Tuning in Freeview units

[Dave2002]

It's been years since I've tried to tune in Freeview units. We have a Sharp TV which has DTV, and an early Humax Freeview PVR. Recently I tried to pick up Freeview using these in an area where reception might have been marginal or non existent a few years ago, but is now showing as "feasible" on the DigitalUK site.

However, the scans on these failed to find any channels. Trying a bit harder, with the Humax box and explicitly putting in channel numbers found for the nearest transmitters from the DigitalUK site indicated some signal - perhaps not too strong - around 50% as shown on the display, but with 0% for "Quality".

One possibility is that the signals from a portable aerial with an inbuilt amplifier are still not strong enough to drive either of these units, but another occurred to me, which is that since both the TV and the PVR are now in technology terms quite old, it is possible that the digital TV "standard" has actually changed making it impossible for these devices to detect the latest transmissions. We did have one earlier set top box which was obsoleted by a system change, so now I'm wondering if the same thing has happened to these units with respect to Freeview.

Some units may be software upgradeable, so if that is the case, then it might be possible to get these working with Freeview - otherwise unless the problems really are simply related to the signal strength, the Humax PVR may have effectively been bricked, though the TV still works well with other input sources. Quite what the "Quality" factor represents, I'm not sure, but I'd hoped it might be possible to push it up above 0%.

[Anastasius]

'Quality' trumps 'Signal strength' every time. So 0% means no picture - as you have found. TBH using an internal aerial of unknown quality with an amplifier of unknown quality on a transmitter that is now optimistically rated as 'feasible' is pushing it. Especially if that 'feasible' definition refers to a good quality external aerial. Slightly perplexed as to 'an area where reception might have been ....' Is this somewhere that is not where you live? Just curious more than anything else. Freeview has been around such a long time that I thought that anyone who wanted to receive it had got things sussed and tuned in.

I'm not aware of any technological changes to the Freeview signal although there have been frequency changes and as they try to squeeze more and more channels of cr*p into each mux then something has to give...notably picture quality. Also your elderly Humax will struggle to store the EPG for all the muxes now (didn't we have this discussion a while back ?).

Have you checked that the polarity of your aerial matches that of the transmitter ?

You can also try removing the aerial completely from the Humax and doing an automatic tune. This flushes out all the existing channel details etc and which doesn't seem to happen with a Factory Reset. Then reconnect your aerial and do another tune. When you say you entered in the channel etc is that using the Manual Tune option on the Humax ?

String of random thoughts but hopefully there might be some wheat in there among the chaff !

[ChrisBennell]

I think the simple answer is to consult an aerial engineer. They are generally aware of signal strength coming from different transmitters, and can quickly test the signal coming from your aerial and advise the best course of action. Two years ago I had my aerial turned around to point at a different transmitter, instead of the local relay transmitter which had a restricted range of channels available. He fitted an extra mast amplifier, and it all worked immediately. No trouble since. I have a Humax PVR, and a standalone TV in another room, running of the same aerial. Both work perfectly.