Freeview reception problems?

[JGD]

Go on, you know you want to

[alywin]

Transmission bands in the UK were "cleared out" somewhat starting over two years ago to accommodate 5G.

The Freeview bods restructured their bands and decreed that older forms of external aerials were no longer technically suited for the job of receiving the re-organised bands and offered free aerial renewals and re-tuning. It worked fairly well for a lot of people but I am not sure what the take up rate was.

I think that may provide a pointer to you that an old ring aerial might just be a tad below par.

Ah, that might explain a lot. I'm guessing they didn't do a lot to advertise it - like actually put messages on the TV where people might see them?

BTW, when I say ring aerial I mean something along the lines of this - except possibly a bit cheaper?:

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9308332 ... lp:term:tv aerial:4:19:1

[alywin]

While looking through the Argos catalogue, I noticed that most of the aerials have 3G/4G-blocking features. That made me wonder: could phone signals be a possible cause of the loss of picture, especially if someone tends to make calls at a similar time of day?

[alywin]

Well, here's a weird thing, or at least it seems weird to me:

The other day, I was recording something off the TV on the hard drive. I switched on the TV just before the end of the programme, and was annoyed to see that the picture was pixellating and distorting badly during the credits, because it was something I was thinking I might keep. Yet when I watched through the recording later it was clear as a bell! So that sort of suggests that it's the signal to the TV which is the problem rather than the incoming signal to the recorder, which is connected directly to the aerial, whereas the TV signal loops through via the recorder.

[JGD]

I have experienced similar pixilation difficulties with "live" viewing and then found the recorded version to be perfectly clear.

I am not at all sure why the equipment - and I am using different devices connected to different aerials - produce such varied qualities.

Signal strength may be playing a part of course - and engineers do vary signal broadcast strengths whilst maintenance work is being carried out on transmitters.

Bad weather appears to be adding to the problems today in a very significant way.

[Chiny]

No transmitter issues at the time of this post:
https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Crystal_Palace

Hmm, 200,000 watts of TV power these days; I guess that is a big drop from the old analogue 405 line days. My mother claimed until her dying day that one day (early 60s) she was quietly ironing, listening to the Home Service (BBC R4), when she was horrified to hear gun shots. She was a tough cookie and calmly put the iron down to investigate, to discover it was a mid-afternoon film on TV, with the sound coming out of the flat plate of her iron. Sounds feasible, 1,000,000 watts of analogue rf, just a mile away, rattling the iron.

I'm always amazed what dodgy aerials can receive TV; co-ax cabling full of water, aerial itself not cabled due to being shaken loose over the years, pointing the wrong way, vertical/horizontal polarisation muddle...but the signal can sometimes get through. My old dentist declared some of his patients received TV sound on fillings (bad old days, mercury ISTR).

[mosy]

I've noticed a bit of halting or pixelation when the wind & rain was bad. I record to my computer whereby a right mouse-click offers four playback software options. Dodgy programmes sometimes hang or crash altogether on one but will play via another.

Purely a guess, but maybe at time of recording the momentary hesitation/buffering is visibly taking place, whereas, once recorded, the after bits are recorded so the before bit simply moves to the next full bit and, if pixellated so only half the info is there, speeds through those bits quicker so unnoticeably.

[rbmartin]

Only one of the Freeview multiplexes, COM7, which broadcasts HD channels such as QVC HD and Russia Today is in the frequency range which has been allocated to 5G mobiles and that will close in 2022.

Considering how close we are to the Crystal Palace transmitter, an indoor aerial in most circumstances should work fine with Freeview.