Intermittent freeview signal

[Kingbee]

Hello everyone,
A friend of mine keeps asking me for a solution to his tv picture troubles and I'm stumped also.
Here we go. It would seem he has a super aerial (aerial engineer's description) and new signal booster box(fitted by above) and a reasonably new tv with freeview intergrated. The tv has been exchanged for new, new coax from tv to booster installed, and booster by passed when the freeview picture breaks up. This happens when the weather changes from clear conditions ie anything as simple as heavy cloud.
Aerial is pointing towards the transmitter as does neighbours whom are unaffected. The analogue signal can have its good and bad days but don't seem to match the freeview days.
More confusingly when the aerial engineer left everything was reportedly fine all the time for the first couple of months. The transmitter is the oxford one.
So after all that is there anyone please who could shed some light onto this situation.
Yours most grateful.

 

[electronicsuk]

One possibility is water in the connections at the aerial or, if airspaced dielectric, it may have seeped into the coax as well. This would explain why you have the problem tends to occur in poor weather.

You mention the "booster bypassed when freeview picture breaks up" - what is this supposed to mean? If everything works fine without the booster, than surely the solution would be to remove it permanently? Far too many so-called 'aerial engineers' simply seem to install these as a matter of course, but with a good aeriel (especially if close to transmitter) they can cause more problems than good. It's possible to have too little signal, but it's also possible to have too much as well!!

 

[gas4you]

probably nothing to do with this , but what the heck!

I have had a saga of problems with one of my TV sets in the bedroom. It would keep freezing on digital channels (freeview) totally at random times (so we thought).

Set went back under warranty and had all new boards fitted and tested ok.

2 days after set returned it started freezing again, so back it went again under warranty.

After a week on test the engineers called to say it would not fault so it must be our aerial. I disputed this as we had had it professionally installed, with booster box feeding all rooms in our house, but engineers were adamant it wasn't the set.

I got it back and it started freezing again

Was putting up with it while I decided what the next step was going to be taken by me, when for some unknown reason it stopped freezing and worked perfectly.

For a couple of weeks I could not think what had changed, until one warm night I put the pedastal fan on in the bedroom and lo and behold the TV froze. It continued to do this every time I out the fan on as a test.

I am certainly not clever enough to know why this would cause digital to freeze, but the fan was plugged in the same double socket.

All I know now is that without the fan on it works perfect

 

[disinfo]

One possibility is water in the connections at the aerial or, if airspaced dielectric, it may have seeped into the coax as well. This would explain why you have the problem tends to occur in poor weather.

You mention the "booster bypassed when freeview picture breaks up" - what is this supposed to mean? If everything works fine without the booster, than surely the solution would be to remove it permanently? Far too many so-called 'aerial engineers' simply seem to install these as a matter of course, but with a good ariel (especially if close to transmitter) they can cause more problems than good. It's possible to have too little signal, but it's also possible to have too much as well!!

i'll second what you say about the booster.

My parents neighbours asked me to have a look at their TV aerial after numerous visits from the aerial guy.

I found that simply removing the booster and chucking it in the bin was the best solution and almost a year later they are still problem free.

 

[Kingbee]

One possibility is water in the connections at the aerial or, if airspaced dielectric, it may have seeped into the coax as well. This would explain why you have the problem tends to occur in poor weather.

You mention the "booster bypassed when freeview picture breaks up" - what is this supposed to mean? If everything works fine without the booster, than surely the solution would be to remove it permanently? Far too many so-called 'aerial engineers' simply seem to install these as a matter of course, but with a good aeriel (especially if close to transmitter) they can cause more problems than good. It's possible to have too little signal, but it's also possible to have too much as well!!

Thank you gentlemen for your time.
The booster was bypassed when the picture started to break up after a few times to eliminate it from the arguement. Sadly it proved nothing as the picture neither deteriated or improved. It would seem Andy claims that it doesn't have to rain for it to mis-behave just overcast and that isn't always the case.
My father lives no more than 400 yards around the block from this house and I put a high gain aerial in for him with no booster and he has an excellent picture.
The transmitter is about 30 miles away by road so probably nearer as the crow flies.
Will communicate the aerial connection/ coax from issues to him and see if any changes occur. As said earlier the aerial and downlead are reputedly original.
Many Thanks again

 

[Stivino]

I get that with mine too. I have a good newish aeriel, all the co-ax is new good stuff and it was all supplied by a TV engineer mate.
I have a fairly good line of site to the transmitter which is about 20 miles away.
My problem is weather related in that it sometimes does it when the weather isn't very good, i.e. wind and rain. But it sometimes does it in the summer when it's a lovely day, wierd.

 

[pbar]

Freeview is still in it's infancy, and freezing and crashing boxes is normal and common.
Try another make of Freeview box as an experiment, you will most likely find it behaves differently.
Also, go into the box's menu and have a look at signal strengths and quality. See if there's anything to worry about there.

 

[Kingbee]

Went round Andy's place friday afternoon and the problem seemed fairly clear from ground level. The wonderful expensive aerial engineer had not replaced the connection box lid on the aerial! After a quick look and one corroded aerial replaced, and downlead while I was at it, the picture was reported to be like it had never been before- excellent.
Thanks for the interest guys.