Intermittently losing channels

[trimmtrab]

Up until a month ago, reception on freeview Youview box was fine. recently I am losing then regaining channels and having to retune 5 or 6x daily. It is not socket as have tried alternative socket in other room. It is not HDMI as have changed that. Have factory reset box. Have unplugged all and checked all leads. Can't see any apparent issues

Maybe its box or aerial cable. I live in a block of flats on 3rd floor. Nearest transmitter is Oxford. Have looked on Freeview website and checked there are no engineering work. Not been excessive weather recently

Any ideas, anyome? Anything I haven't tried?

[zulu17]

Well Freeview website has been giving information recently about high pressure potentially affecting signals eg 

https://www.freeview.co.uk/help/updates-alerts/high-pressure-september-2023

[trimmtrab]

Thanks, this has never happened in 13 years of having equipmnet including hot summers before. Seems a little out of date range too. Maybe. I can watch most stuff on catch up but it is the record on more obscure channels like Talking Pics TV that I really want.

Thank you for link. It is appreciated

[zulu17]

Is it your own aerial or a communal one , in which case do neighbours have issues ?

Seeing the effect of plugging aerial direct into TV ( obviously when you are not recording on your BT TV box) to see if you experience issues on the TV as well.

checking signal strength and quality can be useful as too high a signal may cause issues. remember Freeview does have different multiplexers that are on different frequencies  transmiting batches of channels so expect a range of different values .

[Paul608085]

@trimmtrab

"Thanks, this has never happened in 13 years of having equipmnet including hot summers before."

A bit of background that you might not be aware of:

When the UK first switched over to Digital Terrestrial Television, (completed in 2012), there were 48 UHF channels available to the broadcasters to transmit the six multiplexes on, (3 on Freeview Lite transmitters), ignoring the temporary COMs 7 and 8. Theses were known as UHF 21 to 68.

Since 2012, there have been two reductions to the number of UHF channels available. Firstly channels 61 to 68 went, and a few years later 49 to 60 were also "lost" - sold to mobile phone companies in both cases.

The outcome of this is that the broadcasters now only have access to 28 UHF channels, (21 to 48), but they still transmit the same 6 (3) multiplexes on. What this means is that there is a lot more sharing of frequencies across the country than there used to be, so interference due to the warm weather will be seen by more people and more often now than in the past.

There isn't much that can be done about this unfortunately.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Paul608085 @trimmtrab @zulu17 

We’re getting breakup on terrestrial channels, with one or two complete losses for a minute or two, though we haven’t needed to actually retune.

Freesat has been fine, and we’ve taken to watching Sky News  on the internet - where the quality is better than terrestrial SD anyway.

Not found any interrupted recorded programmes on YouView, but I think that’s just luck.

We’ll review it if it continues now the weather has broken.

[trimmtrab]

It’s a communal. I have asked the few neighbours I know and most don’t use freeview anymore.

not enough, people asked to get a consensus. Thing is I could understand getting zero channels each time I retune, but sometimes I get zero channels, sometimes just the BBC channels, and sometimes every channel, but only for a short time.

I have reported too estate management company, but these things take a bit of time as you know

[trimmtrab]

Have checked regualr TV with aerial and same issues. Can’t record on BT TV as no signal so not a problem!!

[Paul608085]

@Midnight_Voice 

"though we haven’t needed to actually retune."

The general advice is to NOT retune  when these sort of issues occur - you are more likely to make things worse.

All you can normally do is just wait until the enhanced propagation, (as it is called), subsides, and "normality" returns.