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Your DX-TV Memories !; Do you have any? :)
Topic Started: Jan 16 2010, 11:51 PM (1,725 Views)
slothpuck
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Hello all :) . Uh oh I hear you all say, not another SP thread !!!!

Ok well I was just wondering. Did anyone else here ever try to "mess around" with their TVs when you were a kid. By "mess around" I mean trying to re-tune the TV to recieve another BBC or ITV region (or prehaps even a foriegn channel!). Just wondered if anyone else had tried this, me I did this a *lot* back in the 80s!

SP
:) !
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Nigel Stapley
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About 1981/2, I was a big fan of the comedy series "Soap". Because the show wasn't networked, each ITV region was at a different point in the story, so I used to tune around late at night to see how far each had got.

Granada, HTV & Central were no problem, but I sometimes succeeded in getting Yorkshire and even Tyne Tees too, although the picture/sound quality were poor, as you'd expect with a b&w portable and one of those V-shaped set-top aerials. That was balanced out by the fact that I was 850 feet up on a hillside with a clear view to the east and north-east.

With the same set-up, I got Anglia one night in early January '82 because of atmospheric conditions.

The furthest I ever got was - again with the same kit - one hot, clear summer morning in 1983, when I picked up the morning transmission from ZDF in Germany. Picture only, this one, because Germany operated a different PAL system to the UK.
Nigel
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Picasso61
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Yes it was fun in the good old days of ITV trying to receive another region. I always could receive both HTV West and HTV Wales on my black and white set during the 1970s. West was always clearer than Wales. In 1987 I did have an extra aerial installed so I could receive a clear HTV West picture.
I have received Anglia on one occasion - I remember seeing the Anglia company logo with the accompanying Sea Songs music. However the most interesting reception occurred during the summer of 1997. I had an aerial installed to receive Channel 5 from Lichfield. What happened during a hot spell over several evenings I was picking up signals as clear as anything from YTV. Obviously the group B aerial which was pointing north-east was also picking up Emley Moor (I reckon about 130 miles.)
Talking of YTV I can recall on several occasions during a holiday at Scarborough in 1980 dashing from the breakfast room at 9.25am to switch on the TV in the lounge just to try and catch the start-up. Fortunately I saw it on several days. People thought I must have been mad! It was great to hear The Yorkshire March and Redvers Kyle's (or John Crosse/Graham Roberts) dulcet tones!
I can recall foreign interference with channels overlapping but I don't think I ever saw a clear signal from the continent.
Edited by Picasso61, Jan 17 2010, 05:43 PM.
Gerry Anderson MBE 1929-2012 - RIP
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Picasso61
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Nigel Stapley
Jan 17 2010, 01:14 PM


The furthest I ever got was - again with the same kit - one hot, clear summer morning in 1983, when I picked up the morning transmission from ZDF in Germany. Picture only, this one, because Germany operated a different PAL system to the UK.
Nigel - during that particular opening did you see the ZDF FuBK test pattern?
Gerry Anderson MBE 1929-2012 - RIP
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Nigel Stapley
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Frayed knot. There was some sort of variety show going on, and the only way I had of identifying the station was when a caption card came up which said:

ARD
VORMITTAGSPROGRAM
ZDF
Nigel
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Peter Thomas
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Analogue terrestrial...

Here in Wellingborough, it's always been a state of Anglia (West, from Sandy Heath) and Central (East, from Waltham). Most people go for Anglia because it's a stronger picture, but the north-east side of town have aerials where Central is unmistakeably the best signal. Oddly, in a village south of the town, I picked up Yorkshire, watchable when a booster was added.

On really hot days, London can make its way 60 miles up north to Wellingborough, sometimes in colour.

I've been told the Hemmingwell council estate can provide London from its communal aerial to all residents, in addition to Central/Anglia.

Digital terrestrial...

Anywhere east of the town centre is terrible for Freeview. You get the BBC channels but rarely anything else. On hot days you can get everything... from Yorkshire! Very odd to see ITV1 Yorkshire coming through on my TV's embedded Freeview tuner. (I'm used to it as I have every ITV region programmed into every Sky Digital box I've ever owned.)

Strangely, on the west side, Freeview is quite a doddle to get, even with a crappy £5 indoor aerial from Argos, serving up everything Sandy Heath (Anglia West) has to offer. This is where I now live, not that I care too much for Freeview, as about 95% of my viewing is via Sky HD.

Cable/Satellite...

When I had NTL (huge mistake) in my bedroom, back in the 1990s era of analogue cable, they gave us Central South as the main ITV region. When Sky Digital was installed in 1999, and they had a limited selection of ITV regions, it was possible to view Central West on that, so I got every possible flavour of Central. I think Anglia East also came through on that.

