Does anyone know why analogue Channel 5 used Croydon instead of
Crystal palace for the London area? Wasn't there enough room on
the tower for the aerial? Did it cause any problems for those
near wanting to receive signals from both with the same aerial,
or would they be close enough for it not to matter?

C5 used a highly directional north pointing aerial and lower power
initially, to avoid interference on the continent.

The result was appalling reception to the south, I can see the tower
and have an outside aerial, but still got a snowy picture. It
disappeared completely one night in heavy rain, since NTL had a tiny
satellite dish for reception at Beulah Hill. After that, it got line
fed, and eventually they wound up the power so reception got better.

Angus

"Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd" wrote in
message . co.uk...
Does anyone know why analogue Channel 5 used Croydon instead of
Crystal palace for the London area? Wasn't there enough room on
the tower for the aerial? Did it cause any problems for those
near wanting to receive signals from both with the same aerial,
or would they be close enough for it not to matter?

C5 used a highly directional north pointing aerial and lower power
initially, to avoid interference on the continent.

The result was appalling reception to the south, I can see the tower
and have an outside aerial, but still got a snowy picture. It
disappeared completely one night in heavy rain, since NTL had a tiny
satellite dish for reception at Beulah Hill. After that, it got line
fed, and eventually they wound up the power so reception got better.

At the time I had a partner whose family lived in Aylesford, and they
couldn't get it at all.

James

That wasn't the problem, the problem was rain fade on their
uplink site at Winchester, it knocked out the feed nationally.

There must have been heavy rain in both Winchester and Croydon, because
I lost satellite reception at the same time. Think I still had a 1.6m
dish back then.

Angus

Yes but the re runs are on 5USA.
Brian

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"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
Brian Gaff wrote:

Now they just have some of the worst definition of any freeview channels
accourding to an ncis fan.

C5 HD seems on a par with the other HD channels.

NCIS appears to have been run through an artistic fog filter. Not out of
focus, but with a haze of crud over the optics. It's not indicative of
C5/5USA's usual output, but something special to NCIS and its relatives.

In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
Now they just have some of the worst definition of any freeview channels
accourding to an ncis fan.
Brian
--
--------------------------------------+------------------------------------
Mike Brown: mjb[-at-]signal11.org.uk | http://www.signal11.org.uk

Many around here lower than I am found the best signal for ch 5 in the early
days was to point their aerial at Tolworth Tower and pick up a reflection.

I am very surprised ch5 actually managed to get off the ground when you
consider the bodged up way they had to retune peoples gadgets than had uh if
modulators and all the weird and wonderful sites their transmitters had.

Brian

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"James Heaton" wrote in message
news

"Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd" wrote in
message . co.uk...
Does anyone know why analogue Channel 5 used Croydon instead of
Crystal palace for the London area? Wasn't there enough room on
the tower for the aerial? Did it cause any problems for those
near wanting to receive signals from both with the same aerial,
or would they be close enough for it not to matter?

C5 used a highly directional north pointing aerial and lower power
initially, to avoid interference on the continent.

The result was appalling reception to the south, I can see the tower
and have an outside aerial, but still got a snowy picture. It
disappeared completely one night in heavy rain, since NTL had a tiny
satellite dish for reception at Beulah Hill. After that, it got line
fed, and eventually they wound up the power so reception got better.

At the time I had a partner whose family lived in Aylesford, and they
couldn't get it at all.

James

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
news
Many around here lower than I am found the best signal for ch 5 in the
early days was to point their aerial at Tolworth Tower and pick up a
reflection.

I am very surprised ch5 actually managed to get off the ground when you
consider the bodged up way they had to retune peoples gadgets than had uh
if modulators and all the weird and wonderful sites their transmitters
had.

Agreed. CH4 has it easy: when UHF was first introduced, non-interfering
channels had already been worked out for "the fourth service" long before it
started broadcasting.

Five had to try and shoehorn their way in and hope that they caused and were
susceptible to as little interference as possible. Nowadays, with the
greater noise-immunity of digital, it would have been easy, but analogue
shows up any ghosting or co-channel interference.

It would have been so much easier if there had been a huge earthed mesh wall
all along the south coast (and especially in Kent) so Five's broadcasts
didn't interfere with those in northern France :-)

On 04/11/2017 13:29, Martin wrote:

Why don;t more people use Freesat, which has none of the problems Freeview users
report?

It's because of all the problems Freesat has that Freeview doesn't.

Funnily enough, back in the day, when I worked for that tv maker and rental
company with the star, I visited their aerial site up on the downs. they had
a very high tower with a big uhf array to get Crystal Palace through a gap
in the hills, but as the back of the array faced the continent, they had
rigged up what was basically a fence of metal mesh behind the array to stop
the interference.
In those days of course they had cable customers all along the south coast
of Sussex and in the little hollows in the hills.

This was very primitive cable of course using a wired channel switch on the
wall, sound supplied by 100v lines and the If and Tuner were replaced by a
board we called a TD20. You still had 405 on some of the older sets of
acourse operated by a Bowden cable from the front. You needed a very firm
push, but of course later on that was not needed and everything got
eletronicified, but I'm told some parts of England you can still see the
posts and some of the old cables they used.

Brian

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"NY" wrote in message
...
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
news
Many around here lower than I am found the best signal for ch 5 in the
early days was to point their aerial at Tolworth Tower and pick up a
reflection.

I am very surprised ch5 actually managed to get off the ground when you
consider the bodged up way they had to retune peoples gadgets than had uh
if modulators and all the weird and wonderful sites their transmitters
had.

Agreed. CH4 has it easy: when UHF was first introduced, non-interfering
channels had already been worked out for "the fourth service" long before
it started broadcasting.

Five had to try and shoehorn their way in and hope that they caused and
were susceptible to as little interference as possible. Nowadays, with the
greater noise-immunity of digital, it would have been easy, but analogue
shows up any ghosting or co-channel interference.

It would have been so much easier if there had been a huge earthed mesh
wall all along the south coast (and especially in Kent) so Five's
broadcasts didn't interfere with those in northern France :-)

I'm not quite sure. I imagine its still the dish that is often the issue, as
many sets nowadays have both sorts of tuner in them.
I think I'll definitely look at it when I have to get rid of my talking
box. I'm on the lookout for a box that has spoken menus and program guide on
any free service to be frank. its a scandal we do not have one. So many
older people come around and marvel at my old goodmans box which is no
longer made and nor is there any other. seems ridiculous when there is
probably a market out there in the old person.
Brian

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"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 4 Nov 2017 10:16:18 -0000, "NY" wrote:

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
news
Many around here lower than I am found the best signal for ch 5 in the
early days was to point their aerial at Tolworth Tower and pick up a
reflection.

I am very surprised ch5 actually managed to get off the ground when you
consider the bodged up way they had to retune peoples gadgets than had
uh
if modulators and all the weird and wonderful sites their transmitters
had.

Agreed. CH4 has it easy: when UHF was first introduced, non-interfering
channels had already been worked out for "the fourth service" long before
it
started broadcasting.

Five had to try and shoehorn their way in and hope that they caused and
were
susceptible to as little interference as possible. Nowadays, with the
greater noise-immunity of digital, it would have been easy, but analogue
shows up any ghosting or co-channel interference.

It would have been so much easier if there had been a huge earthed mesh
wall
all along the south coast (and especially in Kent) so Five's broadcasts
didn't interfere with those in northern France :-)

Why don;t more people use Freesat, which has none of the problems Freeview
users
report?
--

Martin in Zuid Holland