272 replies to this topic

[alanh]

NQtiger,
You are in the Sunshine Coast coverage area. Go to the first post in this strand, go to the H5 link to select an antenna. Point it at Bald Knob.

AlanH

[DWest]

Hi Alan, Could you help I live on the north east side of Mt Coolum & the T.V. hasn't been good, it'll come up with messages through the dvd recorder as "unable to decode" it will go black & only comes back after switching channels up & down & obvoiusly the reception will crackle in & out , we get all the stations through either the dvd recorder or the set top box. Don't know if it's the mountain or the equipment. Cheers Daniel

[alanh]

Daniel,
I cannot answer your question unless I know exactly where you are.
You can either post here or when you have 5 posts, you can message me with your exact location.

AlanH

[DWest]

Sorry Alan, I'm at frasco court, lat -26.55 log 153.08, dont know whether that helps.Daniel

[alanh]

Daniel,
You have two choices as far as transmitters goes.
Sunrise Rd Tewantin. The antenna must have the part connected to the cable must be vertical  true bearing 331 degrees.
Bald Knob west of Nambour The antenna must have the part connected to the cable must be horizontal true bearing 245 degrees

Read the first post in this strand for more details including the link to basic antennas and the antenna drawings.

Try the above directions. If that does not fix the your problem, post again.

AlanH

[andrew1964]

Alan (or anyone else for that matter), I am having trouble with channel 7, both analog and digital.  The analog reception is at best grainy with ghosting, at worst so snowy it is unwatchable (rare, but it does happen).  Digital is usually marked by picture freezing, dropouts and at worst no signal for seconds and even minutes at a time.  All the other channels are very good to perfect, which confuses me because I thought all the channels broadcast from the same tower?   The signal strength bar for ch7 / 7two is low (3 - 4), but all other channels are very high (9 - 9.5)

As background info, I am in Orana Ave just out of Pomona towards Boreen Point.  My antenna is aimed at Black Mountain.  It is a Hills antenna, phased array 4 yrs old, with a booster.  I have been reading all of these pages and have checked the following:

- antenna connections are tight.  Some corroded bolts holding all the bits together (you would think they would use galvanised or stainless nuts and bolts by now) but the actual cable connections are pretty good.  Quad shielded cable and proper connectors in use all the way to the wall plug.

- booster. connections clean and tight. gain was at the lowest of two settings. I got slightly better analog reception on 7 by choosing the higher gain (can't remember the numbers) but digital reception didn't change.  I am mindful of the digital cliff and the fact that too much boost can send it over the edge, but having tried it on both settings I can not pick any difference.

- I have tried changing the direction of the antenna to no avail, the best reception is where it was at originally, pointing about SSW (no compass) which as far as I can tell from google earth is directly at black mountain. I haven't tried lifting it higher yet, that will be a bit of an exercise so it's a last resort if you think that may help.

So, I am at a loss.  Is this as good as it gets for digital?  With good reception on all other channels I really shouldn't care, except that the family's favorite shows are all on 7 !!

HELP!!!!

Andrew

edit: PS I have noticed that it's a lot worse at  prime time ie around 7.30 pm.  For example, tonight I couldn't watch better homes and gardens at 7.30, but just now (9.15pm) I have checked reception again and it's OK again. Frustrating !

Edited by andrew1964, 15 May 2010 - 08:21 PM.

[alanh]

Andrew,
Message me your exact address

AlanH

[andrew1964]

alanh, on May 20 2010, 05:06 AM, said:

Andrew,
Message me your exact address

AlanH

Hi Alan, PM sent but it didn't appear in my sent items folder do I don't know if you will get it or not.  If not, let me know and I will try again or else post it up here.

Cheers
Andrew

[Wombat2]

As a matter of interest I am 550 meters almost due south of the Tewantin transmitter yet everyone around me (including mine) is pointing south - not at Dulong or Bald Knob - probably Brisbane - WHY?

[M'bozo]

Wombat2, on Jul 15 2010, 02:44 PM, said:

As a matter of interest I am 550 meters almost due south of the Tewantin transmitter yet everyone around me (including mine) is pointing south - not at Dulong or Bald Knob - probably Brisbane - WHY?

I'm guessing that was to get digital reception before the local translator started up, or for the reason James enunciated here: click

[Wombat2]

M'bozo, on Jul 15 2010, 03:30 PM, said:

I'm guessing that was to get digital reception before the local translator started up, or for the reason James enunciated here: click

Actually it was that way long before digital (16 years in our case) and only ABC from the Tewantin tower so I guess that's my answer - might buck the trend and see what I get  

[Seacomms]

Thanks Stump.  Since then I have gone around and checked and cleaned all connections and angled the antenna down a little more (seemed to be angled up way to much).  Reception on WIN has improved and not been too bad since.  I think I may need to check the splitter in the ceiling as I dont know what the sparky used when it was installed (its 10 years old).

However woke up this morning and there is no channel 7!  Seven 1, an 2 and the High Def.  Damn, no Mel and Koshy before work   All 3 are showing no signal at all. Very strange!

Cheers, Dave.



