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UK : BBC Local Radio on Freeview not found


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I am scanning with TransEdit now. Thanks for the suggestion.

All the details of the new local stations on Freeview only give the channel number and only the link I gave gives a little more.

TV and harddrive recorders just included the new channels without having to do anything. They both show channel 722 (for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire).

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Using TransEdit I find three new channels BBC Radio Nottinghamshire, LBC and Magic. I should have BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio Norfolk being the nearest to me.

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TV and harddrive recorders just included the new channels without having to do anything. They both show channel 722 (for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire).

 

 

State of the art devices use the network_id and logical channel numbers. Starting from a home transponder that is predefined for your area makes fresh searches and updates very easy.

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TV and harddrive recorders just included the new channels without having to do anything. They both show channel 722 (for BBC Radio Cambridgeshire).

 

Unfortunately Freeview and Freesat are using a proprietary Service Information (SI) system in addition the normal DVB SI. Receiver manufacturers get information about it together with a Freeview licence entailing guidelines and rules for HD content protection and recording restrictions (more about it here). As far as it concerns DVBViewer :innocent: ...well, in a nutshell, you are not supposed to receive Freewiew with unrestricted PC software. That's why DVBViewer can't find things out so easily and they sometimes have to be hacked (more or less)...

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Unfortunately Freeview and Freesat are using a proprietary Service Information (SI) system in addition the normal DVB SI.

I'm not in the UK so I can't receive the terrestrial freeview channels but from what I can see, the SI on the satback transmission is not proprietary service information at all. Alas DVBViewer just can't handle it. Last monday I had to rescan my dutch Ziggo cable channels. Same story :(

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DVBViewer does pick up BBC Nottinghamshire which is about 100 miles from me.

My TV gets Cambridgeshire and Norfolk as options.

I assume the same parameters apply to all the new BBC local radio stations added to Freeview so there is no reason that it should find and work with BBC Nottinghamshire and not find BBC Cambridgeshire.

One reason why this becomes useful is that FM and DAB do not pick up the nearby counties which I do when region wide programmes are not on the local FM service - needing to use internet streaming service. It would be easier to just select on DVBViewer.

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I should have BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio Norfolk

 

I can't find Cambridgeshire in the List, but Norfolk is part of a mux called PSB1. All channels of a mux (= multiplex) share the same frequency, so if you get one of them, you should get them all. What about the other PSB1 TV / Radio channels?

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I scanned using the Blackgold 3602 on another PC, using the Transedit in the same way. This found BBC Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

Original scan on a Blackgold 3600. The two computers are using the same Freeview signal, also shared with the TV, but have their own Freesat dish both with dual cables.

I attach the two export files.

United Kingdom Mendip_Channels.zip

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Strange. Looks like the BG 3600 can receive frequencies the BG 3602 can't receive and vice versa. Maybe the frequencies tried by TransEdit are not the exact center frequencies, so it gets a kind of gamble? I'll have a closer look at it later.

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I scanned using the Blackgold 3602 on another PC, using the Transedit in the same way. This found BBC Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

 

Original scan on a Blackgold 3600. The two computers are using the same Freeview signal,

Are you using a common outdoor antenna or were the scans performed at different locations with an indoor antenna? That could explain the different results ;)

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The antenna is common to both computers (hence 3600 and 3602 Blackgold cards), the TV and hard drive recorder.

The antenna's down cable (4m length) goes into a powered junction box. The TV, hard drive recorder and 3600 are then on a 2 metre length of cable. The TV is daisy chained off the hard drive recorder. The 3602 is 7metres from that distribution booster. This is the card that found all three local radio stations.

Signal strenght differs slightly which makes more of an issue on low strength channels as are the local radio stations, but if anything the 3602 displays the weaker signal strength but found the channels.

I edited a DVB-T_UK_Mendip.ini file (for the 3600 card) taking the number under [DVB] to 23. TransEdit then created a list of 29 doing a full scan.

[sATTYPE]
1=5000
2=United Kingdom: Mendip

[bLINDSCAN]
Frequency=474-858:8,474.167-858.167:8,473.833-857.833:8
BandWidth=2

[DVB]
0=29
1=474000,8
2=474167,8
3=498000,8
4=498167,8
5=514000,8
6=522000,8
7=522167,8
8=538000,8
9=538167,8
10=561833,8
11=562000,8
12=562167,8
13=690000,8
14=698000,8
15=698167,8
16=714000,8
17=722000,8
18=722167,8
19=737833,8
20=738000,8
21=738167,8
22=746200,8,|C55 Mux 2
23=754000,8
24=754200,8,|C56 Mux C
25=762000,8
26=778200,8,|C59 Mux 1
27=802200,8,|C62 Mux A
28=826200,8,|C65 Mux B
29=842000,8,|C67 Mux D

This then found the three local stations but provided only one station ID for Radio Cambridge and only 225 out of 356 unique stations found by looking at the combined scans found in United Kingdom Mendip_Channels.zip . I had to wait until 19:00 to check that BBC Three and BBC Four would work. Previously they had displayed CBBC and CBeebies earlier in the day, but after this final scan showed nothing. Further scans from DVBViewer increased the number of channels to 263. I seem to have all the channels I have ever used but have to find which of a multiple set do display the channel and remove the others.

My local transmitter is Sandy Health, but I get a seondary set from Tacolnestion, Norfolk some of which provide a better signal strength.

Thanks for the help.

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A blindscan is rather useless. Only when you don't know any frequency it's worth a try. Here you'd better start wird a known transponder from the list with Scan NIT checked. Transedit will add all transponders that are listed in the NIT. Because the tool can't perform a search for a specified network_id, you'll probably find a lot of entries without lock ([X]). Delete these transponders (maybe after rechecking with the analyser) and keep the rest :)

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