missing tv1,tv2, duke on freeview.

In the last 3 days the three channels TV1, TV2 and Duke have disappeared from our free view signal.

Since we are very much in the fringe area here in Helensville, I had assumed that we were receiving via the main transmitter at Waiataruru. However I could be wrong on that point.

It is NOT my antenna which is a 2 bay extended Grove-Hoverman with a gain of over 20 dB and fitted with a 24 dB gain low noise amplifier. ALL other free view channels are fine.

Has anyone any information on this? BTW I am a retired electronics engineer and have a fully equipped electronics lab complete with a UHF signal strength meter.

And YES I have tried 3 different free view equipped TV's and redone the digital tuning in case of a frequency change. Still NO GO!

What on Earth is going on!!!

Help!

Regards Clifford Wright Helensville.

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ZinwellPermalink Reply by Graham Wilson on May 1, 2018 at 13:32

Hi Cliff,

I had the same with a Zinwell ZMX7500 Satellite STB after the Games finished

I don't know it this will work for you, but I found a copy of TV1 (labelled CH-12) on 600. After viewing that the other channels were back.

Regards

Graham Wilson

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on May 1, 2018 at 13:56

Ah. The joy of living in the fringes. As you have a UHF strength meter first thing I'd do is check the signal strength for each mux. Sounds like the TVNZ mux has dropped just below minimum reception level. Could be any number of reasons but the recent wind and rain could have upset something?

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 1, 2018 at 16:58

Thanks Guys! Well it just gets weirder. We are talking about the UHF terrestrial signal here don't forget.

Went up on the roof this AM checked out the double extended Grove-Hoverman , all ok except a broken acrillic spacer on the top of the active element. Fixed that temporarily and cleaned all the connections to the balun etc and checked out the 24 dB amplifier and the cables. Everything was (it seems) OK!!!

But the problem persists. TV1, TV2, Duke and the +1 versions of each just are not there. This while the other Free view channels are absolutely fine, with no pixellisation or sound problems. TV1,TV2 etc are simply NOT THERE, not weak but GONE. One mystery is actually what transmitter I am receiving. It is the best signal out here but about 20 degrees east of the direct line to Waiatarua if the antenna reflector screen is used as a guide. No one seems to have any info on the power frequency and location of all

local Free View transmitters. Any idea where I can find this out?

Regards Clifford Wright.

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on May 1, 2018 at 18:49

Under the Resources Tab at the top of the page.

http://www.rsm.govt.nz/online-services-resources/pdf-and-documents-...

clifford c wright said:

But the problem persists. TV1, TV2, Duke and the +1 versions of each just are not there. This while the other Free view channels are absolutely fine, with no pixellisation or sound problems. TV1,TV2 etc are simply NOT THERE, not weak but GONE. One mystery is actually what transmitter I am receiving. It is the best signal out here but about 20 degrees east of the direct line to Waiatarua if the antenna reflector screen is used as a guide. No one seems to have any info on the power frequency and location of all

local Free View transmitters. Any idea where I can find this out?

Regards Clifford Wright.

o

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Permalink Reply by willis on May 1, 2018 at 22:39

Dont you mean gray-hoverman?
Could try the 4 bay stacked
And waiatarua would be most likely to get to helensville

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 2, 2018 at 10:36

Yes of course Willis, I hadn't checked and my poor old brain gets confused sometimes! Indeed I had assumed that Waiatarua would be the strongest signal ans was rather surprised when my Grove- Hoverman gave me a max signal so far East. Trust me the 2 bay is quite big enough, the reflector is about 1.8x 1,2 metres already. FYI I have emailed the Radio licensing people about TV stations frequency, power, location and polarisation and if I gey some info I might post a copy, as I know how hard it can be to discover these days.

Cliff Wright

willis said:

Dont you mean gray-hoverman?
Could try the 4 bay stacked
And waiatarua would be most likely to get to helensville

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on May 2, 2018 at 15:04

The Freeview coverage maps show their location and coverage.

https://freeviewnz.tv/faq-library/about-digital-tv/coverage-maps/

The previous link I posted gives frequencies, location and polarisation.

Only hard one to find is Power and you should be able to get that by looking up their Licences at RSM.

The resources tab at top of this page is very useful.

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Permalink Reply by willis on May 3, 2018 at 11:47

Power of the likes of te aroha,whariti,waiatarua will be 1 kw base or 10kw radiated
As seen on wikipedia

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 4, 2018 at 9:46

Had a minor brainwave last evening and will be up on the roof again this afternoon. I seem to remember that

one end of the active "zig zag" element has a join in it. Could perhaps have oxidised. That would indeed have the effect of shortening the element and reducing the gain on channel 29 below the higher channels.

I have even had a very helpful chat with the Radio licensing engineers and they were able to assure me that there had been no changes to the transmitted signal.. I think that I might replace my driven element with a single length of Aluminium tubing as soon as I can.

Thanks for all your help. I will let you know how it goes.

Regards Cliff Wright.

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Permalink Reply by John Baird on May 5, 2018 at 8:31

You haven’t told us what your signal strength meter says.

Is the TVNZ Mux different from the others,quality wise ?

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 5, 2018 at 10:04

Well I went up on the roof yesterday PM with my signal strength meter. On the higher channels I get about 650 uV (unamplified) which gives me a good solid result. But on channel 29 (538 MHz) i get a much weaker signal, about 100 uV. The weird thing is this though, when I designed my double extended Gray-Hoverman

I was getting a much stronger signal on the low channels with a single Grey-Hoverman antenna. Thus I designed the active element for 600 MHz to allow for the lower signal there. This worked fine for over 2 years,on all free view channels. It is only in the last week that this problem has arisen. BTW I am definitely using Waiatarua. Now I checked over the antenna extensively. My idea of a joint in the active element was not so. It turned out that I had already replaced the elements and must have been on my old single array.

Of course one of the problems of getting old (I am 77) is that I am not as capable of taking down the whole antenna as I was. If I could I would fabricate some new active elements for about 570 MHZ and install them. BTW does anyone have an idea of the active element to reflector spacing in the Gray-Hoverman?

I have seen several examples on line which seem to vary widely. At present mine is spaced about a half wave, but this might indeed be too great.

Regards Cliff Wright.

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Permalink Reply by adam foster on May 11, 2018 at 22:12

Same dam issue. 1,2 and duke were working fine this afternoon. Now they have simply disappeared. If I try selecting 1 or 2 on the remote, it just goes to channel 3 instead. TVNZ channels simply do not exist any more. factory reset. No change at all. I bloody hate digital... Does anyone have any ideas?