mint Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Yes, getting urgent now so any help will be gratefully received.It's now nearly 2 years since we moved and we are still unable to get Arte. Having done some research and read Arte info on line, I can now state categorically that we do not get Arte and we do not get TF1.I understand that these 2 channels have identical frequencies but I don't know why we don't get them.I have this evening done an automatic re-tune but still no joy.Christmas is coming and there will be lots of programmes on Arte that OH and I will be desperate to watch.Please tell me, in simple terms, what I need to do. Thanks a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Starting point: aerial or dish?If aerial, look at your neighbours' aerial and make sure yours points in the same direction.In case you cannot get a resolution, you can watch Arte and TF1 online. Not the same, I know, but better than nothing [:)]. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 15, 2012 Author Share Posted December 15, 2012 Thanks, Clair. We have both an antenne and a parabole. We had the equipment installed in our house in Charente Maritime and everything worked. Of course, here, we "inherited" ours from the English people who sold to us and they never bothered watching French TV so there was no point asking them!First thing in the morning, I will go and look at everyone else's dish [:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 As far as I can see, the dish should be aligned for Astra 1 (help). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 15, 2012 Author Share Posted December 15, 2012 Clair, thank you for that link and, using it, we were able to find our house and measure the angle and worked out that our dish should point to an oak tree 2 fields away.Strangely enough, we seem to have 2 dishes and 2 aerials and we worked out how the original installation was when the French owner was in residence and how the subsequent English owners added bits that enabled them to get English TV.The French lady died about 7 years ago so it could be that the dish she had is no longer oriented to the right direction. Certainly, we couldn't get Astra 1, only Astra 2.We've been outside in the pouring rain to look at the dishes and also moved the TV set into the room that Mme Lachaud would have used for watching TV but still no signal to Astra 1 from there.In the meantime, after we moved the TV, I found all the dead flies, etc that I couldn't reach to clean out so I have had the hoover out and cleaned the bit of skirting board and floor that the TV stand stood on.After all this, we do at least have an idea of the root of the problem. Just got to find someone now who can turn the dish around and test for a signal. It's good to be able to state your problem in terms that make sense rather than a vague "we can't seem to get Arte".Thank you so very much, Clair. Yet again, as you have done innumerable times in the past, you have come to my rescue [kiss] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 [quote user="sweet 17"]Thank you so very much, Clair. Yet again, as you have done innumerable times in the past, you have come to my rescue [kiss][/quote]Sweet of you to say, Sweet, [:$] but lets' wait until you get a result![:D]Let's hope it works, and don't be tempted to go on that roof yourself, please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Sweets, would you like me to describe the programmes you are missing on the missing channels; it would maybe make you feel better, especially the concerts. For example, tonight on Arte there is a very interesting thing about building cathedrals and on TF1 it is Les Enfants de la Tele which you would really enjoy, I am sure![6] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Sweets - Clair has answered your question, but a few thoughts occur to me.You say you have two aerials. Can you tell to where they are pointing? Both the same way? Is one bigger than the other? Does the bigger one have vertical rods rather than horizontal ones? Your TNT terrestrial box is presumably the one missing TF1 and Arte. Is it also missing NRJ12 and RMC? Is reception of the other channels on your TNT box totally reliable?Are there any channels listed in the 50s (51, 52) etc? Is it an HD box or a standard definition box? Are there any channels listed in the 800s (800, 801 etc)? Is TF1 listed as channel 1 or does the box miss out number 1 and go straight to number 2 (ie France 2). Do you have a second version of France 3 around channel 22 (might be 23, 24 onwards).Now to the satellite. The dish that you DON'T use for British TV, what direction (roughly) is it facing? If it's facing due south rather than south east then it's probably an Atlantic Bird 3 dish on which your French previous-owner would have watched the six main analogue channels. If it's more south east it might be on Hotbird or Astra 1, although you say you've checked that it isn't Astra 1. How do you actually know it isn't Astra 1? What satellite receiver do you have? Sky? freesat? Brico-shed?None of this may help, but it helps me to get an idea of what we're up against.