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I recently had to re-tune my HDR-2000T box because the Sony Crime Channel moved stations.
I went to http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/ and used the Coverage Checker to see which channels I should be using (something I’ve done in the past, apparently without issue).
The Coverage Checker for my area – Pontop Pike – said (if I have interpreted it correctly) – that I should be using channels 58T, 54T, 49T2, 50T, 59T, 55T, 33T2 and 34T2.
After manually tuning to those channels I found that some stations were missing, specifically the Sony Crime Channel and some others – a total of 125 TV stations and 32 radio stations were found in all. An extra manual search on channel 56T – not on the Coverage Checker list – found me another 6 TV stations.
Re-tuning automatically got me 143 TV stations and 32 radio stations – including the Sony Crime Channel – but I am now missing other stations including More4+1 and PBS America.
Can anyone point me in the direction of a web resource that gives me a comprehensive and reliable list of channels that I should be tuning to?
You can find what you are looking for at the digital uk website.
I just entered the postcode of a hotel within the range of Pontop Pike. If you try again you should see mention of Pontop Pike (Local Mux) towards the end of the transmitter list. Currently the local mux is on UHF56 – which is what you found by experiment.
GarryP – 2 hours ago »
An extra manual search on channel 56T – not on the Coverage Checker list – found me another 6 TV stations.
The local channels for most transmitters, including Pontop Pike, are now displayed in a separate block on the site you used. As EEPhil stated it does give 56 as the current local channel but you need to page down a lot further to see it.
GarryP – 2 hours ago »
After manually tuning to those channels I found that some stations were missing, specifically the Sony Crime Channel and some others – a total of 125 TV stations and 32 radio stations were found in all. An extra manual search on channel 56T – not on the Coverage Checker list – found me another 6 TV stations.
Re-tuning automatically got me 143 TV stations and 32 radio stations – including the Sony Crime Channel – but I am now missing other stations including More4+1 and PBS America.
From Pontop Pike, More4+1 is switching being transmitted from 35T2 to 49T2. The full channel is being broadcast from 49T2 and after a satisfactory retune will appear on LCN 86. A retune slate The full channel is being broadcast from 35T2 and after a satisfactory retune may appear someone near LCN 795.
49T2 is the same UHF channel as BBC ONE HD, BBC TWO HD, ITV HD, Channel 4 HD and Channel 5 HD. What you are describing is therefore a bit confusing as you have not mentioned those being missing after the auto-tune. I’d action a manual retune again but make doubly sure that every single TV and Radio channel is deleted before you start the first manual tune, plus also make sure that the ‘Network Search’ option on the manual tune screen is set to ‘Off’.
Ah, it seems that I have misinterpreted the web page after all.
If I understand correctly now, I’ve got to re-tune using the channels listed in both the “Pontop Pike” and “Pontop Pike (Local Mux)” sections.
I’ll give that another try at the weekend.
Many thanks to you both.
Luke: I don’t use the HD channels – failing eyesight and TV too far away to make any difference – so I don’t notice if they are there or not.
On a related note, I have another couple of quick questions about manual tuning, if I may:
1. Does the order in which I re-tune the channels matter?
2. Sometimes, when I re-tune a channel – usually 34T2 – I get no new stations listed; is that strange or expected?
Again, thanks for the earlier help.
P.S. I always do a Factory Reset before a re-tune just to make sure all of the existing channels are totally gone.
P.P.S. I’ve no idea what the Network Search option is for – I’ve lost my manual – so I always have it switched off.
GarryP – 20 minutes ago »
On a related note, I have another couple of quick questions about manual tuning, if I may:
1. Does the order in which I re-tune the channels matter?
The order doesn’t matter.
2. Sometimes, when I re-tune a channel – usually 34T2 – I get no new stations listed; is that strange or expected?
If the station is T2 then it is an HD MUX and you can either ignore it or if you want to tune it in then you need to need to set the Transmission type to DVB-T2 and then set it back to DVB for the next channel that is not marked as T2.
It’s good to know that the order doesn’t matter, thanks for clarifying that.
Sorry, I should have said that when I try to tune in a T2 channel I always set the Transmission Type to DVB-T2 but, even then, I sometimes get no stations listed.
GarryP – 2 hours ago »
… when I try to tune in a T2 channel I always set the Transmission Type to DVB-T2 but, even then, I sometimes get no stations listed.
GarryP – 2 hours ago »
2. Sometimes, when I re-tune a channel – usually 34T2 – I get no new stations listed; is that strange or expected?
34T2 carries a mix of HD and Standard Definition channels. One of the standard definition channels that is carries is PBS America.
Along with 33T2, 34T2 broadcasts on a weaker signal than the other UHF channels. You may be in a location which is borderline to be able to receive it consistently OK.
An alternative possibility is that when you auto-tuned your HDR-2000T couldn’t find anything on 34T2 but could find another transmitter’s equivalent broadcast.
If you auto-tune again and it finds PBS America it is possible for you to check if it is coming from Pontop Pike. Whilst watching PBS America press OK then i+ on the remote and a box appears – the last line should start Ch34 if it is coming from Pontop Pike, while Ch37 would indicate Bilsdale.
Around November of this year both Pontop Pike, and Bilsdale, are changing frequencies for these mixed definition T2 channels. After that occurs then both transmitters will be transmitting PBS America on 56T2.
Thanks for the extra information Luke.
The “pressing i+ on the station list” tip is also a handy thing to know.
I’ll see how I get on at the weekend with my re-tune.
Cheers.
