SBS Missing From Sydney Scan

[Bill Smallwood]

Why would 42 other channels be found but no SBS?
Is there some corrective or diagnostic action I can take?

[Paul_oz53]

Why would 42 other channels be found but no SBS?
Is there some corrective or diagnostic action I can take?

What happens if you manually scan the SBS channel? If the services appear I'd suspect corrupted firmware and so, I would reinstall the firmware. If they don't appear, I'd check the aerial cabling for a faulty connection.

[Bill Smallwood]

I didn't find a way to scan for SBS alone, so I attempted to reinstall 19.3, Dec 19, but failed to instal, so attempted the Sep 20 beta, but also failed!!!

[Paul_oz53]

I didn't find a way to scan for SBS alone,

In Menu > Setup > Tuners select "Manual scan".
Select Transponder and choose the channel (7 in Melbourne).
I turn off "Clear before scan" to add a missing service to the Terrestrial bouquet.
Now scan.
If it shows a list of channels they will be restored to Terrestrial and can be added to Favourites.

so I attempted to reinstall 19.3, Dec 19, but failed to instal, so attempted the Sep 20 beta, but also failed!!!

Not apparent what you did but often upgrades fail for newbies because the usb stick is not setup correctly. Was the stick recognised? Did you enter the upgrade process correctly? Did it start to upgrade but fail or did it just boot? What model is it?

The September beta is working fine on my T3, T4 and U4.

When you download the zip file you must extract the files to a folder on the PC. Next, copy the "beyonwiz" directory to the root directory of your USB stick. This should be formatted as FAT32 and USB 1.0 compatible. Many recent sticks are not suitable so an older stick often is found to be preferable.

We need more information to help solve the problem you're having with the upgrade. It's usually something minor that is easily fixed so no need for despair

[Grumpy_Geoff]

If you don't know the RF channel frequency for SBS, tell us what frequencies you receive the other broadcasters on and we may be able to work out the SBS frequency from that.

[Bill Smallwood]

Still having trouble.

You suggested: "Select Transponder and choose the channel (7 in Melbourne)". This raises 2 problems. I couldn't find the "Transponder" option. And I'm not sure why you suggested Channel 7 when I'm missing SBS???

When I go to Tuners/Manual Scan/Type of Scan, there are only Channel 7 options to choose from. ie, there's no SBS, 9, 10, ABC.

I'll work on your upgrade suggestions when OI get this sorted.

Your help is appreciated.

[MrQuade]

You suggested: "Select Transponder and choose the channel (7 in Melbourne)". This raises 2 problems. I couldn't find the "Transponder" option. And I'm not sure why you suggested Channel 7 when I'm missing SBS???

When I go to Tuners/Manual Scan/Type of Scan, there are only Channel 7 options to choose from. ie, there's no SBS, 9, 10, ABC.

That's because the channel doesn't actually refer to the old analog broadcast channels.

This is my SBS One service info for example (From the Main Menu Information screen):

And you can see here that the actual channel it is on is 7 (Using the YELLOW Multiplex button):

[Grumpy_Geoff]

You suggested: "Select Transponder and choose the channel (7 in Melbourne)". This raises 2 problems. I couldn't find the "Transponder" option.

And I'm not sure why you suggested Channel 7 when I'm missing SBS???

When I go to Tuners/Manual Scan/Type of Scan, there are only Channel 7 options to choose from. ie, there's no SBS, 9, 10, ABC.

Paul was referring to RF channels (broadcast frequencies), not the stupid name broadcasters call their services.

Zap to any service from ABC. Press OK to bring up the infobar. Tell us what the broadcast frequency shown in the bottom right corner is. Example, 226.500 Mhz.
Repeat for the other broadcast networks. This'll guide us to the transponder RF frequency for SBS in your area.

