charles  wrote:
 

>In article , Edster
> wrote:
>> charles  wrote:
>>  
>
>> >In article , Edster
>> >    wrote:
>> >> charles  wrote:
>> >>  
>> >
>> >> >In article , Zero Tolerance
>> >> >    wrote:
>> >> >> On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:23:27 +0100, Andy Burns
>> >> >>  wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> >Anyone know why have Five Live have recently added "and /now/
>> >> >> >in-car" to their listening methods?
>> >> >
>> >> >> 4Because the BBC have now invented DAB car radios.
>> >> >
>> >> >not so - it's because the Controller has got such a radio in his car
>> >> >;-)
>> >
>> >> She's had one in there for years, she said on Feedback years ago that
>> >> she listens to Radio 3 on a car DAB, that's why R3 is much higher
>> >> quality than everything else.
>> >
>> >are you talking about the same person? The Controller of Radio 5 Live is
>> >male.
>
>> No, the controller of digital radio, the person who gets to decide what
>> bitrates are used.
>
>that person wouldn't decide the Radio 5 Live jingles.

She might request new ones that advertise car DAB radios better.

I was in Leamington Spa yesterday visiting relations who have just moved there.

They're in a Victorian terraced house, with three floors and a chimney a scary 
height above the ground !

Two aerials, one an 18 element, non contract type, another a 10 element 
contract slightly lower down. Both have feeders coming down from roof flapping 
in the wind, one has an indoor splitter wrapped up in insulation tape that 
feeds two rooms. It all needs ripping out, and starting again. However as a 
quick fix to tide them over, I'm planning to replace the 'reachable' parts of 
the installation with new cable, and a Proception active 2 way spitter fed 
from the contract.
The 18 element will become redundant (in fact it is currently).

Both aerials supply very good analogue pictures for the main four. The 
contract aerial additionally supplies a good C5 analogue picture from 
Lichfield. Neither can receive anything from Mux D (Ch 55 so just out of band 
for a Grp B) and the contract struggles a little with Mux C (Ch 52) and Mux 1 
(Ch 41).

Could be lots of reasons, water in the coax, the indoor spitter that's 
outdoors might have rotted away, mismatches everywhere.......

One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does anyone have 
experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? I want to make 
sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the same whack as the other 
four muxes.



-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

In article , Mark Carver says...

> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does anyone have 
> experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? I want to make 
> sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the same whack as the other 
> four muxes.
> 
You'll be wanting this page then which will tell you all you need to 
know with a nice coverage map.

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SK113003

-- 
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't 
looking good either. - Scott Adams

"Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:6c6hrcF3dfeg5U1@mid.individual.net...
>I was in Leamington Spa yesterday visiting relations who have just moved 
>there.
>
> They're in a Victorian terraced house, with three floors and a chimney a 
> scary height above the ground !
>
> Two aerials, one an 18 element, non contract type, another a 10 element 
> contract slightly lower down. Both have feeders coming down from roof 
> flapping in the wind, one has an indoor splitter wrapped up in insulation 
> tape that feeds two rooms. It all needs ripping out, and starting again. 
> However as a quick fix to tide them over, I'm planning to replace the 
> 'reachable' parts of the installation with new cable, and a Proception 
> active 2 way spitter fed from the contract.
> The 18 element will become redundant (in fact it is currently).
>
> Both aerials supply very good analogue pictures for the main four. The 
> contract aerial additionally supplies a good C5 analogue picture from 
> Lichfield. Neither can receive anything from Mux D (Ch 55 so just out of 
> band for a Grp B) and the contract struggles a little with Mux C (Ch 52) 
> and Mux 1 (Ch 41).
>
> Could be lots of reasons, water in the coax, the indoor spitter that's 
> outdoors might have rotted away, mismatches everywhere.......
>
> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does anyone 
> have experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? I want to 
> make sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the same whack as 
> the other four muxes.

Morning Mark,

Sorry I don't know anyone in that area, however using a generic central 
Leamington Spa postcode gives this variable result : 
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/main/trade/CV31+1JQ/NA/0/a1126affb6bb3b2766038c1fd7591742

As an aside, I'm now using group B's on SC with little if any noticeable 
loss in performance on 55. I suspect new ones have slightly better gain at 
the ends of group B, also I don't use contract aerials.

"Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:6c6hrcF3dfeg5U1@mid.individual.net...
>I was in Leamington Spa yesterday visiting relations who have just 
>moved there.
>
> They're in a Victorian terraced house, with three floors and a chimney 
> a scary height above the ground !
>
> Two aerials, one an 18 element, non contract type, another a 10 
> element contract slightly lower down. Both have feeders coming down 
> from roof flapping in the wind, one has an indoor splitter wrapped up 
> in insulation tape that feeds two rooms. It all needs ripping out, and 
> starting again. However as a quick fix to tide them over, I'm planning 
> to replace the 'reachable' parts of the installation with new cable, 
> and a Proception active 2 way spitter fed from the contract.
> The 18 element will become redundant (in fact it is currently).
>
> Both aerials supply very good analogue pictures for the main four. The 
> contract aerial additionally supplies a good C5 analogue picture from 
> Lichfield. Neither can receive anything from Mux D (Ch 55 so just out 
> of band for a Grp B) and the contract struggles a little with Mux C 
> (Ch 52) and Mux 1 (Ch 41).
>
> Could be lots of reasons, water in the coax, the indoor spitter that's 
> outdoors might have rotted away, mismatches everywhere.......
>
> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does 
> anyone have experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? 
> I want to make sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the 
> same whack as the other four muxes.
>
>
>
> -- 
> Mark
> Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.



I do wish people would get away from this idea that a station on a 
channel that is nominally out of band for any given aerial will not be 
received. The aerial does not receive 38-54 and not 37 and 55 - it will 
get them all, just the gain will start to drop off quite quickly out of 
band and it may also cause ghosting (which DTTV does NOT like.)


-- 
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

"Woody"  wrote in message 
news:bLo7k.18311$aE7.16034@newsfe16.ams2...
> "Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
> news:6c6hrcF3dfeg5U1@mid.individual.net...
>> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does anyone 
>> have experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? I want to 
>> make sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the same whack as 
>> the other four muxes.
>
> I do wish people would get away from this idea that a station on a channel 
> that is nominally out of band for any given aerial will not be received. 
> The aerial does not receive 38-54 and not 37 and 55 - it will get them 
> all, just the gain will start to drop off quite quickly out of band

Very quickly above the design range. I've been surprised at how the ch55 mux 
suffers with a Gp aerial. In extremis (got a B but no E) grind 5mm off the 
ends of the six or eight shortest directors.

>and it may also cause ghosting (which DTTV does NOT like.)
It doesn't not like it as much as analogue does not like it.

Bill

Woody wrote:



|| just the gain will start to drop off quite quickly out of band and it may 
also cause ghosting (which DTTV does NOT like.)
||
||


I live in an area of low signal strength [Mendip] which also sufferers from 
very bad multi-path reception, in fact today the ghosting and signal level 
is fluctuating really badly on analogue because of the effect of high winds 
on surrounding trees, none of which is having the slightest effect on my 
digital reception, this despite the muxes being at the very top end of the 
band which sufferers most on analogue here.

In fact digital reception has always been so rock solid that I have long 
since given up using analogue altogether, I was also under the impression 
that in some instances DVB reception can actually be enhanced by multi-path 
reception.

Conor wrote:
> In article , Mark Carver says...
> 
>> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does anyone have 
>> experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area ? I want to make 
>> sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the same whack as the other 
>> four muxes.
>>
> You'll be wanting this page then which will tell you all you need to 
> know with a nice coverage map.
> 
> http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SK113003

Thanks, but the maps on that site are unreliable. They don't take into account 
directional nulls, that are often present on one or more muxes from some 
transmitters.

The map for my local Tx, Hannington, is total nonsense for instance, as no DTT 
radiation is actually directed eastwards. However, UK Free have simply taken 
the analogue coverage map, and assumed that DTT is the same.


