Unable to receive BBC 4 HD after Freeview retune

[Adlopa]

The 21 March Crystal Palace Freeview retune appears to have broken my YouView (Humax DTR-T2100) box's ability to receive BBC 4 HD.

I had no reception issues before the retune, but it took several manual retunes (aerial disconnected, etc) following the transmitter rejig before the box would find BBC 4 HD and, even then, the signal strength is too wildly variable for the channel to be watchable.

Freeview kindly arranged an engineer visit, which confirmed that there were no aerial or cable issues and the signal into the property is OK – and my Freeview HD TV picks up BBC 4 HD without issue.

So, the issue appears to lie with the YouView box, but all YouView can suggest is fitting a signal booster – which, as the engineers confirmed, isn't the issue. 

I know someone else with the same box and problem from the same transmitter, so this isn't isolated to me.

 I can't see any recent mentions of this here – is anyone else also suffering and have a solution?

[Jim-lad]

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@Adlopawrote:

The 21 March Crystal Palace Freeview retune appears to have broken my YouView (Humax DTR-T2100) box's ability to receive BBC 4 HD.

I had no reception issues before the retune, but it took several manual retunes (aerial disconnected, etc) following the transmitter rejig before the box would find BBC 4 HD and, even then, the signal strength is too wildly variable for the channel to be watchable.

Freeview kindly arranged an engineer visit, which confirmed that there were no aerial or cable issues and the signal into the property is OK – and my Freeview HD TV picks up BBC 4 HD without issue.

So, the issue appears to lie with the YouView box, but all YouView can suggest is fitting a signal booster – which, as the engineers confirmed, isn't the issue. 

I know someone else with the same box and problem from the same transmitter, so this isn't isolated to me.

 I can't see any recent mentions of this here – is anyone else also suffering and have a solution?  

There are thousands of people being affected by this retune.  Basically the government wanted to make billions of pounds by selling spectrum for 5G services so the needs of people don't matter.

I had a new aerial fitted as our aerial group would never have been able to get COM 7 COM 8 Ch55 and 56.  COM 7/8 are being transmitted on much lower power than the other muxes e.g.  89,200W for COM7 and 86,000W for COM 8 as opposed to 200,000W for most of the other muxes.

The new aerial (wide-band) has worked until the last 24 hours.  The signal has dropped along with signal quality which has resulted in picture breakup.  I'm assuming this is a weather related issue and will continue to cause problems.

The channel moves are only designed to be temporary - 2020/21 should see all broadcasts move come of those frequencies.

Now here's the real issue - TVs can generally seem to cope with this change much better than the Youview box.  My own situation is that my TV can be showing signal strength and quality of around 75% S/100% Q whereas the Youview box (DTR 2100) shows 55% S/65% Q and can cause picture breakups.

Changing you box will achieve nothing.  I have tried two different boxes with the same results.

[Adlopa]

So it seems neither YouView nor Freeview are able (or willing) to help with this (I've been on the phone to both at length), and it isn't anything at800 can help with (it's not a 4G issue). Does that mean that the DTR 2100 is effectively obsolete now?

[trapdoor]

The real issue here, and has always been with the YouView platform, is that unlike the majority of TV’s and PVRs, there is no facility to manually tune any of the multiplexes.

So it is possible for the tuner and firmware in the YouView box to pick and tune the ‘wrong’ mux particularly if you are in an area covered by more than one transmitter.

we certainly have an issue as we have a Freeview Lite relay and an out of region main transmitter, and on occasion the YV box will, on a retune, completely lose the plot and we get an incorrect channel lineup. Never an issue with any of the TVs as we just select the channels to scan and it works.

It’s possible your YV box has actually tuned the wrong mux that carries your BBC4 HD and has found one from a transmitter that gives you a variable sig quality. And unfortunately even the signal test facility doesn’t give you a clue as to which UHF channel you are testing.

[Quietman]

Just wanted to add that I also can't now receive BBC4 HD or News HD since the Crystal Palace transmitter channel moves. Tried retuning the box (You View Humax DTR 2100) but all that achieved was to remove channels 106/107 from the EPG. From previous reply (trapdoor) it looks like we are stuck with losing these services.

[david1982]

I am able to receive BBC4, BBC News and subsequent channels through my 4k UHD box but not on my LG TV. Steamy as both use the same Arial
Does uhd box get signal from a different transmitter?

[Colin_London]

Most people having this problem have an old Group A TV aerial. Since the start of UHF TV transmissions from Crystal Palace that aerial type has been installed. Even digital switchover didn’t require it to change.

But this latest change has moved the COM7&8 muxes out of the acceptance band of Group A aerials to Channels 55 & 56 - they are deaf to those frequencies.

More recent Wideband aerial installations are OK, but a large proportion of the very large population served by Crystal Palace are now suffering loss of several channels.

You need a new aerial but only for the next two years (after which COM7&8 will cease).

Freeview will provide you with a free replacement assuming you do not have Sky or Cable. You need to contact them.

[Colin_London]

Some equipment is more sensitive than others and it depends where on the signal chain from the aerial it is located. If you signal level has been degraded due to the frequency change then this could be the reason some Equipment works and others do not.

[Adlopa]

Second visit from a Freeview-arranged engineer today. His verdict was the same as the first – aerial is fine, as is the signal for Com7/8. Conclusion: the YouView box is to blame for the lack of COM7/8 channels.

The engineer replaced the internal aerial cabling and fitted a filter to squash some 800MHz mobile intereference, and this did enable the YouView box to pick up COM7/8 after a retune. Maybe the fine weather this morning helped with this...

Bizarrely, the  box now shows 80% signal strength for both BBC4 HD and BBC News 24 HD, but 0% quality – which makes no sense. The TV shows full scores for each. So, I'm still none the wiser about what's happening with YouView and dumping the platform seems to be the only viable option.

[Jim-lad]

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@Adlopawrote:

Second visit from a Freeview-arranged engineer today. His verdict was the same as the first – aerial is fine, as is the signal for Com7/8. Conclusion: the YouView box is to blame for the lack of COM7/8 channels.

The engineer replaced the internal aerial cabling and fitted a filter to squash some 800MHz mobile intereference, and this did enable the YouView box to pick up COM7/8 after a retune. Maybe the fine weather this morning helped with this...

Bizarrely, the  box now shows 80% signal strength for both BBC4 HD and BBC News 24 HD, but 0% quality – which makes no sense. The TV shows full scores for each. So, I'm still none the wiser about what's happening with YouView and dumping the platform seems to be the only viable option.

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It's not really the Youview box, though I do accept, certainly in my case the Youview tuner is more 'picky' than the internal tuner on my TV.  I have found that if we have low pressure weather system (as is playing out this week) then the reception is pretty good.

Last week however when we had our British Summer (5 days) and pressure was high, I lost channels on 55 & 56 COM 7 and 8 completley both on the TV and the Youview box.  The issue is one of power - COM 7 and COM 8 are operating on a fraction of the power allocated to the other muxes in order to prevent cross interference from other transmitters nearby.  

Little extra that can be done until 2020/21 when the channels will vacate these frequencies entirely.