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My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+1, has no sound o

My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+1, has no sound or the channel line up is wrong

My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+
published on UK Free TV

To deal with the problem you must clear the channel list completely and then rescan - if your box has it in the menus, please the 'installation menu' to do an initial scan or a reset to factory settings or First Time Installation. You MUST delete the entire existing list of channels. On most boxes this technique can be also be used:

Try this:

1) unplug your Freeview box (or idTV) from the mains;



2) unplug the aerial from the Freeview box by disconnecting the cable from the 'RF in' socket;



3) wait 30 seconds;

4) plug Freeview box (or idTV) mains back in;



5) do a complete scan for channels - it will fail without the aerial. (This may be in the installation or initialization menu, and is distinct from any 'add channels option'). Once this is done your channel line up should be empty;



6) reinsert aerial by reconnecting to the 'RF in' connection;



7) do a complete scan for channels again.



The Freeview channel line-up provided by six "multiplexes" - each of which carry five or more TV channels, radio channels, text services and EPG data. In this diagram each ROW represents a multiplex. If you are still missing a whole multiplex (ie everything on the row) you may need to replace your aerial with a wideband type, purchase a larger aerial or you may have interference from a VCR, games console, Sky Digibox or similar.



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Comments
Thursday, 7 June 2012
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:06 PM

Sarah C: And just another little, but very important point to remember being, that should immediately after switch over on the 13th that you find that your reception on BBC (and only) has actually taken a downhill dive, then this will most likely be caused by your TV or boxes tuner suffering from the effects of being overloaded through receiving an excessively high level of signal, something which is very possible by you being located at just a little over 1 mile way away from the transmitter, although to be quite frank about it I am surprised that you aren't already suffering from that problem, unless that is you are tucked in behind a hill that's screens you from the transmitter.

However, should you experience a deterioration with reception on BBC then purely for a test try and borrow a set top aerial and see how that goes, or if you cant manage that then try a short piece of wire (about 12-18" or so) pushed into the inner section of the aerial socket, and if this results in better reception then you will require to purchase an attenuator to place in line with your TV or boxes aerial socket.

Of course everything might well go smoothly, but for many people who resides relatively close to the transmitter it doesn't, this being my only reason for alerting you to this potential problem.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:46 PM

Dave Lindsay: Well although what Mike Dimmick has mentioned regarding the removal of the Sandy's Southerly attenuation on the 27th is quite correct that's not exactly what my suspicions were aimed at, although there is a slight connection insomuch that the power of these muxes will require to be seriously reduced (or cut altogether) before any work can be carried out on the mast, "if" physical changes are on the cards to be carried out rather than other electronic methods, should they be able to achieve this.

You see the problem when dealing with commercial muxes is that they aren't obliged to report in the same way as would anything involving PSB muxes and with this making it difficult to get accurate information, even from my own contacts.

With regards to the notorious Ch48-51-52 should it transpire not to be a panel fault then it could also be that the power has been reduced for preliminary work being carried out, as I checked these three channels earlier on and although Ch48 & 51 have stabilised slightly to what they were yesterday there is still a solid zero on Ch52 , which in my long term experience is "not" being caused by anything other than something connected to the station, as pre-switch over when the commercials were operating on 20Kw indications like that were the order of the day in my area.

Needless to say I will not be advising anyone that's having a problem with these channels to upgrade their aerial "if" their reception was OK until recently, but just to wait until a few days after the 27th before re-assessing the situation.


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Friday, 8 June 2012
R
Rog
9:50 AM

jb38: thanks for the update. I certainly will not be making any changes to my aerial for the moment . . . as you say it sounds as though there something going on over there at Sandy Heath, even if they are not admitting it :)

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Rog's 9 posts GB flag
P
ptc
2:24 PM

In the past couple of months, my set-top box has been regularly losing BBC channels, meaning that I have to rescan to get them back again. Almost every time it is brought out of standby, it has lost the BBC channels once again. It was working fine until fairly recently. I am in LE14 postcode area, a few miles from Waltham transmitter. Aerial must be ok as I have connected a new TV with integral Freeview and that does not lose any channels. Could it be that my set-top box is no longer compliant with the current digital transmissions?

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ptc's 4 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:06 PM

ptc: This can happen if your box has just about reached its limit for the number of channels its memory is capable of storing, hence when its unpowered they are lost.

Without having knowledge of the box being referred to carry out a complete factory reset on it, sometimes called default scan, then follow this with another auto tune.


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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:09 PM

ptc: Should this be found not to have improved the situation then come back with the model of the box in question.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
P
ptc
7:13 PM

Thanks jb38 - I have carried out the reset procedure, everything works fine at first but when it is brought back from standby, all BBC channels (1, 2, 7, 9 and 80) have disappeared. The box is a Technosonic STB 2014.

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ptc's 4 posts GB flag
Saturday, 9 June 2012
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

9:08 PM

ptc: I should have twigged when you mentioned about the box possibly not complying with modern standards, insomuch that this box was even problematic in a variety of ways about 7 years ago, and with the actual box dating back to 2004.

Unfortunately I have not as yet been able to find any reference to that model in my list of service manuals and so am unable to "check the spec" so to say, but to be quite honest about it your problem is most likely caused by an incompatibility problem, my suspicion being that as the BBC channels are the first to be stored on an auto-tune they are first to be discarded, because by the time you have scanned all of the six transmitters used by Freeview, many more programmes have been received that the very limited capacity of the boxes memory can store.

The only way around this is, that once you have completed a auto-tune immediately start deleting as many of the channels as possible that you are not interested in, as that will bring the overall count down.

Assuming that is that the box allows you to delete individual channels, as many don't.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Sunday, 10 June 2012
S
Sarah C
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

11:33 AM
Chatham

Thanks jb38. I pray everythign is OK as I am so stupid when it comes to technical things and immediately go into panic mode.

I have saved what you said to re-read it if everything goes kaput.
I am in Lordswood (Chatham) and I pray that all goes OK - Arghhhhh - I dont really have alot of people to turn to if it doesnt

Thank You

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Sarah C's 38 posts GB flag
Sarah's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

8:55 PM

Sarah C: Yes, keep the info stored away for future reference as this type of thing is much more of a problem than most people realise, basically because that the symptoms seen by the viewer is exactly the same as to that of a weak signal, it even indicating as such! this because of the high level of RF having corrupted the signal level measuring system and resulting in it giving a false reading.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
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