-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Bill Wright wrote:
> "Woody"  wrote in message 

>> I do wish people would get away from this idea that a station on a channel 
>> that is nominally out of band for any given aerial will not be received. 
>> The aerial does not receive 38-54 and not 37 and 55 - it will get them 
>> all, just the gain will start to drop off quite quickly out of band
> 
> Very quickly above the design range. I've been surprised at how the ch55 mux 
> suffers with a Gp aerial. In extremis (got a B but no E) grind 5mm off the 
> ends of the six or eight shortest directors.

While I'm not silly enough to expect predicable performance out of band, is 
the roll off on lower gain aerials generally not as steep as with high gain ?
Theory suggests a yagi is always a compromise between gain and bandwidth, 
what's your practical experience Bill ?

I did note Ch 37 performance was much better on the lower gain cheapy contract 
aerial, than the better looking 18 element. I'm assuming both are 'old style' 
Group Bs (39-53), but there could still be a pile of variables at play.


-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

> Very quickly above the design range. I've been surprised at how the ch55 
> mux
> suffers with a Gp aerial. In extremis (got a B but no E) grind 5mm off the 
> ends of the six or eight shortest directors.


Interesting. The Anti TCX18 B/K I used recently seemed to have better gain 
on the 55 MUX than a couple of the lower ones. My own XG10E/W is almost 
directly behind this installation (by about 100 metres) and all the MUX's 
are at a very similar level.

Doctor D wrote:

> Sorry I don't know anyone in that area, however using a generic central 
> Leamington Spa postcode gives this variable result : 
> http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/main/trade/CV31+1JQ/NA/0/a1126affb6bb3b2766038c1fd7591742 

Good thinking, I'd forgotten about that. Looks better than that chucking their 
postcode in:-

http://www.markyboy.net/lemspa.jpg

> As an aside, I'm now using group B's on SC with little if any noticeable 
> loss in performance on 55. I suspect new ones have slightly better gain 
> at the ends of group B, also I don't use contract aerials.

Something I seem to recall from several years in here, is that many Sutton 
Coldfield folk get away with Group Bs for the Ch 55 mux ?


-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

"Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:6c75daF3c0te6U1@mid.individual.net...
> Bill Wright wrote:
> While I'm not silly enough to expect predicable performance out of band, 
> is the roll off on lower gain aerials generally not as steep as with high 
> gain ?

I don't know. However, in time-honoured newsgroup tradition I will make 
something up to fill the gap (1). In general I don't see why the roll off 
should be more because a high gain aerial won't be more narrowly tuned than 
a low gain one. Of course the 'starting point' will be higher so in that 
sense . . . yes, I suppose . . .

In general yagis drop off very quickly above their design range; less 
quickly below it. This is one reason why TETRA can be a problem. A Gp A 
aerial (470 to 600MHz) vertically polarised and looking at a relay that is 
co-sited with the TETRA mast will pick up uncomfortably large amounts of 
390ish MHZ TETRA.  It will even demonstrate vaguely rational directional 
characteristics.

(1) Inventing facts to fill a void in knowledge is a human characteristic 
that also explains Ancient Greek medicine and all religion.

> Theory suggests a yagi is always a compromise between gain and bandwidth, 
> what's your practical experience Bill ?
Yes it is. Hence my recent experiments with narrow band aerials for parts of 
the FM band, as described in these pages on a previous occasion (if anyone's 
interested in this I'll dig it out). Hence also
http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/aerialphotography/modern/006.html


Bill

"Mark Carver" <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote in message 
news:6c778mF3fj0a2U1@mid.individual.net...
> Doctor D wrote:
>
>> Sorry I don't know anyone in that area, however using a generic central 
>> Leamington Spa postcode gives this variable result : 
>> http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/main/trade/CV31+1JQ/NA/0/a1126affb6bb3b2766038c1fd7591742
>
> Good thinking, I'd forgotten about that. Looks better than that chucking 
> their postcode in:-
>
> http://www.markyboy.net/lemspa.jpg
>
>> As an aside, I'm now using group B's on SC with little if any noticeable 
>> loss in performance on 55. I suspect new ones have slightly better gain 
>> at the ends of group B, also I don't use contract aerials.
>
> Something I seem to recall from several years in here, is that many Sutton 
> Coldfield folk get away with Group Bs for the Ch 55 mux ?

They almost always do. The power is a bit higher though, and there isn't the 
CCI from Emley analogue which causes a lot of probs in some areas.