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 16, 2012 Author Share Posted December 16, 2012 [quote user="Martin963"]Sweets - Clair has answered your question, but a few thoughts occur to me.You say you have two aerials. Can you tell to where they are pointing? Both the same way? Is one bigger than the other? Does the bigger one have vertical rods rather than horizontal ones?[/quote]Having had another good look now it's daylight and stopped raining for 5 minutes, we can see FOUR aerials, 2 antennes and 2 paraboles.Both dishes are of similar size and neither has vertical OR horizontal rods.[quote]Your TNT terrestrial box is presumably the one missing TF1 and Arte. Is it also missing NRJ12 and RMC? Is reception of the other channels on your TNT box totally reliable?[/quote]Yes, missing 12 and just flashes through RMC and says RMC découverte.[quote]Are there any channels listed in the 50s (51, 52) etc? Is it an HD box or a standard definition box? Are there any channels listed in the 800s (800, 801 etc)? Is TF1 listed as channel 1 or does the box miss out number 1 and go straight to number 2 (ie France 2). Do you have a second version of France 3 around channel 22 (might be 23, 24 onwards).[/quote] Yes, 50s listed but no signal. It's an HD box. No channels listed in the 800s. Yes, skips TF1. No second version of Fr3 in the 20s. In fact 20 not disponible.[quote]Now to the satellite. The dish that you DON'T use for British TV, what direction (roughly) is it facing? If it's facing due south rather than south east then it's probably an Atlantic Bird 3 dish on which your French previous-owner would have watched the six main analogue channels. If it's more south east it might be on Hotbird or Astra 1, although you say you've checked that it isn't Astra 1. How do you actually know it isn't Astra 1? What satellite receiver do you have? Sky? freesat? Brico-shed?[/quote] Both dishes face "southish", one at 20 degrees SE and one at about 15 degrees SE. No sure which dish is which as we just swap the aerial connections at the TV set. Say, we're watching BBC news and we want to watch French TV, we get off our backsides and connect the aerial lead to the other lead on the wall.I know it's not Astra 1 because it says there's no signal on Astra 1. It's a freesat box. If it helps, the TV is a Tony Bravia bought in France when we first came over and the box says SEDEA S6200. I just put in those in case of inadequacies in my answers!Martin, thank you so very much for responding. Last night, before Clair answered, I said to OH, I do hope Martin sees the post and he will be sure to tell us what's what.However, your questions are supremely challenging for these 2 idiots....[:)]But we have checked the answers and hope you can make some sense out of them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louloulaloopski Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Small point Sweet on the TNT Channel numbers, in the early hours of 12/12/12 the channels were updated changing in particular the order.The popular HD channels are now clustered at the beginning with TF1 HD on channel 1, France2 HD on 2, PayTV HD on 3, ARTE HD on 4,etc.So if you have done a retune after 12/12/12 then there may be some confusion.With due cognisance of your linguistic and musical talents; I would suggest not moving the dish directed at Astra 2; directing your second dish at Astra 1 ( 19.2°est); regarding the "rateaus" the one with long vertical bits is an old obsolete VHF.....of no use; one with more short bits in a horizontal plane is a VHF aerial and will work on Terrestrial Numerique Telé. As noted above the direction of neighbours' aerials is a good guide.Approximately the aerial should point towards Limoges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Sweet, a TNT aerial looks like this.A traditional aerial looks like this. These no longer work as terrestrial transmission has now ceased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Just to clarify: Clair's "traditional" aerial is a Band III VHF Yagi (or rateau). It's not exactly "traditional", it is true that the wavelengths for which it is designed are no longer in use (they were used for Canal + terrestrial), so indeed it serves no further purpose.However, the point of splitting this particular hair is that the "TNT aerial" Clair mentions is just a UHF aerial. It was fine for UHF analogue (ie TF1, F2, F3, and in the right areas F5 and M6) and it's still fine for TNT on UHF. But it's not a specific TNT aerial, there's no such thing, the difference in the two designs of aerials is down to frequency.Anyway, that was partly why I asked about your aerials Sweets (and in this context aerial means thing with lots of rods, not a parabole!). I was trying to ascertain if maybe you had two UHF aerials pointing in different directions or whether