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BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1 and Channel 4 (December 2003)

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JA
jamej
Barney Boo posted:
How odd. Just as this post appeared, Sky News and BBC News 24 among other channels died on my cable box. I restarted it and now it's stuck on 'Please wait. Loading data'


Yeah that happened to me too.
CO
Corin
Two Questions :

1) Has direct action by West Midlands fundamentalists been officially ruled out?

2) Will Central Television and C4 be providing refunds to advertisers?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
And a third one:

Any particularly good reason why Channel 5 in this area comes from Lichfield and not Sutton Coldfield? Is Litchfield a relay or SC backup or what?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Channel 5 comes from different sites in a few places, in London it's from Croydon rather than Crystal Palace.

Cynics would say it's because ntl have a mast sat there with plenty of spare capacity (redundant since the closure of 405 lines service in many cases) which they can use rather than having to pay Crown Castle for the use of their mast which provides 1-4.
SP
Spencer
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Channel 5 comes from different sites in a few places, in London it's from Croydon rather than Crystal Palace.


I've often wondered how that's supposed to work. Surely if everyone's aerials are pointing at Crystal Palace, they're only going to get a crappy signal on Five if it's coming from Croydon.

Do Five expect people to have an extra aerial pointing the other way or something?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
I think they're close enough together for it not to make too big a difference. Croydon can also transmit ITV and C4 in the event of CP going down, and I believe they swap over in the middle of the night once a week to test it
DV
DVB Cornwall
See this page from mb21 (an invaluable resource) showing pictures of both Crystal Palace and Croydon together.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
I'll second that, Mike Brown's site is most interesting and useful
:-(
A former member
Neil Jones posted:
And a third one:

Any particularly good reason why Channel 5 in this area comes from Lichfield and not Sutton Coldfield? Is Litchfield a relay or SC backup or what?


It's because Channel 5 awarded it's complete transmission contract to NTL and their ere no rules about co-siting sites with the other channels. Lichfield is a former ITV site, therefore now owned by NTL so they used that, same for Croydon.
:-(
A former member
Steve in Pudsey posted:
I think they're close enough together for it not to make too big a difference. Croydon can also transmit ITV and C4 in the event of CP going down, and I believe they swap over in the middle of the night once a week to test it


Yes, aerials aren't that directional, the 2 are only about a mile apart so for most people the angle of diffrence between the 2 is negligable. The only people that would need aerials in diffrent directions are those living near or between the 2.... but then they are all so near they can use a piece of wet string as an aerial
SP
Spencer
Churchdown Hill in Gloucestershire seems to be an odd one though. Five is the only TV service from it, and there are no other TV transmitters AFAIK for miles. Most people in the area get signals from Ridge Hill, a good 30 miles from Churchdown.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Churchdown Hill is an odd one, that's a former BBC 405 line site. Seems strange that they'd use that, Ridge Hill carries Channel 5...

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