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Hi,
I bought an HDR-2000T in May this year and it has worked pretty well up until recently. Following the Freeview retune in early September it continued to work fine.
However, in the last week or so, BBC News HD has occasionally given me a “weak signal” message and a black screen, but recovered by changing programs. Yesterday, it gave up completely and would not display BBC News HD at all.
I tried an auto-retune, a manual retune and then a factory reset and further retunes, but have been unable to even get the channel BBC News HD is on to be recognised(Ch 32).
Today, the Humax box also lost Ch 39 and I was unable to regain it by manual tuning.
My TV also has a Freeview tuner and correctly recognises all seven channels I should receive from the Hannington transmitter (32, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47), showing them at 100% strength and quality.
Another factory reset of the Humax and retune managed to recognise just channels 41, 42, 44, 45 and 47. I could manually add Ch 39 (after switching to DVB-T2), but Ch 32 just shows 0% signal, no matter what settings I use on the manual retune screen.
Any thoughts?
Regards, Steve.
Can you try fitting a signal attenuator (or a passive splitter) to the aerial input on your box ?. It’s possible you have a really strong signal that is overloading the tuner front end. As in all things, increasing the tuner sensitivity to work with weak signals makes them more susceptible to not being able to cope with very high signal levels.
Hmmm… interesting thought… I’ll give it a go and post if it helps.
Well I tried a passive splitter so the signal now goes to both Humax and TV directly… it seemed to reduce the signal level for all channels slightly on the TV, but the Humax still works fine on 6 of my 7 channels and sees absolutely nothing on ch32.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the box has a fault – Humax support have suggested reformatting the disk might help. Difficult to believe that this has any effect whatsoever on tuner performance but I suppose I’ll have to try it
raichea – 16 minutes ago »
Well I tried a passive splitter so the signal now goes to both Humax and TV directly… it seemed to reduce the signal level for all channels slightly on the TV, but the Humax still works fine on 6 of my 7 channels and sees absolutely nothing on ch32.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the box has a fault – Humax support have suggested reformatting the disk might help. Difficult to believe that this has any effect whatsoever on tuner performance but I suppose I’ll have to try it
Can you try temporarily connecting by scart and removing any hdmi cables.
Not sure why switching to SCART would help (interference?) but I’m getting desperate. No difference…. still zilch on ch32. Thanks for the suggestions anyway.
raichea – 4 minutes ago »
Not sure why switching to SCART would help (interference?) but I’m getting desperate. No difference…. still zilch on ch32. Thanks for the suggestions anyway.
HDMI cables can radiate rf at UHF frequencies. If you have hdmi cables very close to coax cables especially the thin poorly screened ones it’s possible to completely knock out a mux.
Next question do you have any sort of rf source close to the box (Cordless Phone, WiFi router, even a Blu-ray player etc). If so select UHF channel 32 in manual tune and try turning off any adjacent kit one item at a time to see if you get the mux back. It’s hard to imagine a box issue that stops you getting just one mux.
COM 7 incidentally on CH32 is a lower powered MUX than the others.
Have a Blu-ray player close, but no difference with that unplugged at the wall. Tried switching off all nearby kit and making sure antenna lead clear of other cables but still no dice.
One other observation, occasionally, if I leave the unit in manual tune mode, ch32, DVB-T2, the signal/quality indicators just sit at 0%. Then, on rare occasions, they’ll jump up to levels as per the other channels (c. 60% strenght, 100% quality) but as soon as I try to search for programs on that channel, I get a 0 channel response and the levels have dropped back to 0%.
Also agree it’s odd that I’m only having problems on one channel.
That said, the TV has no problems with ch32 using the same antenna lead and also when using the passive splitter. Regarding power, the main muxes are 50 and 25kW… I’ve seen one page that puts Com7 at 10kW, but the page at http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/coveragechecker/main/trade/PO30+4HT/NA/0/NA shows it at 36.7kW… sadly, I’m guessing 10kW is more likely to be correct. Still doesn’t explain why my TV has no trouble receiving it
Very odd, it sounds like a bad connection. Is the Belling Lee socket in the Humax box a good tight fit. They can be a poor fit and fail to grip the centre pin properly. Is the Belling Lee plug correctly fitted with the centre core soldered ?
Running out of ideas.
Afterthought, if you chain the aerial via the box to the TV with it switched on, do you still get COM7 on the TV ?
raichea – 1 hour ago » the main muxes are 50 and 25kW… I’ve seen one page that puts Com7 at 10kW, but the page at http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/coveragechecker/main/trade/PO30+4HT/NA/0/NA shows it at 36.7kW… sadly, I’m guessing 10kW is more likely to be correct. Still doesn’t explain why my TV has no trouble receiving it
The 10kw was the original draft proposal for Hannington. Most transmitters had an increase in a later proposal and then when they came on line many were increased more than that.
Your aerial is likely to be a group E aerial which is designed for Ch 35 and above. In addition to COM7 being out of group and being on lower power both HDR-2000Ts I have used did/do not cope as well as the other receivers I have for weak signals.
grahamlthompson: I’ll check the soldering – good idea about trying feedthrough from the Humax… not going to have time to try it until Sunday, but I’ll give it a go.
I did try the format suggested by Humax support – which didn’t work, of course, as expected.
Luke: Thanks for the info. Regarding the antenna, our original was group E (IIRC) and we couldn’t get Channel 4 on analogue – it was up in the 60’s somewhere, whereas all the others (3!) were in the 40’s – we had to switch to a wideband antenna.
I read your (or someone else’s) comment about the tuners being a bit weak on the HDR-2000T. The puzzling thing is that it worked fine until recently, which is what is making me think it may be a fault on the box.
Decided to trhy the feedthrough tonight even though it’s late. It works fine – that is, the TV sees good signal strength and quality on ch32 using the feedthrough, but the Humax still reports 0% for both. It must be a fault, surely?
raichea – 37 minutes ago » The puzzling thing is that it worked fine until recently, which is what is making me think it may be a fault on the box.
Before DSO I lost some channels in the autumn and winter unless I used what I considered, back then, as a strong tuner. The seasons may not effect your reception but it is an additional possibility.
For my particular situation the addition of an indoor aerial booster would resolve the situation but this will not work for every one and is far from ideal as if that fixes it there are other better solutions.
raichea – 10 hours ago »
Decided to trhy the feedthrough tonight even though it’s late. It works fine – that is, the TV sees good signal strength and quality on ch32 using the feedthrough, but the Humax still reports 0% for both. It must be a fault, surely?
Well it certainly means that channel 32 is not being affected by external interference.
Looks like the tuners in your box are a bit deaf, no guarantee another will be any different.
What wideband antenna did you use ? Is it a decent make and have you considered adding a variable gain masthead amplifier ?
The best wideband to use with a amplifier is a log periodic, thanks to the very flat response curve there’s less risk of over amplifying the stronger mux.
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