The analogue TV signals being switched off from the Bluebell hill transmitter. Also the old freeview multiplexes were turned off.
In the UK the old analogue TV signasl is being turned off, so that the new freeview signals can take the best frequencies which the analogue was using, and also making room for 4G mobile networks.
The freeview TV signal has been very crap around medway. (the freeview channels come in 6 different multiplexes of channels). The multiplex for the BBC channels was particularly crap, especially in the evening. Every few minuets the picture would stop from interference (with freeview it either works or it doesn't, while with analogue the picture would get more snowy, which means with a poor signal you could still watch make out analogue, but freeview would not work at all).
The BBC channels kept cutting out in the evening at regular intervals which I think was due to some idiots amateur radio signal not sticking tightly to its frequency and distorting the TV signal, as well as the fact the BBCs multiplex was not at the optimum frequency as those were being hogged by analogue. A few months ago there was a switch around of the freeview multiplexes frequencies, and everyone had to retune their freeview. After this the BBCs Multiplex got better but the Multiplex for ITV and Channel 4 got a lot worse.
And now, On the 13th june 2012, the BBC 2 analogue was switched off (I forgot to film this). and also there was anouther switch around of the freeview multiplexes (aka a retune).
And on the 26th June 2012, I had forgotten that I wanted to film the analogue switch off, and at just one hour before midnight I remembered, and I dashed round to a relatives house to film it (as my house doesn't have an arial at the moment).
And at just 30 minuets before the switch off on BBC one, to my surprise, the teletext was still being transmitted. (Ceefax Teletext is a odd system that uses the first few lines of the picture to transmit info like the news, this old analogue feature is not on digital, and I was amazed that it was still running). See my video of teletext... http://youtu.be/Xbyxi5j_22s
And now it was time for the analogue switch off (at midnight on the 26th/27th), sadly there wasn't anything that happened before the switch off, it just suddenly switched off, I was a bit disappointed, there wasn't even an announcement like with londons switch off.
BBC 1 analogue switched off at 0:07, ITV analogue switched off at 0:13, Channel 4 analogue switched off at 0:15, The old BBC freeview multiplex switched off before channel 4 analogue did so I couln't film it. and the ITV/Channel 4 freeview multiplex turned off later in the night but I had gone home to bed by then.
In the morning the new freeview multiplexes were running.
I do not know of the exact details of all of the changes with the multiplexes with all the retunes, I can't seem to find out the exact details on the internet. If you know of the movements of the multiplexes at bluebell hill please could you tell me.
http://beno.org.uk