Bill

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid>  wrote:

> I was in Leamington Spa yesterday visiting relations who have just
> moved there.
> They're in a Victorian terraced house, with three floors and a
> chimney a scary height above the ground !
>
> Two aerials, one an 18 element, non contract type, another a 10
> element contract slightly lower down. Both have feeders coming down
> from roof flapping in the wind, one has an indoor splitter wrapped up
> in insulation tape that feeds two rooms. It all needs ripping out,
> and starting again. However as a quick fix to tide them over, I'm
> planning to replace the 'reachable' parts of the installation with
> new cable, and a Proception active 2 way spitter fed from the
> contract. The 18 element will become redundant (in fact it is currently).
>
> Both aerials supply very good analogue pictures for the main four. The
> contract aerial additionally supplies a good C5 analogue picture from
> Lichfield. Neither can receive anything from Mux D (Ch 55 so just out
> of band for a Grp B) and the contract struggles a little with Mux C
> (Ch 52) and Mux 1 (Ch 41).
>
> Could be lots of reasons, water in the coax, the indoor spitter that's
> outdoors might have rotted away, mismatches everywhere.......
>
> One question before I waste any of their money, and my time. Does
> anyone have experience of reception of Sutton Coldfield in that area
> ? I want to make sure that Muxes C and D are beamed that way with the
> same whack as the other four muxes.

I live just the other side of Warwick from Leamington, in a potentially 
worse reception area 'cos we're in the shadow of Hatton Hill. Nevertheless, 
I get *reasonable* reception from all 6 SC muxes using a Gp B aerial - so 
the same should also be true in Leamington, I would have thought.

I also get pretty good CH5 analog reception from Litchfield - whose 
direction from my house is only a couple of degrees different from SC.

There is, of course, a Leamington Spa relay - located on the Campion Hills - 
but I can't find any evidence that it currently transmits any digital, so 
maybe it won't until after switch-over. It's pretty low power anyway - but 
does serve some parts of Leamington - but maybe only with analog signals, in 
which case it won't help you at the moment. But it may be worth checking out 
in case I'm missing something.
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Roger Mills wrote:

[snip]

> There is, of course, a Leamington Spa relay - located on the Campion Hills - 
> but I can't find any evidence that it currently transmits any digital, so 
> maybe it won't until after switch-over. It's pretty low power anyway - but 
> does serve some parts of Leamington - but maybe only with analog signals, in 
> which case it won't help you at the moment. But it may be worth checking out 
> in case I'm missing something.

Thanks Roger.

Yes, I'm aware of the Leamington relay. It's line of sight, and only about a 
mile away from the house. Provides a smashing analogue signal, but as you 
suspect no DTT until DSO in Sept 2011. It does transmit BBC 1 analogue on UHF 
Ch 56, so I am mindful it might be splashing across onto Mux D/Ch 55 from 
Sutton and not helping the situation.

-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid>  wrote:

>
> Yes, I'm aware of the Leamington relay. It's line of sight, and only
> about a mile away from the house. Provides a smashing analogue
> signal, but as you suspect no DTT until DSO in Sept 2011. It does
> transmit BBC 1 analogue on UHF Ch 56, so I am mindful it might be
> splashing across onto Mux D/Ch 55 from Sutton and not helping the
> situation.

I think it's vertically polarised though, so you shouldn't pick up much on 
your Sutton aerial.
-- 
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

Roger Mills wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid>  wrote:
> 
>> Yes, I'm aware of the Leamington relay. It's line of sight, and only
>> about a mile away from the house. Provides a smashing analogue
>> signal, but as you suspect no DTT until DSO in Sept 2011. It does
>> transmit BBC 1 analogue on UHF Ch 56, so I am mindful it might be
>> splashing across onto Mux D/Ch 55 from Sutton and not helping the
>> situation.
> 
> I think it's vertically polarised though, so you shouldn't pick up much on 
> your Sutton aerial.

Oh it did !  There's was loads of signal, full of ghosting of course. Also had 
quite strong signals from the Lark Stoke relay, but covered in co-channel 
interference from The Wrekin (or possibly vice versa !).

-- 
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.