one of the aerials was a VHF one which might (if directed at Niort/Maisonnay) have had its rods vertical. I'm not exactly sure where you are Sweets......As to the dishes, if there's a degree of east in both of them the more easterly facing one will be your "British" dish (Astra 2) and the less easterly one will be Astra 1 or Hotbird. I'm still not sure how you KNOW that it isn't Astra 1, unless your "freesat" box has ever been used on Astra 1 I doubt it would "know" enough to be able to usefully tell you that it isn't Astra 1 it's looking at - but I don't have a freesat box here so stand ready for correction on that. Hotbird isn't a lot of good to you as Arte isn't broadcast free to air on that satellite, unlike Astra 1.It sounds as though your aerial (ie the roddy thing) just isn't delivering enough signal to cause the TNT box to "see" TF1 and Arte. If you are using the Bergerac Audrix transmitter (and again I don't know if you're close enough, that's why I asked you what direction the roddy aerial was pointing in) it can be a problem as the old UHF aerials used for Audrix were sometimes chosen to favour channels 31/34/37 UHF (the analogue carriers) but TF1 and Arte (on Multiplex R6) are on channel 58, which is out of the range of these "grouped" aerials. We have the same problem round us - there are a number of old installations which get all the other channels (which are nearer the 30s and 40s) but fail to spot ch 58. The answer in this case is a wideband aerial, but without seeing your installation or knowing exactly where you are I can't give a definite answer. This doesn't apply so much if you are using Limoges Les Cars, the frequency allocations are very different for that. It's annoying I'm not in France for a while otherwise I'd have invited myself round. Isn't it you with the large chateau? Sounds just my sort of thing. You could ring me in England if you're really stuck, if you think it would help then PM me.Final question, are there separate wall plugs or cables (maybe in different rooms) for the two dishes? Or is there just one cable coming indoors from both of them?Sorry to have gone all technical on you.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louloulaloopski Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 It is not entirely true to say that Arte is not available on HotBird.Arte in HD is in fact available on Eutelsat HotBird 13A , this channel is of interest in particular to people seeking a better quality of sound with Dolby Digital. However the reception requires a FTA Tuner having DVBS-2 which is then coupled to an amplifier digitally via a Toslink optical cable or an HDMI 1.4a Audio Return Channel.This channel is only likely to be used by confirmed audiophiles and it's availability is not widely known and disseminated.11681 Htp 159ARTE FrançaisDVB-S2MPEG-4/HD27500-3/48PSK 307 - 571319-15900 572 F 573 G 574 origWide52-53 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 You are of course quite right. I'd missed that one. Sweets could do with borrowing an HD sat box which has been set up on multiple sats to see which one the dish is pointing at. Or of course an "intelligent" meter..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 16, 2012 Author Share Posted December 16, 2012 OK, guys, replying to several posts simultaneously.......First of all, many, many thanks for your patience and willingness to help. I feel very grateful[kiss]Got to thank Clair for the pictures of aerials because I was dreading the moment when Martin might ask me to post a photo of our aerials [:-))]I have, of course, lost my Head of Technology, one Pachapapa, who did any posting of photos that were deemed necessary in the past[:(]Martin, how kind you are to say you'd come to the chateau. Regretably, the chateau is the "old house" in the Charente Maritime where, of course, there were no problems with TV reception. Why would there be when one was able to employ TV technicians to sort things out?[geek]We have downsized to, well, not quite a bog standard bungalow type of house because the previous owners extended and improved it [:D]but certainly a modest and unobtrusive abode.There are 2 cables in the rooms where both French and UK TV are receivable and only one cable (presumably the UK one) in the new extension put in by the Brits.As for "intelligent" meter, all I can say is, don't expect any form of intelligence in this house!You are, of course, welcome here any time, Martin. I'd even go to a bed for the night and breakfast the following morning![:D]Hey, Loops, if you are anywhere near me, could you come instead of Martin?