[mythtv-users] Poor reception lately

[malcolm]

On 19/11/10 23:00, Andre wrote:
> On 19 Nov 2010, at 22:34, Damian wrote:
>
>    
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I use the Mendip Transmitter (I think!?)  here in the UK and have had a terrible signal on BBC1 the last couple of weeks. It comes and goes, but is mainly bad.
>>
>> I have tried rescanning everything several times which has varied results. It always brings up loads of duplicates, but used to at least grab every channel. Recently it seems hit and miss. One scan missed out Channel 4. The last scan seems to have BBC2 missing. And throughout these variations, BBC1 seems to be fairly consistently bad reception.
>>
>> Anyone else having problems?
>>
>> I had my signal checked out by an ariel company less than a year ago. They sold me a signal booster that seemed to give a pretty good signal from their readings and all was fine since then until now.
>>
>> I'm thinking of buying something like this:
>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philex-SLx-27867R-Digital-Strength/dp/B001GXQUNQ/ref=pd_bxgy_ce_text_b
>> to take into the loft and see if I can improve things by tweaking the ariel angle.
>>      
> check out femon (front end monitor) it will probably tell you as much as a row of five leds!
>
> As your scans are missing some channels at various times then your signal is either too weak, too strong or is picking up some interference.
>
> Looks like Mendip has gone to full power back in April with analog switch off, if you needed an amplifier a while ago maybe now you have too much signal? Was the aerial company visit after April 7th or before?
>
>    
>> It would probably be good if I could work out which transports were the Mendip ones, and only scan for signals from there. Can anyone tell me how to do that? Whenever I've tried to look into it it looks bizarrely complicated. I'd have thought Myth could just pick up the strongest signal, but I assume it's much more complicated than that. What do I know?
>>      
> Myth will pick up everything it can receive, it's up to you to pick the good ones, lots of set top boxes are much the same and get very confused if they can see two transmitters.
>
> It's also possible another more remote region (South Wales somewhere maybe) has just done analog switch off and now you are getting interference from them or just picking up the weaker signals.
>
>    
>> Any ideas on how to improve this?
>>      
> I'd try without the amp first, you need to take the amp out of circuit and re-connect the aerial cables rather than just turning off the power to the amp, apologies if you already know how to suck eggs ;-)
>
>    
>> Thanks
>> Damian
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>>      
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>    
I can confirm that Mendip is now much more powerful. The chances are you 
are only now seeing the full signal as the weather has changed and any 
foliage has dropped.

I also recommend trying a scan with your amp taken out. An attenuator in 
line or a splitter is another way of controlling signal reduction if needed.
I can also confirm the potential for interference / conflict with other 
stations. My system external antenna is pointing at Mendip but I can 
also pick up all of the Wenvoe channels on the same polarisation even 
though my alignment to that transmitter is out by 90degrees and I'm at 
least 40 miles away from it.