South Canterbury Terrestrial signal issues

I have a T1050PVR which I purchased new about 18 months ago. I am in Timaru with direct line of sight to the Cave hill transmitter about 15k away. Until the last channel retune (about 2 months ago) I had a really good reliable picture with signal strength around 80%. I had to do the retune twice to pick up the new frequencies and since then my signal strength fluctuates a lot between 0 and 94% but mostly in the 50% to 60% range. Obviously I now get a lot of picture freeze and pixilation. All channels are the same and most of the time TV is now unwatchable. I have tried checking all aerial connections and the aerial direction and updating the software on my box to no avail.

I am at my wits end as to what could be causing this and what to do about it and wondered if anyone might have any ideas. Maybe there is a signal strength issue at Cave Hill? I have heard there are few other people also having problems.

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Permalink Reply by Marty Wilson on July 4, 2015 at 15:33

No luck searching for interference so tried something else. Cleaned up and redid terminals in aerial balun. Lifted aerial angle 10 degrees ish above straight line. This brought my signal strength up to a steady 73-74% (quality 90%). Realigned aerial about 15-20 degrees south of direct line to transmitter which brought my signal strength up to 84% +/- 4% and quality 90%. Rock steady with no dropouts. The weather is perfect and it's mid afternoon - we'll see what happens tonight - hopefully I can watch the super 15 Rugby final!

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Permalink Reply by Marty Wilson on July 30, 2015 at 19:31

Finally sorted this issue. After trying everything else from the set top box to and including the aerial I started suspecting 4G interference. There are two Cell towers just to the north of the signal path from the UHF transmitter to my location and I could improve the number of dropouts by directing away from the towers. I bought a bypass filter from DishTv, connected it up and, although my signal strength is still 57-59% it is much steadier and I no longer get any pixelation or drop outs. I am disgusted that the towers could have this effect even though they are over a kilometer away. However, for those that are interested this seems to have solved my issue. Thanks for all the suggestions and helpful comments.