| Hi Folks! I'm back from Crete where the bus drivers are simply amazing! How they get those huge busses through such narrow gaps and round such tight city corners, without hitting anything, beats me. Of course the place is full of foreigners. I got plenty of practice talking French and German - plus a little Greek of course. :-) If you fancy a holiday there, my friend has just finished building a villa which he's happy to rent out. It has the most amazing views and all mod cons. (You can even put paper down the loo!) Turn you speaker volume down before clicking on the link - unless you like Greek music. http://www.a-villa-in-crete.com
A tangled web of intrigue (Yes, I know the word should be "entangled"). Hi Martin, Sorry to bother you but the Mrs is giving me grief cos she's having problems watching Big Brother (don't ask)! I wondered if you could shed any light on this weird picture break-up problem that seems to be only affecting E4 interactive when watching live streaming of big brother via the E4 red button. The picture will sometimes break-up, freeze and pixilation (similar to what you would expect with a poor signal). Both quality & strength are excellent and no problems viewing any other channel. The main E4 channel is not affected but go into interactive and the picture will again start to freeze, stutter & break up. It can go long periods without any problem and then out of the blue start breaking up again. I first thought the problem was at E4 end but we have 2 Pace 2500/s4 receivers connected to a single dish via a quad lnb and it is only affecting one receiver? So far I've just tried changing the scart lead but that made no difference. I thought perhaps it could be an overheating problem but would that not affect any other channels apart from E4 interactive. Any suggestions welcome? Martin First swap the two receivers. If the fault remains with the same receiver then you know the fault is inside. Then compare the software in the menus and make sure the numbers are the same. EPG and Operating System. If that's OK, you have a hardware fault which will be a swine to locate. In fact I wouldn't even bother. Dump the box and buy a replacement. Hi Martin, Thanks for the reply. I was following your suggestion of swapping the 2 receivers over and by pure chance think I've found the problem. I removed the LNB cable from the back of the known good receiver in the living room ready to swap it over when the Mrs shouted that the picture from the faulty receiver in the bedroom suddenly went perfect! I replaced the LNB cable again just to see what happens and the picture from the other receiver started to freeze and pixilate again. As the 2 systems are completely independent from each other I can only assume that the problem must lie within the quad LNB and one of the 4 ports is breaking down and affecting another port? We do have a 3rd receiver connected to the quad that we use in the spare room just for the free channels, so we do have a spare port on the LNB that I could try swapping over the affected receiver cable. As a temporary measure, whenever the Mrs wants to watch big brother on E4 interactive in the bedroom, instead of disconnecting the lnb cable from the other receiver I went into the 401 menu and turned off the lnb power instead. It is weird that the fault is only affecting E4 interactive but come out of interactive and the main E4 channel is perfect! Even the "Press backup to menu" logo on the E4 interactive remains unaffected whilst the rest of the live streaming picture behind the logo freezes and pixilates. Will let you know how I get on. Cheers, Martin The cable length may be critical and causing oscillation at a specific frequency. Try adding an extension to the LNB cable. Or the cable may be kinked or faulty in some way. But I agree that the most likely cause is an LNB fault. I would still be interested to hear the result of swapping the receivers. Hi Martin, I swapped over the 2 receivers and the same picture break-up problem on E4 interactive still occurred on the other receiver (so definitely not a receiver problem). I also added a small fly lead extension to the lnb cable but made no difference - so it looks like a definite LNB fault. What I did notice though is that the picture break-up problem only occurs when the other receiver is on certain channels. For example, watching Sky News (501) is one of the channels that causes E4 interactive on the other receiver to break-up. Change channel to Bloomberg and E4 interactive is perfect! It would appear that all the channels that operate on the same frequency as Sky News (501) are the ones that are causing the interference problem to E4 interactive on the other receiver. I was wondering if the Philips quad LNB (about 3 years old) could be breaking down and loosing its shielding abilities and allowing certain frequencies to leak from one port to the other? Although if that was the case I would have expected other channels apart from E4 interactive to be affected. I'll try changing the cable to the spare port on the LNB and see what happens and let you know. Regards, Martin Crosstalk between cables is more likely. Especially if the cable is not the proper double-shielded stuff or if it has a joint or wall plate. Hi Martin, Looks like good news! Cable to both receivers is CT100 with no breaks in between. However, following your suggestion I went into the loft to check the cable for any kinks