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So ... nobody noticed that review 104 was entitled 103 last month? Anyone reading this? News IPTV for deaf people takes off A new web-based television service, or IPTV, for British Sign Language (BSL) users has recently launched in the UK. More... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6613097.stm BBC provide test signal Analogue teletext page 248* is being used to determine whether homes will need new aerials after digital switchover. *Correction. Apparently it's 284. http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=2452 Goodbye CNN analogue? No! - Rumours that CNN on 11627V analogue will be turned off on June 4th are unfounded. CNN are FTA in digital on 19E (and 28E). Analoguesat Letter of the Month This month's £10 winner is Robert from Middlesex who submitted the following: As you are covering plasma TVs on your Digital Installer Course, perhaps you might be interested in my recent experience with a new plasma TV. I had spent several weeks going around most of the local dealers looking at lots of different TVs, concentrating mainly on LCDs. There was always something about all of the pictures I did not like. Then I saw a Panasonic TH-37PX60; a 37" plasma. I liked the results on a variety of subjects, with accurate colours and sharp resolution. When the set arrived I installed it within an hour. Then after about two weeks I started to notice a magenta line moving across on some dark, green shaded backgrounds, and faces - see pics below. It seems it is a common problem that Panasonic are aware of. It is known as the "Purple Snake". I found references to it on quite a few forums, and Panasonics dealer website. These are just two forums. http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=394430&page=310 http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=657575&highlight=panasonic+purple+snake I complained to the dealer, Lakes of Slough, who run "Shop At Panasonic" in Staines (Where I bought it). Their repair company came and replaced the "D" board with one with updated firmware. This board decodes the digital signal and applies it to the display panel drive circuits. My old board was version 31.01, the new one is v 31.04. At first, it was better, but still there. After about a week it had all but gone and the picture is now very good. I do not understand why it took time to have its effect; any ideas? Picture on the right (below) shows the same image a week after the update - a big improvement. 
I run it with the "viewing mode" set at normal, all filters off and other controls about 50%, sometimes changing to suit different programmes. I have heard that a plasma should be "run in" at low settings for the first hundred hours or so. Is this true? Nobody in any of the shops where I asked knew. Some people on the forums don't seem to have had much improvement even though some of the updates appear to be a lot later than mine. I have heard of another problem where faces or small areas of pinkish shades look like a CRT that has gone flat. It is called "Clay-Face effect". Mine has never done this. There is a software upgrade from Panasonic for this, but I do not know how to get it for UK sets. Here's a Panasonic website, with some useful documents, from the USA. http://www.pasctraining.panasonic.com/pass/elearn/Document_Downloads.htm I have also heard of some weird effects like these on other makes of plasma TVs and, to a lesser extent, on LCD TVs. Have you a story to tell? Please contact us. Email problems Tiscali seem to be having email problems right now. See more details at http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=128594&page=1&pp=15 Apparently Tiscali has been blacklisted and blocked by other ISPs for failing to deal with the amount of Spam it allows through. They can't give a date when their service will return to normal. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6704003.stm It's a really bad idea to use the email address supplied by your ISP (for reasons that should now be obvious). What you should do is buy your own domain name (like "my-name.me.uk") and set up a secret email account from which you download all mail. Set up a number of "forwarder" email addresses to receive mail and push them into your secret account. Set up a web page with your current (forwarder) email address on it (or preferably an email form that hides the address). This should cost you no more than £20 a year. Print your business stationery with your web site address but NOT your email address. You can then change your email forwarding addresses as often as you like and your stationery will not go out of date. More info here: http://www.your-book.co.uk/spam.htm Become a Digital TV Installer - update Alan Smith is the first to complete the course with an excellent pass mark of 94%. Click to learn more about the course:
http://www.satcure.co.uk/course.htm Sky Plus I'm thinking of taking out a new Sky+ subscription. I would cancel it after a year in most probability. Does anyone know if, when I cancel the subscription in a years time, the Sky+ will work in its full fuctionality? You must make darn sure that the Sky operator understands that you want to cancel the Sky subscription package but NOT the £10 a month recording facility. Once this has gone, there's no easy way to get it back. If you want to use a Sky+ for recording and you don't have a subscription to begin with, the trick, apparently, is to subscribe for a week then cancel within the 7 days "cooling off" period but ask to retain the £10 a month recording facility. There's no way to get it for free. Note. As from July, you don't have to pay the £10 a month if you have a Sky subscription. Previously you had to pay this extra fee if you weren't subscribing to a Premium Package. (top) Questions I'm not asking for help, but I have fixed a problem, which may be of some interest to you. Firstly, my Sky remote control was not working and reading your website inspired me to test the controller in the various ways explained without success. My last resort was to open up the controller to see if something had come loose. As I started to prise open the controller, my gaze centred on the lack of a contact points that the battery usually lies against. It was the flat connector, but it was broken and all that was left showing was a tiny piece of metal. I read something in your article about connectors and aluminium foil. I decided to fold up a small piece of foil and place it over the remaining piece of wire. I then carefully inserted the battery back into the controller, first on the foil and then pulling back the other end (spring) with a sharp knife. I then tested the controller by pointing at the TV and great, it now works again. Saved myself a £25 purchase. Thank you for your website, I thought this article may be of some use to you. Kind Regards Dion B I asked Dion for a photograph but received no reply.
