[angustay]

Not sure whether this is the right place to post this. A while a go I said after DSO many area's in our town and surrounding area freeview would not be an option as we rely on a relay transmitter to get around a hill that blocks most signals and was wondering if anywhere else would have problems similar to ours. DSO has not happend yet but rescanning of the channels seems to have caused problems for many people in Darwen who have been told they have to get satellite and in our area some are being told this as well. I was lucky and told a few years back that DSO would not be as successfull as predicted and as the picture was breaking up all the time anyway I went with Freesat. After DSO will things improve or get worse as I have heard many people are going with satellite as a safe option. People I know in media are very pessimistic about DSO but the government and the BBC seem positive. Should people not be given the right information now so we can prepare for DSO many people not just the elderly are still confused over DSO because of conflicting information.

http://www.blackburncitizen.co.uk/ne...TV_switchover/

Sorry if it seem's like a rant I really wanted to know if other area's have similar problems since the retune and will the problem's escalate after DSO but I guess know one no one will know untill it happens.

[Winston_1]

This applies to anyone who is dependent on a relay transmitter for their TV, not just the 6000 in Darwen. It's because the powers that be did not mandate that all services should be available to everyone like they did for the 4 analogue services all those years ago. This not only suited the commercial operators who saved a lot of money, it also suited the government as they can now sell of lots of frequency spectrum.
Complain to your MP.

[reslfj]

Originally Posted by Winston_1

...it also suited the government as they can now sell of lots of frequency spectrum.

This I believe is NOT correct. The small relays were never expected to have all 6 (or more) muxes nor would it be possible in the current MFN planning environment.

The figure I have seen is 'maybe up to 200 TX sites with 6 muxes' - this is up from the current 80, but very far from the 1100+ TX sites in the UK.

Lars

[Dr.OliverTwich]

DigitalUk were supposed to manage people's expectations of the services available from relay transmitters. It was part of their remit, but it seems they failed and/or the papers just like a 'knocking' story.

The spectrum planners were never tasked to try to provide universal 6 mux coverage as the commercial services would not stand the associated transmitter build costs. Even if they had the spectrum planners would not have been able to do this and provide a 'digital dividend' for government.

I suppose, at least, that they will ALL get the High Definition service when it is launched as Freeview have squeezed all the public services onto two frequencies (muxes) and cleared the third for the new HD one! (Something that DigitalUK could well do with advertising in my opinion).

[ejstubbs]

Originally Posted by angustay

many people in Darwen who have been told they have to get satellite and in our area some are being told this as well.

If someone is telling them this in order to get them to sign up for Sky then they may be guilty of mis-selling.

Originally Posted by angustay

as the picture was breaking up all the time anyway I went with Freesat. After DSO will things improve or get worse

After DSO you will be able to get two Freeview SD muxes from your local relay. Prior to DSO there would have been no muxes broadcast from the relay at all, so any digital coverage you might have got would have been from a main transmitter. The very fact that you have a local relay suggests that reception from the main transmitter is poor in your area, hence the problems you may have seen with digital reception before DSO. Post-DSO your Freeview reception of the two PSB muxes should improve, but you might notice the loss of the channels on the three commercial muxes which won't be on your local relay. On the other hand, the power of the digital transmissions from the main transmitter will also be increased at DSO so you may find that you can successfully receive all six muxes from there after all.

Originally Posted by angustay

http://www.blackburncitizen.co.uk/ne...TV_switchover/

Apart from the disgracefully misleading headline, that article actually explains what is happening reasonably well. The inaccuracies are:
1) No-one is going to be "left in the dark". After DSO, people who currently use the Darwen relay will end up with more channels available through their aerial than they had previously.
2) "Residents have now complained to Digital UK and MP Janet Anderson, asking for the strength of the relay signal to be boosted." The issue is nothing to do with the strength of the signal from the relay.

Points which deserve further clarification are:
1) "Viewers in the central and western parts of the town have been told they will have to buy Sky subscription or sign up for Freesat if they want to view the full range of commercial channels." If they don't get Sky or Freesat they should still be able to receive 15 channels on the two post-DSO muxes.
2) "He added: “Shopping channels and others broadcast by commercial channels are not available on any relay station because they have chosen not to build into it, or because the transmission signals are not good enough.”" What "transmission signals" does he mean, and how does their quality affect the availability of channels from a relay? If the mux isn't being broadcast, it's not being broadcast.

[Winston_1]

Originally Posted by Dr.OliverTwich

The spectrum planners were never tasked to try to provide universal 6 mux coverage as the commercial services would not stand the associated transmitter build costs. Even if they had the spectrum planners would not have been able to do this and provide a 'digital dividend' for government.

As I said, "it's convenient for the government who can now sell off the spectrum space".

With proper planning and appropriate guard intervals it should be possible to make each region a SFN. The whole UHF band and possibly band 3 would be required but that is what they are for, broadcasting.

[wgmorg]

OR the *con artists ... in order to misinform about DSO.

Originally Posted by ejstubbs

If someone is telling them this in order to get them to sign up for Sky then they may be guilty of mis-selling.

[reslfj]

Originally Posted by Winston_1

As I said, "it's convenient for the government who can now sell off the spectrum space".

You are wrong and repeating it doesn't make it right.

The frequencies used by the small relay transmitters have always been allocated after the frequencies allocation at the main/large transmitters.

The 'Digital Dividend' and the potential use of the UHF bands for non TV broadcast is based on the frequency use at the main/large transmitters ONLY.

In some parts of the UK 'special' small SFN's are used in order to save frequencies where many small transmitters are close.

With proper planning and appropriate guard intervals it should be possible to make each region a SFN.

The UK asked - for the GE06 agreement - for channel allocation for each TX site that were within an aerial group.
This is not possible to change in the short/medium term to make large SFN's.

Aerials in the UK have always been grouped. Large SFN's will require new aerials for a very large number of households. It would have made pre-DSO DTT and DSO itself very difficult indeed. Just look at the current problems with the far simpler retuning procedure.

There is a (semi-) 'sweet spot' around channel 35-37 that is part of both group A and group B and which many C/D aerials will be able to receive too.

In the longer term - post DSO - I am sure the current aerial groups will be redefined. Smaller aerials need only to be wideband ch21-60. Only the very large aerials may need to be grouped into A ch21-37 and H(igh) ch33-60.

but that is what they are for, broadcasting.

No frequency is there for any specific purpose - they are just frequencies. But they can be use to service society in several important ways. You may have all your interest in broadcasting, but clearly other applications are important as well.

Lars