I just did a manual re-tune with channels 58T, 54T, 49T2, 50T, 59T, 55T, 33T2, 34T2, and 56T and got 131 TV stations and 32 radio stations.
I then did an automatic re-tune and got 136 TV stations and 32 radio stations.
Stations missing from automatic re-tune which were there on the manual re-tune are:
86 More4+1
101 BBC1 HD
102 BBC2 HD
103 ITV HD
104 C4 HD
105 C5 HD
204 CBBC HD
Stations missing from manual re-tune that were there on automatic re-tune are:
56 5Star+1
64 Freesports
88 Now 80s
93 Together
94 PBS America
96 Forces TV
111 QVC HD
112 CVC Beauty HD
114 Quest HD
205 Cbeebees HD
792 More4+1
The stations missing from the manual re-tune seem to be from Channel 34 if the i+ information is correct.
So I’m getting stations from Channel 34 on an automatic re-tune that I can’t get via a manual re-tune on the same channel and visa versa.
Does anyone have any ideas about what’s happening?
GarryP – 6 hours ago »
Does anyone have any ideas about what’s happening?
Not really. Automatic retunes often take the lowest UHF channel for the multiplex. When you say you can’t get BBC1 HD do you mean it doesn’t show up, or does it appear but with a poor or no picture? Whatever, I’d stick to manual retunes.
I’ve had problems tuning COM8(your UHF 34, DVB-T2). I thought it was down to the movement to UHF 56 and Single Frequency Network working – but maybe not. I usually have a decent signal strength, but there is a lag before signal quality comes up. Then the Humax finds no channels. Sometimes I’ve had three or more goes at tuning COM8 before the Humax found the channels. Recently, that got better around here (thankfully, with all the recent changes requiring retunes). If you observe the same – try repeating the manual tune of UHF 34, T2 a few times. Why it should be found automatically but not manually I don’t know.
I’ve been using manual re-tunes since I had major problems a while back with lots of recordings failing.
The only reason I tried an automatic re-tune this time was because of the missing stations.
When I said above that the stations were missing, what I meant was that, after the re-tune, those stations didn’t appear in the complete station list.
I think I’ll stick with the automatically tuned stations this time – unless I start to get problems.
I’ll try going back to manual next time when I’ll also try repeatedly tuning each channel until I get something back from it. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
Anyway, thanks for your help.
One of my recordings failed miserably last night – CBS Reality+1, station 67 on channel 33T2, recorded only 4 minutes of a 60 minute programme – so I decided to re-tune manually just in case it made anything better (probably not but it’s worth a try).
If anyone is interested, the results/stats of my re-tune – tuned in rising numerical channel number order, just for the heck of it – were as follows:
Code:[u]CH TV Rad Sig Qual[/u]
33T2 13 1 50% 10-50% (variable)
34T2 12 0 51% 10-50% (variable)
49T2 7 0 72% 100%
50T 40 3 67% 100%
54T 13 0 70% 100%
55T 22 11 69% 100%
56T 6 0 49% 100%
58T 9 15 71% 100%
59T 21 2 70% 100%(Where: TV = No. of TV stations tuned, Rad = No. of Radio stations tuned, Sig = Signal Strength, Qual = Signal Quality. ‘(variable)’ means that the signal quality was variable between both values.)
In total, 143 TV stations and 32 radio stations were tuned.
A lot of useful +1 stations – Pick+1, Quest Red+1, Yesterday+1, etc. – are now in my ‘flaky’ 33T2 and 34T2 channels so I guess I’ll be getting my (un?)fair share of missed recordings in the future. I’ll just have to keep an eye on things I suppose.
Not sure if this will be useful to anyone but it’s here just in case.
When you use the digitaluk coverage checker does it say you should get good coverage on COM7HD and COM8HD (UHF 33, 34)? The hotel postcode I used is clearly not where you are, so when it shows “100” good coverage for them it might not be true where you are. The numbers make sense though. The power of 58/54/49 is 100kW, 50/59/55 50kW, 33/34 around 34kW and 56 – 5kW. Ignore the local mux (56) as this uses a more robust error correction.
I’m no expert on aerials, but it could be that your aerial is not suited to UHF channels 33 & 34. However, there are problems to come within the next year as all your UHF channels will change, and your replacements for 33/34 will be even lower power. “I guess I’ll be getting my (un?)fair share of missed recordings in the future.” Very possibly.
The coverage with both COM7HD and COM8HD is Served 100 and Marginal 100 (whatever that means, I’m clearly no expert but those numbers sound good), in fact it’s green 100’s across the board. (We’re less than 15 miles away from the transmitter with no major hills in the way.)
I have a feeling that the aerial is the same one that was fitted in the 80s/90s before digital terrestrial TV was ‘a thing’.
If I’m reading the table correctly – not a certainty – the power of the COM channels – changing from 33 and 34 to 55 and 56 respectively in October – will go down to just over half of what they are now. That doesn’t bode well. (Seems strange for the HD channels to go to even lower power when I would have thought they should need more but I don’t really understand how all this works.)
Guess I might need to get someone with the right equipment to come round and see what can be done before then. Or I could just put up with it, depending on which stations I might ‘lose’.
Anyway, many thanks for the extra information and the ‘heads-up’. You’ve saved me a lot of head-scratching and hair-pulling.
GarryP – 2 hours ago »
Guess I might need to get someone with the right equipment to come round and see what can be done before then.
Before you do that, try ringing digitaluk and see what they say about the observation that COM7 and COM8 have a reasonable signal strength but very poor signal quality.
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