Major changes at Winter Hill and others nearby 12 August

A1944

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There are a number of channel changes in the Granada area on 12 August. I have copied this from a post of mine on another forum:

To read the details of the channel changes at Winter Hill, Storeton and others in the Granada region, see this file:

https://www.freeview.co.uk/sites/de...arance-events-granada-region-16-july-2020.pdf

Links for the latest version of this file and the equivalents for other regions can be found here:

Clearance events in 2020 Scroll down below the first (summary) table.

-----------------

There are a few changes in other regions on 12 Aug, but Winter Hill is the big one.
 
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Why do they feel the need to place a NAG screen over the picture when changing channels weeks ahead of the event? I'm sure the day before change would suffice.
 
PICKY737: I cannot say about your kit, but on many there is an entry somewhere in the settings menus to disable the nag screens.
 
Retuning went very smoothly this morning on an old Samsung Monitor/TV, a 20 inch Sharp, a Toshiba 32-inch and a JVC 22 inch. Our old Sony 40-inch had already retuned itself automagically.
 
All looking good here after a manual re-tune. I prefer to do a manual tune (after a factory reset or an automatic re-tune with the aerial unplugged to wipe all the channels) because an automatic tune in my area creates dozens of unwanted duplicate channels higher up the EPG, due to picking up a lot of weaker signals from other transmitters. It's also quicker !

Here is a list of the new UHF frequencies for Winter Hill, just in case this is useful to anyone...

27 GI - Sony Channel+1, Sony Movies Classic etc (weak signal)
29 COM4 (SDN) - Quest, QVC, Drama, 5 USA etc
31 COM5 (ARQA) - Pick, Really, Dave, Quest Red etc
32 PSB1 (BBCA) - BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, CBBC, BBC News etc
34 PSB2 (D3&4) - ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV2 etc
35* PSB3 (BBCB) - BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Ch4, Ch5 (all HD) etc
37 COM6 (ARQB) - Ideal World, Yesterday, Sony Movies etc
55* COM7 (NUK7) - BBC4 HD, BBC News HD, Quest HD, CBeebies HD etc


*mixture of SD and HD channels - DVB-T2 tuner required

These are the 'local' muxes - Manchester, Liverpool and Preston. You might pick up one or more of these. In my case, Manchester is the strongest but I can also pick up Liverpool, which gives a few channels / duplicates at LCN 800+

21 LOC2 (LIV) - Liverpool TV (800), Sony Movies +1 (802)
24 LOC1 (MAN) - That's TV (7), Sony Movies Classic (50)
40 LOC3 (PRE) - Not sure as I don't pick this one up
 
Not sure what's happening here: Backbarrow relay in the Lake District. Following a TV retune it looks like PSB3 (HD channels) has disappeared. Another puzzling thing is that the two remaining muxes are sitting at their old channel positions: 53 and 60. So it seems like some changes have been made but work is not yet completed. Maybe further changes will take place overnight? We had few enough channels as it was!
 
Just wondering if anyone has had any problems in the last day or two with their HD channels on Freeview?

My mum's lost her 106 upward HD channels on her YouView box, and they've also disappeared from the TV in the other room too. I've tried to retune for her, but no luck. I'll be damned at this point if I'm going up on the roof :laugh: But I can't see any problems in the area or anything. And 101-105 are all working fine.
 
Just wondering if anyone has had any problems in the last day or two with their HD channels on Freeview?

My mum's lost her 106 upward HD channels on her YouView box, and they've also disappeared from the TV in the other room too. I've tried to retune for her, but no luck. I'll be damned at this point if I'm going up on the roof :laugh: But I can't see any problems in the area or anything. And 101-105 are all working fine.

Is she on the Winter Hill transmitter (NW UK ?)
 
Those channels (BBC Four HD, BBC News HD etc) are on UHF channel 55 (COM 7) which can be problematic for some, as it falls outside of the range of certain types of aerial and is transmitted at a quarter of the power of the other UHF channels (23kW compared with 100kW). I'm sure I read somewhere that it is also susceptible to interference.

The signal strength for COM 7 is noticeably weaker where I live than the others, so I used to receive it sporadically - some days those channels would be watchable and others they'd be missing completely. In my case, replacing an old length of coax improved the signal strength sufficiently that I can now receive it much more reliably and I haven't had problems since.

I've just checked and I'm receiving those channels fine at the moment. Does her TV or YouView box report signal strengths ? If so, see what you're getting for UHF 55 compared with (for example) the main BBC channels on UHF 32.
 
Those channels (BBC Four HD, BBC News HD etc) are on UHF channel 55 (COM 7) which can be problematic for some, as it falls outside of the range of certain types of aerial and is transmitted at a quarter of the power of the other UHF channels (23kW compared with 100kW). I'm sure I read somewhere that it is also susceptible to interference.

The signal strength for COM 7 is noticeably weaker where I live than the others, so I used to receive it sporadically - some days those channels would be watchable and others they'd be missing completely. In my case, replacing an old length of coax improved the signal strength sufficiently that I can now receive it much more reliably and I haven't had problems since.

I've just checked and I'm receiving those channels fine at the moment. Does her TV or YouView box report signal strengths ? If so, see what you're getting for UHF 55 compared with (for example) the main BBC channels on UHF 32.

There's nothing for signal strength on the TV. 0% for strength and quality.

And when I retuned the YouView box, it removed the channels completely.

I know there's always people kicking off about COM 7 from Winter Hill, and there's always problems of some kind with the signal and strength. This is as bad as it's been though. They were absolutely fine on Wednesday too. All other channels are okay and strong so I suspect it's not the aerial on the roof.

Will see if they reappear when I retune after the weekend, otherwise I'll have to chase up the Freeview people.
 
Could be due to a “lift” which has been reported in the last few days. If a signal is getting through from a distant transmitter, it could have killed the WH signal.

Try again in a few days. In the meantime, use the SD versions.

Edit:. Never a good idea to retune if you lose some channels. You cannot tell when signals return to normal.
 
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Could be due to a “lift” which has been reported in the last few days. If a signal is getting through from a distant transmitter, it could have killed the WH signal.

Try again in a few days. In the meantime, use the SD versions.

Edit:. Never a good idea to retune if you lose some channels. You cannot tell when signals return to normal.

Could you expand on what you mean by "lift"? I haven't seen anything reported but you've obviously found something I haven't.
 
This page describes how certain weather conditions can lead to an effect known as 'tropospheric ducting' which can lead to interference and Freeview reception problems. It might not necessarily be the cause of your current issues, but it's worth bearing in mind.

This warning was also posted in the 'Works and warnings' section on the BBC's Freeview reception help site a few weeks ago - no idea if it's still relevant.
 
Well I just had a quick look whilst I was watching the footy, and found a little discussion forum on Winter Hill. In the last week or so people have been losing COM 7 for no reason they can ascertain. So I'm hoping it comes back to everyone shortly.

Certainly doesn't appear to be any kind of a fault at my mum's house anyway.
 
Could you expand on what you mean by "lift"? I haven't seen anything reported but you've obviously found something I haven't.

There is discussion about the lift here, with particular reference to COM7 from Winter Hill
See from post 5
 

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