EDIT: Back at home tonight and all is good again

Edited by Seacomms, 08 September 2010 - 06:37 PM.

[Seacomms]

stump_1100, on Sep 30 2010, 05:03 PM, said:

I did some field strength tests in your area (checking digital signal from Tewantin tower) and the results were very good. We did a very minor adjustment to the WIN DTV service but this should have had little effect in your area, mainly effected mush zones.

Cheers

Nice...

Has been good for the last few weeks, but during the heavy rain it was shocking (as to be expected), but now its still shocking (on WIN and a little on ABC) with no wind and no rain!  ABC is bearable, WIN is unwatchable.  You get a horizontal digital breakup line (2 or 3 of them) across the screen and the sound drops out 3 or 4 times a second.

I might have to bite the bullet and get someone out to check the signal strength in the house

[Serendigity]

Hi all,

I have moved house and I now live on the edge of Maleny at alt 435m. I am 6.9km from the Bald Knob transmitter on a true bearing of 291.5 degrees from Bald Knob. In theory I should get good digital reception. I have a reasonably modern UHF digital aerial and booster box and also a VHF aerial. The problem is that I have a double row of 25 year old hoop pines and eucalyptus trees directly across the road from me. These trees are all over 30m in height and directly block the line to Bald Knob. As a result I cannot get decent reception from Bald Knob for ABC or SBS, and mediocre reception on the commercial channels.  I can get occasionally watchable reception from Mt Cootha Brisbane. Two TV installation guys have been to have a look and go up on the roof with their gizmos to check signal strengths. One suggested I could try spending over $800 on a high pole with new aerial, but he was unable to confirm it would totally solve my problems.  The irony is that analogue reception here on ABC is quite watchable. Any suggestions?  I am considering selling my TV and just sticking with downloaded TV via the internet.

Regards,

Steve

[MrCurlyWhirly]

Hi Guys,

We are having problems picking up WIN lcn 8/68 from Barsons rd Montville. The antenna is a high gain UHF style (similar to the Matchmaster 02MM -DG91) and is pointing at Dulong(around 6kms away, not direct line of sight), all cabling has been replaced with quad shielded RG6, and connectors are all F type. All other digi channels are fine, including GEM and GO (80 and 88).

Any ideas folks? This was the existing antenna installed before we purchased the house, is it not sufficiently high gain to pick up the high channel number?

Edited by MrCurlyWhirly, 09 January 2011 - 12:10 AM.

[MrCurlyWhirly]

stump_1100, on Jan 9 2011, 10:08 AM, said:

Being able to get GEM and Go immediately rules out an RF problem ( so I can rest easy that my transmittter is ok) as all LCNs are transmitted on the same RF signal. I'm no expert on the many types of set top boxes out there but I can only suggest that a rescan might be in order.

Thanks for the quick response.

I have tried a number of rescans without any success, perhaps its an issue with the tuner card. I'm not using a set top box, just a lappy running media center, with a digi tuner card for testing as we haven't moved everything into the house yet (still renovating..).

I just wanted to ensure i have everything setup optimally before bringing the PVR up here.

[MrCurlyWhirly]

MrCurlyWhirly, on Jan 9 2011, 11:30 AM, said:

Thanks for the quick response.

I have tried a number of rescans without any success, perhaps its an issue with the tuner card. I'm not using a set top box, just a lappy running media center, with a digi tuner card for testing as we haven't moved everything into the house yet (still renovating..).

I just wanted to ensure i have everything setup optimally before bringing the PVR up here.

Just deleted and rescanned all the channels again, i am picking up GO - GEM and WIN on the channel list at 809MHz when i scan,  GO and GEM look fine (even in the current deluge), while WIN is just logging 'no data available' in MC. So no joy.

[MrCurlyWhirly]

stump_1100, on Jan 9 2011, 04:41 PM, said:

Ok from a transmission point of view it makes no sense that you can get a picture on GEM and GO but not the WIN SD channel (before anyone jumps in yeah I know they are all mostly SD anyway). I know of no issues with the program stream coming out of the studio mux so it can only be your STB (in this case laptop and media centre).  I'd be checking it with another STB just to see what that can receive and decode...what abbout neighbours? If you have any, are they having the same issue?

cheers

I waven't checked in here for a while, was more concerned about the hydro stream coming into the property than than the digital stream!

I don't really have much to test the signal with at the moment, apart from a very flaky Thomson stb, so will wait until i can get back to our place in Brisbane to pickup the PVR. That has a quite a sensitive huappage hd digi tuner card.

I'm wondering whether our antenna may be a little off the correct direction from the transmitter, it is one of the more directional (91 element) yagi style, i have noticed although it picks up GO and GEM the top section (10%) of the picture is getting occasional flickering noise on both channels.

I'm pretty sure the neighbours (who are a few hundred metres around the mountain and probably 10-15 metres higher) have the multi plate phased array style mounted on their roof, haven't checked what their WIN reception is like yet.

Will wait and see what the PVR can pickup, may be a while before we can get it here..

[steven1221]

Hi i live in Pomona and until around the 8/01/11 we had good digital reception now we only have analogue reception anybody have any ideas as to why this could be happening?