[I] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louloulaloopski Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Phoned your local secretary this morning for help on your problem.She says, that there should be no reason for not getting reception of TF1 and Arte. When I suggested that Limoges would be the best aerial for reception she agreed but informed me that at home they used an aerial directed towards Bordeaux. However she said that when there were winds there was sometimes a loss of signal; she had not heard of problems with aerials directed towards Limoges.I reckon your aerial is pointed towards Bordeau being installed during analog days by the previous french resident and not touched by the later UK résidents and never upgraded for TNT.So a change of direction to Limoges and possibly a new "bon coin" aerial may be advisable.Your TV, you say, is picking up the other channels so it must be digital BUT does the TV have an onboard tuner or is it via an external adapter.If you are not sure, then post the relevant model number , so we can appraise better the technical capabilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 If you know which aerial your using then you can use the following website to find where you can get the best signal from direction wise.http://www.tnttest.org/Hope that helps a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 Glad you're still on the case, Loops, and thank you to you too, Q.The TV is a Sony Bravia Model KDL-26U2000. It's quite a modern TV, bought in France when we moved over and it worked parfaitement in the other house. Mind you, we paid an enormous (exhorbitant) sum in our innocence (deffo ripped off) for the man from the shop to fit the antenne and the parabole.It could be that our house has a problem that others may not have. We are nestled half-way up a steepish little hill, so the land falls away from the house but the houses in the bourg behind us are a bit higher than ours.We face south and are nicely protected from the winds from the north but it may be that this protection, ie, the hill, is also blocking our TV signals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 What, no new posts since I went out over 2 hours ago? I mean not only on this thread which is a bit esoteric I admit but elsewhere?Anyway, Loops, I talked to the girls in the gym and everybody else seems happy with their reception, INCLUDING the next door neighbours. Then I asked if they'd had new aerials and they said no, not since the storm of 1989!So, it looks like something needs swivelling around!Will come and tell you all about it once I have found a resolution (resolution, ha, ha, no?) and bore you all some more.....and that's a promise![:P]Edit: (strike forehead) you've all been watching Little England! That's it, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Without compromising your security are you able to post the results of the test you'll have carried out on the TNT test site that Quillan posted a link to?Without some detailed information from that it's not easy to help you further, although I'm willing to go on trying, maybe off-forum...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 Martin, you are so incredibly kind. I am going to PM you my address and other details! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louloulaloopski Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Hi! Been playing with the round circle target on the CSA map and pulling it around as a result it would seem that the Riberac transmitter is better on the north side of the departmental road leading to Limoges. The Limoges is further away whereas the local transmitter is much closer. Just a couple of kilometres to the South-West of the bourg and one is definitely in Riberac territory. As you say that the house looks towards the South it may be therfore the best direction, so the lady secretary at the mairie probably lives on that side of the commune. The Riberac transmitter is approximately in the direction of Bordeaux, so which way is your terrestrial aerial pointing.Please do a COMPLETE installation on your TV similar to like you did when the TV was taken out of the box....not an update (mise à jour).http://www.csa.fr/content/download/20763/345793/file/COMMENT+RECHERCHER+SES+CHAINES.pdfThe one page PDF link above gives the CSA recommended procedure.I have downloaded in english the users manual for the TV but it is on the desktop so not immediately available.The map given by Q gives reception for both Limoges and Riberac at 3/5 based on a residence in the bourg but the reception on the CSA map is more variable and locality dépendent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 sweet17, I have PM'd you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 id, I have replied. Plus I have had a shower, washed my hair and now am following all suggestions....[:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mint Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 Loops, gonna have a good look at your link tomorrow.Dammit, I can see the bloomin' transmitter from our house if I squint hard. En plus, the neighbour swears she gets Fr1 as well as Arte.Madame la secretaire doesn't actually live here but in a village which is amongst the lowest in the area! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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