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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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 12, 2018 at 11:04

adam foster said:

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?

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 12, 2018 at 11:04

clifford c wright said:

adam foster said:

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?

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 12, 2018 at 11:16

That is VERY interesting Adam, I now know that my Gray-Hoverman was cut for slightly too high a frequency,

and have now designed some new active elements cut for 580 MHz instead of 610. I will make them up when I can get out to Silverdale for some more ally tubing!

Now my Important question, where exactly are you situated? I am an experienced electronics engineer and have never had such a strange occurrence in all my 60 years in the business. It does make me wonder if the antenna or power on channel 29 at Waitarua has been changed? Looking at the polar diagram it is very

directional and out in the fringes it would not take much to drop the signal too low.

You will see that mine has dropped from 200uV to down in the noise at ~25 uV. All attempts to locate a receiver antenna fault have failed and the higher channels are coming in slightly better that they were.

Up from 250 uV to ~350. This is before the signal goes through a King Ray 24 dB low noise antenna preamp. "Curiouser and curiouser". I have contacted the radio licensing people and they have no info either though they did try to be helpful. Your posting is the first support I have had and exactly mirrors my experience.

Regards Clifford Wright.

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Permalink Reply by clifford c wright on May 17, 2018 at 11:33

adam foster said:

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?

Well Adam. So far nothing has changed, when propagation is very good we do get a weak signal, but it vanishes very quickly and is completely useless. The wierd thing is that it used to be the other way around with the higher channels having a weaker signal!!!

Anyway, I am building a new extended 2 bay Gray-Hoverman and this time I have very carefully cut it for 580 MHz. according to all my data this should give me a good signal on all the UHF digital channels from Waiatarua. Judging by the signal strength levels on the highest channel on my Panasonic TV, it SHOULD be really solid.