and discovered the cables to both receivers were all tangled together in a big horrible pile. I separated them and used cable ties to neatly attach them to the rafters and I'm happy to say no more E4 interactive problems. Thanks for the help, much appreciated. Cheers, Martin Yes, well, if you'd told me about the tangled cable to begin with.... ;-) Just an update to let you know that after tidying up the cable I thought it had solved the E4 interactive break-up problem, but after a weekend of trouble free viewing the problem came back again! Yesterday I had a look at the LNB and moved the cable which went to the affected receiver and connected it to the spare port on the LNB. Unfortunately it didn't make any difference as when the other receiver was switched on to Sky News it still caused interference break-up problems to E4 interactive on the other receiver. I put that cable back into its original port and then swapped the cable which went to the other receiver into the spare port. Touch wood it looks like that has finally solved the problem - so it does look like an LNB problem after all (although tangled cable would not have helped things). RF to Scart I have a video which only has RF output (It has SCART, but only for input). I have a Vid Camera which can take input from a scart connector. I need to connect to two so that the Camera will record from the Video output, so assume I will have to take the RF output and convert it to a SCART socket, plug the camera into that. Please advise what you have available, and total cost includeing delivery and VAT. Kind regards, Les Honest answer: If anyone makes such a converter, the picture quality will be very poor (RF is crap compared with scart) and the unit will be expensive. I recommend you simply buy a really cheap VCR. I got one myself from Makro last week for £30 + VAT. (top)
Ebooks Thanks, Janet, it downloaded the eBook ok, and, although I haven't had time to read it, I have opened it and know it is working well. I also downloaded the 'Understanding' book as your website recommends. Reading it from the computer monitor is rather tedious, and not very flexible. What would be really nice would be to have a machine readable copy, and text to speech software that would read the text to me. I understand this is not straightforward (or cheap) with pdf files, and of course could not handle illustrations. I have yet to summon up courage to start the 119 pager. I would rather have a hard copy, but by the time I pay for the ink and paper, it becomes a rather expensive book. This has disappointed me - it is the first eBook I have received, and I now realise that they are not nearly as much fun as a regular book. Anything you could do to make them more interesting would be worthwhile. I hope this helps. Richard Thanks for your feedback, Richard. :-) Obviously small volume printing costs are terribly high. In fact most printers won't even set up the press for less than 1000 copies. So our method of making the information available to everyone for free (or at a very low cost) has resulted in numerous compliments. It also means that the information is never out of date because Martin spends hours each month updating the eBooks. This would simply be impossible with a printed copy, since the information would be two months old before the first copy rolled off the press. The other advantage with an eBook is that you can search for key words and locate what you want very quickly. I realise that some people have problem with monitors but that's usually because the monitor is a cheap one (or an expensive one incorrectly set up). It can also be because the software reader isn't very good (I find that "Preview" on the Apple Mac gives an excellent display) or, of course, because the user has poor eyesight. In the end, you can always leave your computer to print the pages while you are busy doing something else. Of course, if you have an Apple Mac running OSX you can press one key and make it read highlighted text in any document. Easy! (There must surely be a similar function for Windows - if so please DON'T write to me. Put the information in the discussion forum where everyone can read it. I don't want 6000+ messages telling me to download a Windows file that I don't need and can't use - Martin). Martin has suggested that he might be willing to print occasional copies on his own printer for people who can't use a monitor but he wants £20 each for doing this (he has the equipment to guillotine and bind them) and I suspect few people will want to pay £20 plus carriage for a book. The other thing he has contemplated is to create an audio book. But he's not very happy with his own accent (you probably heard it on our Home page welcome message!) Also, such an audio file can not be updated easily and it would have to be supplied on CD as we don't have facilities to "stream" large audio files from our server. If enough people were to ask for these alternatives we would certainly consider them. Janet Dear Satcure I have erased all copies of your Freeview Bible eBook. Please give me a full refund. I have ordered and received goods from you but do not feel I learnt anything from book that was not freely available elsewhere Yours truly, Nigel All of the information in our eBooks is available somewhere. What you are paying for is the months I spent collating it, explaining it and updating it for you. But we'll happily give you a refund.
