Terrestrial reception problems with new HD51

[hungerdunger]

I've just bought a Mutant HD51 to replace my 12 year old Topfield PVR. As this is my first Enigma 2 machine there's obviously a lot to learn, but I have one very basic problem, and that's to do with reception.

There are two C/T/T2 tuners, and we use Freeview. I've manually scanned the tuners for my local transmitter, and that appeared to be successful. However when viewing a HD channel the picture regularly disappears and a message appears saying "Unsupported signal. Check your device output". Once the picture has disappeared it sometimes comes back of its own accord; sometimes it will reappear if I tune to another HD channel. Sometimes it will manage an hour or two of uninterrupted viewing, but yesterday was particularly bad and at one point the picture was disappearing every couple of minutes. When the picture has gone, the sound is still there.

However, worse than this, when I try to select any SD channel there is no picture at all and I get an error message "Tune failed!".

One thing I noticed yesterday is that the SNR and AGC figures for the Mutant are worse than for the Toppy, although I don't know whether this should significantly affect reception. The Toppy was giving me an SNR of 99% for all but one of the SD MUXes (which was 94%), while the Mutant varied from 57 to 72%. The Toppy's AGC figures ranged from 70 to 94%, while the Mutant's were from 57 to 59%.

I have the aerial leads arranged exactly like the Toppy's. I've also tried a different HDMI cable and I've tried using a different HDMI socket on the TV

We had a new aerial installed when we were converted to digital, and since then have used the Topfield for SD and the TV for HD with no reception problems at all, so I'm hoping someone will tell me I have some basic settings wrong, as I'd like to think that a new PVR should work at least as well as my old Toppy. Any suggestions would be very welcome, as I'd like to stick with the Mutant but if I can't do something about this then it's basically unusable. (I'm already in trouble for a failed recording of Antiques Roadshow!!)

[Sicilian]

How are you feeding each tuner in the HD51? Splitter? Loop through from one tuner to the other?

What exactly are each of your tuner settings?

How did you scan for channels?

[Andy_Hazza]

Sounds like a cabling/arial issue. Are the coax connectors ok and fully connected to the receiver?


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[adm]

I've just bought a Mutant HD51 to replace my 12 year old Topfield PVR. As this is my first Enigma 2 machine there's obviously a lot to learn, but I have one very basic problem, and that's to do with reception.

Welcome, I migrated from a Toppy years ago and haven't regretted it.

There are two C/T/T2 tuners, and we use Freeview. I've manually scanned the tuners for my local transmitter, and that appeared to be successful.

Rather than a manual scan use AutoBouquetMaker (ABM) to scan for channels

In you tuner setup do not set a UK region - only set "United Kingdom, all regions ( Europe DVB, T/T2")

Now go to ABM - Menu -> Setup -> Tuner Config -> AutoBouquetsMaker -> Providers
Select Freeview UK
Select your TV region transmitter.
Press Green (OK)
Press Green Again to scan.

The following link may help with some settings (note I have both satellite and terrestrial)

http://www.admac.myzen.co.uk/E2_scan/

There is a video tutorial on this site about setting up UK Freeview
http://www.openvix.co.uk/index.php/g.../video-guides/

However when viewing a HD channel the picture regularly disappears and a message appears saying "Unsupported signal. Check your device output". Once the picture has disappeared it sometimes comes back of its own accord; sometimes it will reappear if I tune to another HD channel. Sometimes it will manage an hour or two of uninterrupted viewing, but yesterday was particularly bad and at one point the picture was disappearing every couple of minutes. When the picture has gone, the sound is still there.

However, worse than this, when I try to select any SD channel there is no picture at all and I get an error message "Tune failed!".

One thing I noticed yesterday is that the SNR and AGC figures for the Mutant are worse than for the Toppy, although I don't know whether this should significantly affect reception. The Toppy was giving me an SNR of 99% for all but one of the SD MUXes (which was 94%), while the Mutant varied from 57 to 72%. The Toppy's AGC figures ranged from 70 to 94%, while the Mutant's were from 57 to 59%.

You cannot directly compare the signal levels seen on a Toppy with those seen on your new box but what was the signal strength figure reported by the Toppy? If the signal strength on the Toppy (not quality or SNR) was sitting at 99% than it may be the the signal is too strong for your new box which may have more sensitive tuners. Counter intuitively poor reception on terrestrial can be caused by too much signal overloading the tuner front end (in a non destructive way). This can be tested by placing an in-line attenuator at the aerial input to the box.

I have the aerial leads arranged exactly like the Toppy's. I've also tried a different HDMI cable and I've tried using a different HDMI socket on the TV

We had a new aerial installed when we were converted to digital, and since then have used the Topfield for SD and the TV for HD with no reception problems at all, so I'm hoping someone will tell me I have some basic settings wrong, as I'd like to think that a new PVR should work at least as well as my old Toppy. Any suggestions would be very welcome, as I'd like to stick with the Mutant but if I can't do something about this then it's basically unusable. (I'm already in trouble for a failed recording of Antiques Roadshow!!)

[hungerdunger]

How are you feeding each tuner in the HD51? Splitter? Loop through from one tuner to the other?

What exactly are each of your tuner settings?

How did you scan for channels?

SICILIAN:

1) Loop through

2) Is this what you are after? 20180501_134411.jpg

3)Manual scan for each channel of local transmitter, and on both tuners. I have since done an automatic scan using ABM, as suggested by adm, but with no improvement.


Andy_Hazza:

I'm using the same cables as previously with the Toppy. Connections appear to be OK.

adm:

I've done what you suggested with no improvement. Should I have cleared the tuners first? I think it found something like 96 video channels, but when I select any of the SD ones using the EPG button on the remote I still get "Tune Failed".

The signal strength on the Toppy was around 70 for the 10k channels and low 90s for the 20k channels.

Incidentally there is ONE SD channel I can get, which is Film 4 + 1 which is the only SD channel on the HD MUX. Does that make any sense?

Anyway, thanks everyone for your replies so far. Please keep them coming but I probably won't be free to reply until around 7pm.

[ccs]

The signal strength on the Toppy was around 70 for the 10k channels and low 90s for the 20k channels.

70 sounds like a pretty poor signal strength to me, I'm a long way from Belmont, but my toppy still gets around 100, except in bad weather.

I get 140+ freeview channels, including tv and radio.

Which transmitter are you using?

[Sicilian]

I would not take the signal displayed as gospel. I'd also try using a 5-1000mhz splitter instead of loop through.

I look at the actual aerial signal. I’ve not come across any issues with using c/t2 on the HD51.


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[cactikid]

i always wondered about the 5v active aerial setting on/off,does that depend on aerial?

[adm]

i always wondered about the 5v active aerial setting on/off,does that depend on aerial?

Yes, or more correctly if the aerial has an associated mast-head amplifier. The 5V that many boxes supply can power some of these head amplifiers although some amplifiers may require 12V necessitating the use of the power supply that came with the amplifier. Power is sent up the aerial lead.

A few aerials have an inbuilt amplifier such as
https://www.blake-uk.com/dml-log-per...e-aerials.html

All other aerials are passive but in low signal areas the installer may fit an masthead amplifier to the aerial pole. The following Youtube link explains (although I do disagree with a few statements)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIgafRXbrdA

[cactikid]

Ahh good old dave,cheers as i need to check my setup.