My location is: Derbyshire Equipment made by: Pace Sky Model number on label or rear panel: BSKYB 100 Pace Minibox At this Derbyshire post code address I am getting normal picture but badly broken audio on each of the Sky Channels ( i.e. 7 x various Discovery's + Animal Planet) all of which are transmitted from Astra 2A - Transponder 2.009 @ 11.8755 ghz Symbol R.27500 FEC 2/3 . Only from this transponder is there a problem - everything else is perfect. However when I disconnect the digibox (Pace Minibox BSKYB 1000)and take it to my home in Northern Spain and re-connect - all these 2.009 transponder channels revert to normal reception which says there's no digibox problem . Does this point to an LNB problem or minor dish misalignment ? or if not any advice please ? John Hi, John. You haven't given any information about dish size, LNB type, cable length, fault history/duration or tests you've carried out at home. So here's my guess, in no particular order: 1. Your LNB is failing or incorrectly adjusted (skew). 2. Your cable is too long or too short or kinked or faulty (moisture) or wrong type or a connection is faulty. 3. Your dish is too large or too small. 4. Your dish is distorted or misaligned. 5. You have local interference from a DECT phone, Snooper radar detector or other source. 6. The signal path is partly blocked by an overhang, leaves, branches... Any of these faults could cause your symptoms and, without tests/substitutions it's quite impossible to say which is most likely.
Hi, Martin. I happened to be surfing and came across this satellite TV forum. They list "Sellers of satellite installation products" and "ideally any company noted here should offer some degree of backup service". Well, this describes Satcure to a Tee but, for some strange reason, you aren't listed! Any idea why? James B. I'm not certain but I suspect the list is biased and they require advertisers to pay. Since we never pay for adverts I guess that cuts us out as not worthy of consideration. Or maybe they are being spiteful - who knows? If any members of that forum are reading this, you might like to ask why the list is biased, but I suspect you won't get a straight answer! They are hardly likely to admit that the people listed have actually paid. Nor are they likely to admit that they deliberately omitted the most useful resource of information on the Internet! But anyone who knows anything about satellite TV will see that it's not only SatCure that's missing from their list. Martin New Products I hope you like the new look of our Home Page? Since the majority of people now have a broadband connection, I decided that it would be OK to brighten up the page with a few more images. But, even if you still use a 56k modem connection, you should find the page loads quite quickly since I've compressed the pictures till they screamed. ;-) Since it's the "caravan season" we've taken on some new products by Maxview, including a "dish in a suitcase". Take at look at page 17. Please note that we have access to ALL products from Maxview, even though we list only a few.
Happy Customers Regarding Customer receipt (Keep-me): SAT018063 Hi there, people tend to spend a great deal of time writing critical emails when an order or product goes wrong, but never write an email when it goes right. Let me address that, thank you for a very speedy order and for the technical help in solving what could have been a nightmare with fitting multiple wall plates, not only did you point me in the correct direction on the products page (must learn to use the scroll wheel!!) but the parts arrived the next day ensuring that I could complete the work whilst the "Sparks" had the floorboards up. The "mix and match" wall plates ensured that I could put in exactly what I needed for a rather complicated whole house AV system. So again thank you for your help and I look foward to using & recommending you in the future. Thanks, Adrian G, Sevenoaks, Kent.
And not-so-happy! Regarding Customer receipt (Keep-me): SAT018249 Third time ! It does not contain the word book ! What is wrong with your robot what awaste of time. I have finally managed to get hold of citylink, a very bad company indeed. After trying all afternoon yesterday when I received your email, I only got through this morning and of course it is too late to deliver today. Plus I was there last Friday, they never left a card, and despite my place being very easy to find, they lead me tothink that they can't do the job. So I will have to go there myself, (to basigngstoke !!!) which will cost me 1,5 hour of my time and £5 in fuel. So a guaranteed 2 day delivery will have taken 1 week. I will have to rebook my electrician because of this. Please arrange for a delivery refund or I will never use your company again because of your delivery company. Please reply. Guillaume D. Hi, guillaume. Unfortunately the email form software found "book" where you typed "rebook" and dealt with it accordingly. Sorry for the delay but I don't check "failed" messages very often. I'm sorry to hear of your problems with City Link. We've been in business since 1995 and City Link is actually the most reliable carrier we have used so far. City Link informed us that there was no reply at your address. Obviously we have no way of checking this. It's sometimes the case that people are at home but do not hear the doorbell because they have the TV on, they are in the bath, shower or back garden. I have passed your comments to our Sales department. Best Wishes, Martin (top) From Sky Digi Online ( http://www.media247.co.uk ): - See for yourself
- Just type in the year (e.g. 2007) to see the news items listed chronologically.
(top)
eBook Updates The Freeview Bible For a short time during May this eBook contained blue links that were not clickable. If your recent copy is like this, please go back to your download page, reload the page, then download the freeview7.pdf file. How to Fit Extra TV Points This new eBook is currently on special offer. The Lazy Man's Guide to Making Big Money Updated and renamed "Stop Work - Get Rich", this eBook explains how to make money with minimum effort and give up your day job. Price reduced from £19.95 to £9.95. - All eBooks have been moved to a more reliable secure server which requires a username and password. If you can't access it, please contact us (wherever you bought it - SatCure or The Cool Book Shop) with your proof of purchase and ask for the new download information, stating exactly which eBook(s) you purchased and the EBK number(s).
http://www.The-Cool-Book-Shop.co.uk | 
"Installing a Sky Minidish" tutorial on DVD. Click 