Turkish Channels Good news if you want to watch Turkish TV and can't get any signals off the Turksat satellites located at 42 degrees East of South. There is now a handful of Free To Air Turkish channels available off the new Eutelsat W3A satellite located at 7 degrees East. In the past these channels were transmitted off the older Eutelsat W3 on a beam which was centred on the Aegean. This meant that, in the UK, the signals from the Digiturk package were available only on big dishes. However, the new satellite has different transmission characteristics and the Turkish signals can be picked up easily on an 80cm dish here in the Scottish Borders. Technical details of the footprints used by W3A can be found here: http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/7e_w3a_popd.html and technical details of the satellite can be found here: http://www.eutelsat.com/satellites/7e_w3a.html The free to air Turkish tv channels currently available on W3A are: - TRT 1 / 2 / 3 & gap / 4
- Turkiye Jokey Kulubu
- Ege TV
- Sky Turk (news)
- Showroom (shopping)
There is also a feed running which appears to be taking pictures from traffic cameras! Radio channels: The full Digiturk channel line up can be found here: http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/digiturk.html The majority of the channels are scrambled using Cryptoworks, and would require a suitable receiver and subscription to get them. If you just want the free channels, then why not think about a nice FTA receiver and 80cm dish combination? Pick your dish from one of these: http://www.satcure.com/accs/page2.htm (and make sure you order a universal LNB with it) As for receivers, you have quite a choice: http://www.satcure.com/accs/page14.htm The Technomates seem to be highly recommended by most of their users. Ross (Analoguesat) (top)
Server Problems I apologise for the server down time on Sunday for http://www.satcure.co.uk. It was off for 24 hours and I'm trying to arrange a meeting with my ISP to try to resolve these frequent outages. In the meantime, please remember that we have a MIRROR SERVER at http://www.satcure.net The Cool Book Shop web site URL expired while I was on holiday. Apparently I had missed the renewal date. I made the payment and it was rejected. I could probably sort this out but, frankly, I can't be bothered and I think I'll just let it die. (top)
Panasonic faults I'm seeing plenty of reports of Panasonic faults and I'm still not sure if this is a problem with the hot weather or with software. You might like to blast your Digibox with a household fan and let me know. (top)
Happy Customers Many thanks for the mail and the prompt delivery. For the second time out of two you have provided an exemplary service. Dropping back a news letter or two, Martin mentioned the new operating system software and mentioned any new features. I have noticed that there is now an option to have the second output switch to standard 4:3 if the primary output is set to widescreen. I guess you need the combination to notice or value the option! It switches the output, dependent on where it receives the remote signal input, so if you control via the remote eye rather than the box it switches from widescreen to 4:3 on both outputs and vice versa. Keep up the good work. Tim
Panafix2d A quick line to say thanks - the 'box of tricks' I bought from you got my Panasonic '30' digibox working to back the way it should be - no more error messages and flipping back and forth till the channel eventually came on. I've not soldered before so was more than a little concerned about it, but as your note suggested, I 'tinned' the ends of the wires and was amazed at how quickly they bonded to the contacts on the board. I fretted for a while before starting the job but literally finished it in about 30 seconds - I could hardly believe how easy it was. Once again - thanks! Derek.
Regarding Order number: 2845761 Guys, found you on the web after some searching. Bought myself a little TFT panel on the cheap with TV tuner, and digi sender thingy - but couldn't connect it - no scart on the TFT. NOT ONLY DID YOU GIVE ME THE KEENEST PRICE FOR THE CONVERTOR - YOU SENT IT THE SAME BL00DY DAY!! I GOT IT NEXT DAY AND LO AND BEHOLD - HAPPY TV DAYS IN THE KITCHEN. VERY IMPRESSED. VERY HAPPY. VERY MANY THANKS!! Steve
Thank you Janet, I received my order the following day and it was exactly what I was looking for, I have bookmarked your website for future orders, Regards Niall
Hi Janet, Thanks for your email. I am happy to say that I am a very satisfied customer as not only did I get my order complete and in good time, but I also found your web site to be very informative and helpful to me as a newbie. I even had to check back to reset my remote control to work with my TV and found the codes I needed on your site. The cable and connectors work a treat and I appear to have followed your instructions correctly as everything works! I would not hesitate to recommend you to my friends and family nor to order from you again. Thank you, Manjit
Janet, Thanks for your recent enquiry following my order with satcure. I followed the link and downloaded my ebook without problem. I have found your site most helpful over the past year and the ebook was also. Thank you for all your (and your site's) invaluable help and more importantly for caring enough to send your e-mail after the order was placed. Many thanks, Philip (top)
From Radio Bullet ( http://radio.mediabullet.co.uk ): From Sky Digi Online ( http://skydigital.mediabullet.co.uk ):
eBook Updates http://www.The-Cool-Book-Shop.co.uk | 
