Poor signal quality of TV3 and Bravo

We have a two year old Freeview enabled Panasonic Viera TV. Our reception is UHF, line of sight to Mt Kaukau in Wellington. All was working well until a few weeks before Christmas when we began to suffer pixelation on TV3. It has gotten progressively worse and now that the holidays are almost over I'd like to try to sort the problem.

I've also looked at Bravo and the +1 versions of both. All are pixelated. There is no problem with other stations. I have also used the TVs facility to check the signal condition. The TVNZ stations and Prime all score 8 or 9/10. Maori scores 6/10. The Mediaworks stations score 4/10. This clearly suggests a problem with the Mediaworks MUX.

The problem may be with the tv but I am curious if there has been any changes that may have impacted the quality of the signal for the Mediaworks stations. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on January 10, 2018 at 10:09

Almost certainly a problem with your antenna and/or cabling. Natural deterioration of both due to effect of weather can cause this problem. The signal strengths may be OK but what are the readings for quality?

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Permalink Reply by John Hine on January 10, 2018 at 11:15

Yes, it is the quality that is low. The strength is 5/10 for everyone.

Biggles said:

Almost certainly a problem with your antenna and/or cabling. Natural deterioration of both due to effect of weather can cause this problem. The signal strengths may be OK but what are the readings for quality?

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on January 10, 2018 at 11:37

OK. Then something in the house or nearby may be affecting the quality. Difficult to locate but logical thing to do is turn everything in the house off and then check signal/quality. Start turning things on to locate any interference or quality reduction. Cordless phones and some modem can be a problem if located near the TV or coax cable. Also a poor quality lead from wall socket to TV can cause signal loss and/or quality loss. I've had brand new ones that didn't work at all back in the days of analogue TV. A cellphone band filter in-line may help. If your antenna has direct line of sight to Kaukau then all MUX should be 100% signal and 100 or lss quality.

What sort of antenna and coax is in use? Anything older than 5 years may need attention. I'm in Auckland and you wouldn't believe the amount of salt spray contamination deposited on things which causes corrosion. Wellington is probably worse.

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Permalink Reply by John Hine on January 10, 2018 at 20:08

Thanks for this. We needed to install a cell phone band filter at our holiday home after they put in a new line of site cell tower. (Advantage was that we no longer have to stand in just the right place to make a call :-)) Something like this may be the problem. I'll follow up in this direction tomorrow.

jh

Biggles said:

OK. Then something in the house or nearby may be affecting the quality. Difficult to locate but logical thing to do is turn everything in the house off and then check signal/quality. Start turning things on to locate any interference or quality reduction. Cordless phones and some modem can be a problem if located near the TV or coax cable. Also a poor quality lead from wall socket to TV can cause signal loss and/or quality loss. I've had brand new ones that didn't work at all back in the days of analogue TV. A cellphone band filter in-line may help. If your antenna has direct line of sight to Kaukau then all MUX should be 100% signal and 100 or lss quality.

What sort of antenna and coax is in use? Anything older than 5 years may need attention. I'm in Auckland and you wouldn't believe the amount of salt spray contamination deposited on things which causes corrosion. Wellington is probably worse.

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Permalink Reply by Lyn Chappell on December 16, 2019 at 17:23

Re poor signal on TV3 & Bravo as experienced by John Hine of Wellington above, just before xmas last year. We have exactly the same problem this year in the Bay Of Plenty. This has been happening over the last 2 weeks. 7 channels affected: TV3, Bravo,Hope channel, 1st Light, Choice, HGTV, Te Reo and TV3+1. All other channels OK. These affected channels are OK during day or lightly pixelated - but later in the evening and at night are so heavily pixelated that nothing can be seen or heard. Now we get this type of pixelation during heavy rain or storms on all channels - but this is on clear nights! We are directly under Mt Putauaki but the mountain has been clear of bad weather. Just one heck of a coincidence that we are having the same problems (and at the same time of year) as was experienced last year in Wellington. Anyone else out there having problems with these TV channels?