Manual tuning - getting weak MUX's when stronger available further on

[Anonymous User]

So I have a NowTV smart box, and am on the whole happy, with it. Our aerial was a bit flakey when it rained so have had a new one installed with a new run of coaxial cable, and now the weather does not affect the signal. 

However I am getting another issue.

If I retune, (or the box goes off and retunes automatically, which it seems to do) it picks up some Muxes from another transmitter as it progresses through the frequencies. However the Mickleham transmitter is only giving 15-20% signal strength, rather than the 85-95% from the Reigate Hill transmitter.

I can get round it by retuning and unplugging the aerial when the bar hits about 15% progress and plugging it back in at around 60% and I 'miss' the mickleham transmitters frequencies. I am awaiting the delivery of a variable attenuator which I will try and block the low signals and hope it doesnt compromise the main transmissions.

Is there a better way that I have missed ?

[Andy]

@Anonymous User

Welcome to the forum.  Are you sure it's picking up Mickleham and not just Reigate - Mickleham is a PSB only transmitter. It could be your high signal strength on Reigate causing the issues.

Unfortunately the Smart Box doesn't have an easy way of forcing it to use a specified transmitter, some people get an option to choose which transmitter they want to select during the scan process but others don't and if you don't get this option there's no manual option.

If you have a little aerial splitter device knocking around the house (the sort that splits an incoming aerial feed into two outputs) try sticking that on the back of your box as some people with the similar problem found that just weakened the signal enough to make sure the box only picks up one transmitter.

However at 85-95% your signal is too strong anyway and is likely to cause issues, so you would need an attenuator in any case. It may well be that once you have an attenuator in place the problem you have will disappear.

[Anonymous User]

@Andy 

Pretty sure - the guys who did the aerial installation came back and were surprised by the frequencies on the 2-3 muxes that had the low signal. Once they were on the 'right' frequencies for Reigate, the signal showed at 80+% and all was good.

I do get asked which region I am after the scan, but I think thats just the standard regional variations.

Just waiting for the magic of e-bay and the Royal mail to deliver and solve it 🙂 Its just a minor inconvenience having to unplug the aerial and retune every evening.

[Tony-D]

Glad all you guys managed to actually work this out (work around) as this whole thread was complete gibberish to me.

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User

Some people have had some success by installing a Y splitter on the incoming aerial signal which filters out the lower signal TV transmitters in their Freeview area (the same principle as you using a variable attenuator).

Haven' noticed of was aware that the smart box does an auto tv rescan automatically without going into the box menu settings to force a manual TV scan (unless a newer Firmware version does this now automatically) ?

[Anonymous User]

@schnapps

I say auto scan, but I definitely did the unplugging trick, and a while later (days rather than minutes) we were getting break up, and when I did the secret menu thing the signal was only 15-20% and on the lower frequency from the Mickleham mast. We do suffer with power cuts so maybe it does it after a power outage ?

Now just to wait for the attenuator to arrive 🙂