are not as high as I thought.

[Paul_Sengupta]

300 degrees? What on earth is that pointing at? It seems to be pointing into the middle of nowhere. Was there once perhaps a relay in Aylesbury? It doesn't seem to be there any more if there was one. Is the antenna horizontally or vertically polarised? Both Oxford and Sandy Heath are main transmitters, meaning they're both horizontally polarised. Have a look at the coverage maps below to see what's what and where you should be pointing the antenna.

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SP567105

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=TL204494

It also gives the multiplex details. Note that Oxford and Sandy Heath are in different television regions so you could use the one for the region you want...look at the links above.

You can see the relays for Oxford here in black:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/tech-guidance/816898/central_v2.2.pdf

The relays for Sandy Heath here:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/tech-guidance/816898/angliav2.2.pdf

And perhaps even the relays for Crystal Palace:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/tech-guidance/816898/london_v2.2.pdf

Though if you feed off a relay, they'll be vertically polarised. You should be able to get good coverage off the main transmitter at Oxford though I guess, as it's sticking out 100kW! Follow Keef's advice for that and ensure your aerial's horizontal.

Some more info here:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081012013401AAJBCZ5

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1548415

[Sharpie]

Thanks again for all your comments, I guess I'm going to have to get on the ariel's case..
I don't have a long enough ladder but maybe a neighbour can help. It would be a bit of work because it's a high roof and it's on a long mast above the chimney. I guess I would have to dismantle it all. Maybe I will have to bite the bullet and get ariel guy in! (minus man points... )

BTW, I'm pretty certain that the box is tuning into Sandy Heath - and this is only since the digital changeover. Why it wants to connect with Sandy, considering the orientation of my ariel, I can't fathom. I would rather have Oxford because Sandy gives me BBC East which is pretty much out of my area.

I think I need to force it to tune on to Oxford, I'll use the links that you guys have provided to get on that. Before digital, it was quite happy on the Oxford transmitter.
BTW, I only estimated the ariel orientation; perhaps it's near to 271, I'll see if I can check it out with a bit more precision. It's horizontal, BTW.
Ta again for the useful info.

[Paul_Sengupta]

Is it the case that some tuners store the best channels and some store the first channels first? I have one old freeview box which seems to store all it picks up. My TV only seems to store the strongest ones. Have a look at channels over 800 to see if there are any hidden channels up there.

What's your tuner showing for signal strength and signal quality at the various times? Could be interference from something in the house - like my microwave oven issue!

[Keef]

You don't have to go all the way up the mast! Slacken off the fixings at the chimney and turn the pole

It's worth getting/borrowing a decent compass and checking the aerial direction first. I keep a WW2 army prismatic marching compass for checking aerial alignment, but I do more of that than most folks. The compass inside an iPhone (for example) would do a passable job.
A decent Yagi aerial has a horizontal beamwidth of only a few degrees: you'll get away with being 5 degrees out, but at 10 degrees it will be a fair way down the curve. 30 degrees out means very little signal at all.

If it's picking up Sandy while pointing more towards Oxford, I'd do a "fresh install" tune-up, where it forgets all it knew before (which could be wrong now) and starts from scratch. I have to do that with one of our TVs, which otherwise looks only for "new" stations and doesn't retune the ones that are on wrong channels.

In fact, Sandy is off the back of your aerial if it's pointing the right way - 271 versus 041. Depending on the aerial type, you may get a signal off Sandy too: some have pretty poor front-to-back ratios and a wider beamwidth off the back. If the reflector is a mesh grid, that won't apply. If it's just a straight element, it will.

[Sharpie]

You don't have to go all the way up the mast! Slacken off the fixings at the chimney and turn the pole

Yes(!) but I was thinking that I would need to get a look at the connections and redo them!

[Keef]

If it's 30 degrees off heading, get that right first and see if it solves the problem. I would expect it to.

By the way, you can test the connection from where the cable joins the amplifier in the attic, without climbing on the roof. Use an ohmmeter (any test meter will have one) and check that the resistance between the inner and the outer of the cable is no more than an ohm or two. If water comes out of the cable when you unscrew the plug, you need a new cable anyway.

Look at the aerial from below (binoculars job) and make sure the cable comes out of the balun box heading downwards. If it's headed upwards and then looping over, the installer has fixed it upside-down. You'd be amazed how many are done that way round here (but it is Suffolk).

[Sharpie]

Is it the case that some tuners store the best channels and some store the first channels first? I have one old freeview box which seems to store all it picks up. My TV only seems to store the strongest ones. Have a look at channels over 800 to see if there are any hidden channels up there.

What's your tuner showing for signal strength and signal quality at the various times? Could be interference from something in the house - like my microwave oven issue!

I'll have a look at the signal strength and also I will have a look at the 800+ channels. I'll also consider if we've introduced any equipment that could interfere...

[Sharpie]

If it's 30 degrees off heading, get that right first and see if it solves the problem. I would expect it to.

Yes, I'll get hold of a suitable compass (I don't have an iphone, would you believe ) but it has given good reception from that orientation over many years. It could be that the strong winds have recently moved it a little, of course.

[Sharpie]

Look at the aerial from below (binoculars job) and make sure the cable comes out of the balun box heading downwards. If it's headed upwards and then looping over, the installer has fixed it upside-down. You'd be amazed how many are done that way round here (but it is Suffolk).

Probably easier to wire it in that way and seems more intuitive to a daft rigger..?
Mine is OK, BTW.