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11. 

    giskard
    

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    Traditional "brown TV coax with copper braid" is virtually useless for Freeview signals. Analogue TV signals were very tolerant to interference - remember those pictures which were more snow than picture?? - but digital is much more sensitive.
    Traditional TV coax is useless because the braid is so open it lets all sorts of interference through.
    Use satellite grade coax with a braid AND a solid metal foil sheath.

    The coax cables from the TV aerial point to the Humax and from there to the TV are just flexible TV signal cables, don't know how well they're shielded. Are you suggesting I use solid core coax instead of the one's I just mentioned?

    | Fri 24 Aug 2018 15:04:47 #11 |
12. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    JohnH77 - 56 minutes ago  » 
    Traditional "brown TV coax with copper braid" is virtually useless for Freeview signals. Analogue TV signals were very tolerant to interference - remember those pictures which were more snow than picture?? - but digital is much more sensitive.
    Traditional TV coax is useless because the braid is so open it lets all sorts of interference through.
    Use satellite grade coax with a braid AND a solid metal foil sheath.

    WF100 is available in a range of colours including brown.

    The key is solid copper centre core, foam dialectric, copper foil over foam dialectric and copper braid foil.

    WF100 and other cable specs here :

    http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/cablespecs.htm

    | Fri 24 Aug 2018 15:16:09 #12 |
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    grahamlthompson
    

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    giskard - 11 minutes ago  » 

    Traditional "brown TV coax with copper braid" is virtually useless for Freeview signals. Analogue TV signals were very tolerant to interference - remember those pictures which were more snow than picture?? - but digital is much more sensitive.
    Traditional TV coax is useless because the braid is so open it lets all sorts of interference through.
    Use satellite grade coax with a braid AND a solid metal foil sheath.

    The coax cables from the TV aerial point to the Humax and from there to the TV are just flexible TV signal cables, don't know how well they're shielded. Are you suggesting I use solid core coax instead of the one's I just mentioned?

    No he is suggesting you use satellite grade cables. Not all satellite cabling is the best choice. Avoid steel copper plated conductor and aluminium foil like RG6. Webro WF100 is the best in the 100 grade though PF100 will be fine for indoor cabling. See the above post.

    Avoid using the cable with air spaced dialectric outdoors because it makes an excellent water pipe into your connected kit.

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Webro-WF100-Coax-Cable/629218735

    note the foil under the braided screen.

    | Fri 24 Aug 2018 15:21:01 #13 |
14. 

    JohnH77
    

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    JohnH77 - 20 hours ago  » 
    Traditional "brown TV coax with copper braid" is virtually useless for Freeview signals. Analogue TV signals were very tolerant to interference - remember those pictures which were more snow than picture?? - but digital is much more sensitive.
    Traditional TV coax is useless because the braid is so open it lets all sorts of interference through.
    Use satellite grade coax with a braid AND a solid metal foil sheath.

    Use this stuff.

    See What's the Best Coaxial cable to use for... at http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/cable.htm

    

    Attachments

    1. WF_100_copper_foil_coax.png (37.4 KB, 1 downloads) 5 years old

    | Sat 25 Aug 2018 10:46:42 #14 |
15. 

    Pollensa1946
    

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    JohnH77 - 22 hours ago  » Traditional "brown TV coax with copper braid" is virtually useless for Freeview signals...

    I guess in some circumstances that is true. However, back in analogue days my house was cabled with brown co-ax to every room for TV and VHF. The signal is fed thru an amp/distributor. I rarely use Freeview since I have Freesat but on 4 TVs my Freeview signal is excellent. I don't doubt I could probably improve it with WF100 (which I have cabled satellite in) but in my case your assertion does not hold up.

    | Sat 25 Aug 2018 13:21:09 #15 |
16. 

    JohnH77
    

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    You must live in a relatively interference free zone.

    Poorly suppressed vehicles and electrical equipment can cause picture breakup with traditional coax.

    | Sat 25 Aug 2018 14:53:03 #16 |
17. 

    giskard
    

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    My problem isn't helped by that fact that the UHF socket on my Samsung TV is just below the HDMI ports I didn't have an issue with the old Sony TV which had plenty of space between the HDMI and UHF sockets.

    | Sat 25 Aug 2018 15:18:06 #17 |
18. 

    Pollensa1946
    

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    JohnH77 - 1 hour ago  » 
    You must live in a relatively interference free zone.
    Poorly suppressed vehicles and electrical equipment can cause picture breakup with traditional coax.