Odd notes:

My father was proud of taking the family on holiday every year to some spot in the UK. He opted a lot for the south. I quickly got used to TVS, TSW, HTV, etc. I can still hum the TVS Coast To Coast music every time I think of Brighton or Eastbourne. My mother would get to pick our destination every alternate year, and we had some holidays in northern areas, so I got to see Granada and Yorkshire for the first time.

A 1986 visit to Wales threw me. Didn't know S4C existed, found it all very exciting. I initially thought the Sbec insert in the local TV Times was Welsh junk mail, but thankfully we found the times SuperTed would be on.

One holiday in Broadstairs, Kent (TVS Land) saw me fiddling with the hotel telly, and it was odd to see Anglia coming through on a speckled-but-very-watchable signal. Over in YTV Land, a holiday in Scarborough saw me attempting to get Tyne Tees (I'm told it's receivable in Sheffield), but to no avail. In Eastbourne, you can pick up feint shadows of French television.

Of course, everyone knows about the Sky Digital 'other channels' trick to pick up every conceivable ITV region out there, so for the past ten years I've never quite got the same anoraky 'excitement' when visiting a new part of the UK. I've sat at home watching Channel, UTV, Grampian, Scottish, Border, Tyne Tees...

In recent years I've visited Glasgow, Belfast and Newcastle, allowing to me to 'tick off' the regions I've 'naturally' seen. Only Grampian and Channel to go! (Although I've been over the Grampian region, literally flying over it on my way to Iceland.)
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Picasso61
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Nigel Stapley
Jan 17 2010, 05:04 PM
Frayed knot. There was some sort of variety show going on, and the only way I had of identifying the station was when a caption card came up which said:

ARD
VORMITTAGSPROGRAM
ZDF
That's a pity you didn't get to see the channel's test pattern, Nigel. At least there are some examples of this pattern received via sporadic E or Tropo on Youtube.
ZDF closedown 19th Dec 1990:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_zxMQ5QwBA
Edited by Picasso61, Jan 17 2010, 05:36 PM.
Gerry Anderson MBE 1929-2012 - RIP
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slothpuck
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Here's my memories of doing this. Please don't laugh :-) !

This all really dates from the 1980s. And at the time I was still a schoolkid, so the time I had avaliable to me back then was different than the time I have avaliable to me now to try out such things (which isn't all that much x.x) .

Here's what I can remember;

1. I cannot recall exactly which day this happened (it must have been either a thursday or friday) during the 80s. I can distinctly remember tuining around and finding one of the london TV channels (either LWT or Thames). And I found I could recieve these *without* an ariel connected so good was the signal ( attaching the ariel overloaded the TV). This would be good if I were in london, but it was positively fantastic considering I'm about 100+ miles away from London - !

2. During the summer months in the mid-late 80s where I live I almost always used to be able to recieve around 1-3 French TV channels, most noticbly FR3. One year the signals were so good the picture was fully locked and almost with sound, but over a period of 30 mins would drift going from fairly weak to strong. The picture displayed was some sort of testcard with the caption "FR3 ES SPECIALISE", from memory.

3. During the 1980s before school I'd often manage to recieve extra TV channels. I could easily recieve TSW, HTV and LWT/Thames. I remember well watching (for example) TSW with the picture fading in and out, accompnied by lots of lines over the picture with an accompying whistle as the lines became more intense.

4. One thing that often used to happen, and this one's quite bizarre used to happen during the autumn months. And what's more it seemed to happen *every* week, almost like clockwork. You see I used to watch Tiswas and Swap shop (saturday morning kids TV), albeit in their final time. But for some strange reason very good TSW/London reception was possible at this exact time; I also recall there was sometimes a lot of fog about outside over a nearby field. When I started viewing at around 8 or so in the morning the other two ITV channels would come through very well (though HTV far less so); by the time the kids' shows had ended and moved onto soaps or sport the signals had almost all but faded away. Weird, but it always happened.

5. In another case one night (and I'm not sure which way round to put this) I remember briefly watching a BBC1 series (I think it was some sort of game show) called "Get set go". There were lots of lines all over the picture, with the accompyning breaking up of the picture and a whistle on sound. I checked on my on TV (a black and white portable which I used for all the above, btw) but I found no extra signals.

Sometime later though something did happen (not on the same day though). Signals from other regions became so good they got to the point they were *too* good. TVS was completely unwatchable and a broken up mess. TSW and London less so, but still a mass of lines and distortion. And after careful tuning (this really seemed to be fun, lots of channels!) I managed to recieve a pretty good picture from YTV. So on that night, even though I'm in the TVS region I ended up having to use YTV as my local ITV channel - ! I even managed to make a tiny mark on the TV set's tuner so I could always find this exact spot again just in case this happened again (it didn't). Still have that TV, btw!

