Freeview Problem. Any ideas?

Posted by: Chris Kelly on 24 June 2007

Hi all
I had to unplug my TV and DVD on Saturday morning. Last night when I reconnected them to the mains and the aerial socket I had lost ITV,Channels 4 & 5 and ITV2. I ran the DVB Autotune on both my Panasonic 42" Plasma and the matching HDD/DVD machine. They both scanned and tuned channels 1& 2 then skipped to Channel 7 (BBC3). I also seem to be missing some BBC DAB stations.

Have my devices gone haywire or is there a problem at the transmitter? I am i Sunbury on Thames, using a communal aerial in my block of flats. Never had a problem previously.

Any thoughts?

Posted on: 25 June 2007 by Guido Fawkes

Chris

I'd think it unlikely to be your kit - as you have two items not responding. As a test you could try putting the aerial directly in to the TV as see if you had any luck. However, my guess is it is an aerial or transmitter problem.

Hope you get it sorted

ATB Rotf

Posted on: 25 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

Thanks ROTF.
Missing commercial tv is hardly life threatening, but it is weird!
I noticed that the FM signal seems to be a bit weaker too, so I am inlined to think there is a transmitter issue.
At least the music system is up and running again!

Posted on: 26 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

Thanks munch. I did try again last night but the taste police still wouldn't let ITV, 4, 5 or ITV2 into the flat! Maybe when the pressure rises I'll have another go.

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

I tried again last night, but with the same result. Anybody know of a website where I could bost an enquiry about Freeview?

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

or even post an enquiry!!!

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Steve S1

Chris, if you know the name of your transmitter the BBC usually posts any planned work or power reductions on it's engineering pages. Also on analogue Ceefax.

I dare say the companies that look after the transmitters may do likewise.

Steve

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

Steve
I haven't a clue. How could I find out?
What I don't get is that the tuner seems to work fine and get a good lock on the BBC channels but goes straight from channl 2 to channel 7.
Both devices do the same so I am sure it is the incoming signal and not some weird hardware fault at ly end.

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Steve S1

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Kelly:
or even post an enquiry!!!

Try here.

Find out from your TV dealer which transmitter is yours and you should be able to get info on engineering.

Steve

Posted on: 27 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

Thanks Steve. had a brief look. It's ckock full of info so need a bit more time to read and digest. Will look again when I get home.

Posted on: 28 June 2007 by Chris Kelly

I feel more dumb than I can say! The decorators who were in here at the weekend took all the socket faces off the walls to do a proper job. In removeing and replacing the tv/fm/satellite socket they must have inadvertently dislodged the coax cable so that there was only a minimal contact between it and the outputs. Tonight I reoved the socket cover, reseated the co-ax and voila! The missing channels are suddenly back and the signal strength is back up to 10. At least I didn't completely disgrace myself by callimg in an expert!

Sorry for wasting the time of those kind enough to respond.