More bandwidth going byebye...

Seems Ofcom are planning to sell off the 700MHz band now to 4G services, meaning less space in the TV bands:

http://www.ukfree.tv/article/1107052455/Been_missing_the_Digital_Switchover_Good_news_Ther

Hopefully that'll get rid of the useless channels though, but we shall see...

2cvbloke said:

Hopefully that'll get rid of the useless channels though, but we shall see...

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Yes, nice the thought, unlikely the outcome.

Aren't some of the (useful) HD channels using some of that spectrum at the moment? Would be sad to see free HD access diminishing.

Without using the TV downstairs, I'm not even seeing the HD channels, so no loss to me unless they switch everything over to T2, meaning my TV's built-in T tuner would be useless, meaning I'd lose recording functions too, requiring me to buy another STB to add to the pile, and have to invest in an HDMI switch as I only have 2 HDMI ports on my TV (PC and PS3 occupying both at the moment), etc....

I ran out of HDMI inputs on my UK TV some time ago. Three is just not enough and I bought a 3-1 auto switch to supplement the inputs. Recently I found that that was not enough and I bought a 5-1 auto switch.

They're quite cheap so go for it.

The cheap HDMI switches are good. I have a couple of generic ones that have a button for when they don't switch automatically but they work fine.

Consider an August DVB-T210 if you need a usb T2 tuner.

As for the 700MHz band sell off what about all the relays? And interference from the continent? With fewer channels on the continent and fewer here that must be harder to coordinate.

Sweden and Finland have started reusing Band III for some DTT services because there wasn't enough space, what are they going to do after the sell off?

It looks like FreeView will end up with just 3 SD Multiplexes throughout the UK very soon

I might ask for a refund on the wideband aerial I paid for last year.

Maybe freesat will take off as an alternative?

Can't remember last time I watched any freeview channels to be honest.

Using 700mhz for 4g does that mean better mobile reception indoors?

Can't see them losing the HD channels, they may just lower the bitrate of the SD channels and squeeze them into less multiplexes.

It will certainly cause problems in multiple transmitter areas though, unless TV tuning software becomes more controllable/selective. I've had problems down here where a local Freeview light transmitter is badly receivable by an aerial pointing at the main Hannington transmitter, so even when the TV can choose which region, the TV still picks one of the local multiplexes, which of course breaks up.

Can't be filtered out, as it is too close to the main frequencies.

This announcement was inevitable, not because of Ofcom's own desires to sell off more of the UHF broadcast band for mobile telephony (though they hardly appear gutted about it), but because of international activities. Quite a few countries in Africa & the Middle East appear keen to have this "700MHz" band available, while roll outs also appear in other parts of the world either already in place (USA) or planned to (Australia & New Zealand). It's only very much in Europe where there has at least been notable resistance to losing TV transmissions on these frequencies. There's a World Radio Conference in Geneva in about a year's time that'll likely put in place planned frequencies for 700MHz band clearance in Europe and beyond.

There's quite a few potential problems in the UK with a "DSO2". One being that in DSO1, frequency allocations were painstakingly done so that at least for the PSB multiplexes almost all viewers didn't have to change their aerials. The problem with DSO2 though is that the UHF broadcast band is being reduced to channels 21-48, this means that parts of the country where transmissions from main sites are historically received with UHF Group C/D aerials may need replacements. Most new aerial installations in recent years should have been with "wideband" aerials, but many that were installed back in the mid-90's and before that are still going strong might end up becoming redundant. The biggest upheaval will probably be in North West England (Winter Hill) but a few other places like Norfolk and South Wales will be affected too.

Selkirk transmitter is affected - we uses channels 50-60

Hmm, just looked up Pontop Pike's bands, yep, C/D...

Means I'll have to re-build my homemade dipole, cos it's trimmed for about 700MHz...

Analoguesat said:

Selkirk transmitter is affected - we uses channels 50-60

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Another dish number 6th then for 28e?

Didn't think AS personally used ANY terrestrial TV frequencies.

PaulR said:

Didn't think AS personally used ANY terrestrial TV frequencies.

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The RF output of the Skybox ?

Ah, true. But that's unlikely to be affected by any shenanigans going on with frequency changes.