Bear in mind all the above that I've just written were recived on nothing more than an ordinary black-and-white 625 line TV (A Pye Rambler 14) an indoor ariel (or the TV's built in loop ariel) and a small low-gain (7-8db gain) amplifier. Nothing more.

In the late '90s I managed to recieve YTV (or anglia, I forget) again (with the antenna balanced precariously on a commodore PET computer - !). The picture was pretty weak and snowy though. And around 2003-2005 I can't remember exactly I managed to recieve ITV Wales and (I think) S4C. Again pretty low signal strength though - but by that time I had (and still have) a D100 DX unit which is designed to do this sort of stuff.

These days DXing dosen't seem to be so much fun. Reginal content on *any* of the channels is virtually zero, and the opening of a new TV channel is a nonevent these days. For analogue DX I haven't received anything to date out of the ordinary, certianly nothing like what happened in the 80s. To date, I consider receiving signals from wales as my last analogue DX.

To date I've had no luck trying digital DXing.

SP
Edited by slothpuck, Jan 17 2010, 07:08 PM.
:) !
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Picasso61
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There's some very interesting stories there about your various reception of ITV around the country (and France too) over the years there, slothpuck.
That French test card - could it have been the Philips PM5544 at all? The French version would lack the side bars. I expect you didn't get any sound during those openings from France.
By the sounds of it no exotic outdoor aerials either - just an indoor aerial. Amazing - just think what you could've received with an exterior wideband aerial.
I'm wondering about your reception of TSW & LWT/Thames - as a guess this was on ch23 from Stockland Hill and Crystal Palace although obviously you'd be suffering with co-channel interference hence your picture fading in and out also the distorted sound.
Still it was great fun trying to receive distant stations in the past - not so interesting nowadays.
Edited by Picasso61, Jan 17 2010, 08:36 PM.
Gerry Anderson MBE 1929-2012 - RIP
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ronniemb
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When I first moved to London in 1994, I had a flat in North London and could choose between Thames/LWT or Meridian and the night time services were still different at that time if I was up that late.

Up until then, I had lived in a non-overlap part of STVland.

The Fens are an overlap area (up to a triple overlap in some parts) and I used to have the bizarre experience of only being able to get BBC North (Yorks/Lincs) from Belmont on the kitchen portable, which made the travel news totally useless to me - I wanted to know how the trains into London were running from Look East, not the ones into Leeds from Look North!
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slothpuck
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Picasso61
Jan 17 2010, 08:35 PM
There's some very interesting stories there about your various reception of ITV around the country (and France too) over the years there, slothpuck.
That French test card - could it have been the Philips PM5544 at all? The French version would lack the side bars. I expect you didn't get any sound during those openings from France.
By the sounds of it no exotic outdoor aerials either - just an indoor aerial. Amazing - just think what you could've received with an exterior wideband aerial.
I'm wondering about your reception of TSW & LWT/Thames - as a guess this was on ch23 from Stockland Hill and Crystal Palace although obviously you'd be suffering with co-channel interference hence your picture fading in and out also the distorted sound.
Still it was great fun trying to receive distant stations in the past - not so interesting nowadays.
Well ... the French test card, really I should have been a tiny bit more elaborate! Actually there were two of them. One of them like you say was the PM554 without the sidebars, but there was another (the one I describe). Actually you got me thinking there, and after a lot of poking around I managed to turn up (the remains of) an old book I had at the time. It is (oddly) a book written in german, called "TV-Bildkatalog" and my copy dates from 1988. I managed to find a picture of what I meant (attached). It isn't exactly the same but very nearly. From memory the caption was different, "FR3 ES SPECIALISE" (but in the same font!), the "corrupted display" part of the picture was larger and further down in one solid block and I don't remember the greyscale background being like that. But it is very similar otherwise.

True enough it would've been intresting to see what I could have found back in the 80s with a better outdoor ariel. *thinks more : ..... Actually I did manage for a very brief time around the late 80s-early 90s to get an external ariel and rotator but a) only for bands 1-3 and b) it all ended after a short time because of the storms of the late 80s/early 90s. The ariel didn't blow down, but the pole was badly bent. It had to come down and .... never went back up x.x . More on that another time!

Yep the TSW/LWT/Thames signals were all on Ch23 or around that, all low down. From memory here's a list of what I knew I could get (strength depending on atmospheric conditions) plus normal local channels. Note that I probably don't have all the channels right!

