Page 1 of Anyone with cable, sky, freeview, DVB tv, in fact - Everyone,read this please.

Explain this then......A woman in my office bought a mono video recorder yesterday. She connected it to her television at home and chose the auto-tune function via the ariel. It found and is now displaying 29 cable/satellite channels. She doesn`t have cable, she doesn`t have satellite, she doesn`t have a Freeview digibox, she doesn`t have a DVB television. She has a TV connected to a video. This is not a wind-up. She says that even before she bought the video she sometimes got Sky News. What`s happening? Does a neighbour of hers have a signal booster on Sky or something?

julianf

This item was edited on Monday, 31st March 2003, 15:55

How is she actually receiving the transmissions? Does she live in a house and get signals from a normal aerial attached to her own roof, or is it some sort of communal aerial with a distribution system (in a block of flats for example)?

If it`s a communal system, it could well be set up to provide Sky News and other stuff along with the standard terrestrial channels - there`s probably a dish on the roof feeding a bank of receivers. A few years ago, when I lived in student flats, we used to have this sort of set-up so the international students could watch some foreign satellite channels - we got Sky News and CNN as well.

If she`s receiving signals from her own aerial, on the other hand, the `neighbour with video sender` is the only explanation. It seems rather unlikely, though.

Mike

This item was edited on Monday, 31st March 2003, 16:03

She lives in a house with her own aerial on the roof. No communal dish. She says the only difference to other aerials in her street is that hers is a lot taller than everyone elses as the previous owner stuck a bloody great pole up there (nearer the satellite? hehehe)

Maybe I should publish the video make and retailer - we could be on to something here...

julianf

I`ve seen something simlar(maybe) before. I wired up a load of signal boosters round the house so ppl could watch sky in their bedrooms. Sky was just comming into the front room - had to change the chanel there.

I had a portable TV and even if it was using it`s own portable ariel it could still pick up the sky channel.

I think this was because of all the signal boosters. The house probably glowed from the outside ;0)

Well, that is bizarre! Can you get her to list the channels that she gets other than the main 5 - that might provide a clue as to where these are coming from.

If a neighbour is to blame, it could be due to leaky signal boosters like T-p0t mentioned, or the illegal type of `video sender` which uses normal analogue TV frequencies. Has she ever noticed anything which looked like a DVD or video being played, or channels being changed while she was watching them?

The `previous owner` might also be responsible. Has she moved into this house recently or has she lived there a while? I`m thinking that maybe the owner installed some equipment in the loft like what I described; it might be worth checking out. There could even be a concealed dish somewhere (you never know...)

"Maybe I should publish the video make and retailer - we could be on to something here..."

I don`t think it`s anything to do with the video. You said yourself that she was able to watch Sky News on her (presumably analogue?) telly, before she even bought the VCR - so I doubt it`s because the video has a built-in Freeview receiver or anything like that.

Mike

I`ve got a pair of Sony cordless headphones and i can pick up somebody elses Sky sound on my headphones. Probably somebody using a video sender IMHO.

Thats odd

I know some `new` cities such as milton keynes get alot of channels free, sky 1, sky news, bbc24 amoungst others. Something to do with the councils ariel free policy.

All the houses have it and you just plug into the ariel socket and tune away - no box reqired.

One of my workmates in the `telecom industry` says what you could have there is a nearby neighbour who is near mobile phone transmitter/reciever base station and is also using a TV signal booster to another room and ends up unitentially piggyback broadcasting out to some of the neighbourhood.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 1st April 2003, 15:04

what gets me is how do you get seperate channels ? ie, if you use a video sender you send individual (though combined in a single packet then decoded by the video sender) channells/bbc-itv-c5-sky-etc so if you are watching sky in the room with the reciever + say in the bedroom you have to watch the same channel on both sets as it`s the same single signal so not only is this video getting the extra channels but it seem`s to be acting as a decoder?? and thus seperating the channels individualy so the video sender theory cannot completly on it`s own be the source-------god this ones wierd hope someone figures it out soon cos my heads gonna explode

This item was edited on Tuesday, 1st April 2003, 21:40

c`mon someone figure this out it`s drivin me nuts