    I don't doubt that they can. My qualifications in Electronics and 40 years experience in Telecomms, Engineering and Computing tell me it is so. However, brown co-ax is not useless for Freeview in every environment. BTW, I live alongside a fairly busy road. No problems.

    | Sat 25 Aug 2018 16:02:45 #18 |
19. 

    giskard
    

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    grahamlthompson - 1 week ago  » 

    giskard - 23 minutes ago  » 

    grahamlthompson - 5 months ago  » 

    giskard - 13 hours ago  » 

    giskard - 4 weeks ago  » 

    A1944 - 1 day ago  » 
    Maybe once the Humax is on there is interference from the HDMI cable into the TV's aerial cable. Try moving them as far apart as you can.

    Did that and it seems to have made a difference. Time to replace the HDMI cable I think.

    HDMI cable replaced and moved as far away from aerial lead as possible, but it's still an issue although now it's intermittent when the Humax is powered on.
    Could my FVP-5000 be faulty? Surely it shouldn't be generating so much interference that it affects the TV signal?

    HDMI cables generate RF in the UHF band, it's nothing to do with the box. If you have cheap poorly screened coax interconnects it can knock out terrestrial TV. Make your own coax interconnects using double screened satellite grade cable.
    I use screw on f connectors and belling lee converters as needed.
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-pf100-satellite-coaxial-cable-25m-black/58592
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/philex-coaxial-f-plug-pack-of-10/17061
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-f-to-coax-plugs-pack-of-10/39772
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-f-to-coax-adaptors-pack-of-10/33532
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMiCgyeFm4

    Thanks for that, very useful.
    So I should use double-screened co-ax between my aerial point and the Humax, and from the Humax to the TV?

    Yes it can avoid interference from HDMI interconnects which radiate radio frequency interference in the same band (uhf) as terrestrial TV as described above. However I would use a splitter to give the TV and Humax box a seperate feed. That way you can turn on power saving in sby mode.
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-2-way-splitter-with-power-pass-all-ports/99105

    Well I did all of the above and made my own solid-core coax leads to use with the Labgear splitter and it seems to have resolved the issue. The TV seemed to lose signal a bit after plugging everything in but after retuning it, it seems to be fixed. The only thing that concerns me is that doing a signal test on the FVP-5000T shows that tuner 2 only has 70% signal quality in contrast with the tuner 1 which is at 98%.

    | Mon 3 Sep 2018 13:34:14 #19 |
20. 

    grahamlthompson
    

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    giskard - 3 hours ago  » 

    grahamlthompson - 1 week ago  » 

    giskard - 23 minutes ago  » 

    grahamlthompson - 5 months ago  » 

    giskard - 13 hours ago  » 

    giskard - 4 weeks ago  » 

    A1944 - 1 day ago  » 
    Maybe once the Humax is on there is interference from the HDMI cable into the TV's aerial cable. Try moving them as far apart as you can.

    Did that and it seems to have made a difference. Time to replace the HDMI cable I think.

    HDMI cable replaced and moved as far away from aerial lead as possible, but it's still an issue although now it's intermittent when the Humax is powered on.
    Could my FVP-5000 be faulty? Surely it shouldn't be generating so much interference that it affects the TV signal?

    HDMI cables generate RF in the UHF band, it's nothing to do with the box. If you have cheap poorly screened coax interconnects it can knock out terrestrial TV. Make your own coax interconnects using double screened satellite grade cable.
    I use screw on f connectors and belling lee converters as needed.
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-pf100-satellite-coaxial-cable-25m-black/58592
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/philex-coaxial-f-plug-pack-of-10/17061
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-f-to-coax-plugs-pack-of-10/39772
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-f-to-coax-adaptors-pack-of-10/33532
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMiCgyeFm4

    Thanks for that, very useful.
    So I should use double-screened co-ax between my aerial point and the Humax, and from the Humax to the TV?

    Yes it can avoid interference from HDMI interconnects which radiate radio frequency interference in the same band (uhf) as terrestrial TV as described above. However I would use a splitter to give the TV and Humax box a seperate feed. That way you can turn on power saving in sby mode.
    https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-2-way-splitter-with-power-pass-all-ports/99105

    Well I did all of the above and made my own solid-core coax leads to use with the Labgear splitter and it seems to have resolved the issue. The TV seemed to lose signal a bit after plugging everything in but after retuning it, it seems to be fixed. The only thing that concerns me is that doing a signal test on the FVP-5000T shows that tuner 2 only has 70% signal quality in contrast with the tuner 1 which is at 98%.

    the signal strength will vary with Mux and also some use reduced power. No aerial has a completely flat gain curve with frequency. To test the second tuner on the same MUX you will need firstly to set two recordings on the same mux to fully utilise tuner 1 and then view a 3rd channel on the same mux.

    Try recording BBC 1 - HD 101, BBC - 2 HD and then tune to one of the remaining PSB 3 channels 103, 104 or 105,

    What signal strength is now shown ? incidentally if a steady 100% quality is shown the signal strength is irrelevant.

    | Mon 3 Sep 2018 17:16:51 #20 |

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