Ch21 - Channel 4 (local)
Ch22 - French TF1
Ch22/23 - TSW and LWT/Thames
Ch24 - BBC2 (local)
Ch25 - FR3 (France)
**YTV Reception goes in somewhere here as does Anglia....maybe...**
Ch27 - ITV (local)
Ch28 - French second channel
Ch31 - BBC1 (local)
Ch34 - BBC1 South West
Ch4? - Hannington (these are all around this part of the channel list!)
Ch5?/6? - C4 West, BBC2 West, HTV, BBC1 West

Note that I could find a BBC2, C4 and BBC1 between BBC2(local) and BBC1(local) but I can't remember exactly where they would go. The french TV channels almost always just seemed "to be under" the main local channels. Also to this list I can add a few extra unknown signals if I changed the polarisation of my indoor ariel, though I am just guessing these were small relays.
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Picasso61
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That image you kindly posted slothpuck is interesting featuring the colour bars with a lot of info - I wish I knew a little more French!
Would this have dated from the 1980s?

The only main transmitter I know of in northern France is Caen so that's possibly the one you have listed here.
This link will prove interesting as it shows the transmitters in northern France that could cause interference in southern England.
Those French channel numbers you listed are indeed Caen and it transmits at 200kw ERP:
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/rowridgetx.html

Your local transmitter is Rowridge going by the channel numbers. The YTV/Anglia would be on ch25 - Belmont in Lincolnshire.
Hannington's on ch 42 and the final listing is Mendip (ch58 BBC1, ch64 BBC2, ch61 HTV West and ch 54 Channel 4.)
In north London you were getting signals from Crystal Palace and Bluebell Hill.

I'd be interested to hear that tale of your external aerial and rotator!
Edited by Picasso61, Jan 18 2010, 11:26 PM.
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slothpuck
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*Scratches head .... hmm, about that ariel and rotor? :)

Well way back in the mid 1980s I managed to get my paws on something called an upconverter. This device is pretty basic - it basically takes all the frequencies from bands 1,2 and 3 and shoves them onto normal UHF 21-68. My upconverter (which I still have) is an extremely obscure device, it is labelled as a "Model Planet TFC1 Upconverter". There's pretty much 0 online about it.

Anyways I used to use that upconverter, a normal B&W TV and a very crude ariel and I could recieve a fair amount on even this. First time (or almost) I tried it I can recall receiving signals from Norway, which was intresting. Anyway although this setup worked I wanted to try to put up something a bit more advanced. So by the late 1980s I had an ariel rotator and a large (!) Band 1/3 ariel attached to the side of the house.

That worked very well too -- in fact it was unusual *not* to see anything on Bands 1/3 (Mainly Band 1, VHF). Spain, Russia, Norway all were frequently received.

At one point (~1987) I used to have a small TV as well which incorporated its own Band 1/3 tuner, though it never worked properly! The power cable never fitted properly, and with even the slightest touch would make intermittent contact. The picture although OK had a "stretched" look to it. I can't remember the model number only that it was made by a company called "yoko" and that it was made in korea.

Alas though this setup was never going to last. After the second batch of storms/high winds the main ariel pole got damaged. Not seriously, but not good -- it had a very slight kink or bend in it, I cannot remember now. It was then duly taken down and .... never put back up. That and apparently (as I've never been sure) the noise made by the motor apparently disturbed my younger brother back then!

Attached is a picture of the upconverter.

SP


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Edited by slothpuck, Jan 31 2010, 11:19 PM.
:) !
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Picasso61
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A most interesting post, slothpuck. Thanks for that. ;)
I've always been fascinated in distant television signals - thankfully there are plenty of websites on the net about DXing.

The Youtube clips of the DXer from The Netherlands are particularly interesting - a pity it's all in Dutch!
IMO there should be English subtitles accompanying this.
In case you haven't seen it:
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3iXkVqoZKc
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti1h3CwRBL8
Edited by Picasso61, Feb 4 2010, 11:45 PM.
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digger
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I remember back in the late 70s-early 80s messing around with the rotary tuner on my portable black and white tv, and picking up Anglia from the Sandy Heath transmitter- really good picture from what I remember. I remember how surprised I was that could pick up another region in Birmingham, and thought it would be there for the duration. Of course, the next day it had gone. I did a little investigation and was hooked after that.

I bought an old Philips N1700 with bands 1 and 3 tuner, and was regularly able to receive Italian and Spanish transmissions during periods of high pressure. French and Dutch transmissions were also received on lower frequency UHF. I think the furthest station I received was Russian, although I can't remember the name of the network.

I persuaded my dad to fit an aerial splitter to the roof aerial, although I strangely enough I got really good results with an old band 2 high gain aerial (intended for reception of FM radio!)

Happy days...nowadays it seems to be the case that satellite has more or less killed DXTV off (although ATV still seems to have a good following...that's Amateur TV, not the other one! :blink: )
Edited by digger, Feb 4 2010, 03:14 PM.
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