[Bill Smallwood]

OK. Here they are:

ABC 226.500
Nine 192.625
Seven 177.500
Ten 219.500

[Grumpy_Geoff]

Those match the frequencies from Gore Hill, Artarmon, Willoughby Digital TV Broadcast Site.
SBS should be on RF channel 7 / 184.500 Mhz.

[Bill Smallwood]

Using the Transponder selector I went through 6 to 33. 6 gave me the Channel 7 services, but 7 gave me ERROR, failed to scan (error starting scan). 8 through to 33 seemed to scan OK, some yielding ABC, Nine and Then services and some no services. Channel 7 seems to be the problem.

What can I do about that?

[Grumpy_Geoff]

What can I do about that?

Dunno, antenna?

Can the TV tune to SBS?

[Paul_oz53]

What can I do about that?

Dunno, antenna?

Can the TV tune to SBS?

Hi Bill,

The fail to scan suggests a faulty aerial/cable. The cable is the most likely problem. In particular, I had a problem with a broken outer shield in a connector that resulted in not being able to tune one network and poor reception on another.

This could be in the wall socket or the leadin cable or at the aerial end or at a splitter if one is in use. Mine was in the wall connection.

Sorry I was off air - rebuilding my T3.

Paul

[Bill Smallwood]

Good diagnostics! That's the problem.

How important it is to be able to get to the source of the problem. Now I know what to do, and have learned a few things along the way.

Thank you for your help.

[Bill Smallwood]

The antenna is connected to Tuner A input, and tuners B, C, and D are connected in series. The output from tuner D feeds to the TV input.
I‘ve taken these steps to isolate the cause of the problem:
1. TV test shows that SBS services are available through the antenna, yet Sydney location scan with my T4 finds only 42 digital TV services - ie the 4 SBS services are missing.
2. Using Manual Scan/Predefined responder I find that scanning 184.500 MHz (Channel 7) completes without finding any channels. The other channels produce the expected results.
3. To test whether there was a fault with any particular tuner I replicated this process selecting tuners A, B, C, and D in turn with the same result.
How can it be that the signal from all networks Passes through all 4 tuners, yet only 42 of the 46 services can be found?

[peteru]

Choose Australia as the location and do a full scan. If that scan finds some services but not others, then you know that the problem is with your antenna or cabling. If you are using an amplifier for your RF input, it too could be a source of problems.

[Bill Smallwood]

Thank you! The “Full Scan” found the missing SBS services!

Does this help to understand why the Sydney scan failed?

I’ve encountered this failure to find SBS with the Sydney scan only since relocating my home to a multiple dwelling complex, so I don't know whether signal amplifies are used, but your advice seems to imply that could be the source of the problem. Am I understanding you correctly?

If so, must I assume that in future I must do a Full Scan?

THANK YOU again.

[Paul_oz53]

I'm curious to know what frequency the SBS services are on.

If 184.50 MHz then a real mystery. Maybe the firmware is slightly defective.

If another frequency then it means your signal on 184.50 is too weak for the Wiz but not the TV. But, if it's working then save a backup and enjoy.

[MrQuade]

I’ve encountered this failure to find SBS with the Sydney scan only since relocating my home to a multiple dwelling complex, so I don't know whether signal amplifies are used, but your advice seems to imply that could be the source of the problem. Am I understanding you correctly?

If you don't have your own antenna, then it is very likely there is a complex-owned amplifier in the mix somewhere.

Hopefully it is just a regular antenna feed and there isn't some other complicated re-broadcasting going on.

[peteru]

Full scan will look for services on all frequencies that are permissible in Australia. It is an exhaustive scan. If it can not find a service it means that the service is not being received well enough to be used.

The individual location scans will only attempt to tune to frequencies that are expected to be in use at those locations. These frequencies are taken from the official ACMA publications. I've sourced the original information way back before the first Beyonwiz T-series PVR was released to the public. I maintained those tables by hand for a while. As there were many frequent changes due to the RF spectrum reallocation, this method of maintenance proved too demanding. Luckily prl stepped in and took over the maintenance of these tables. He developed tools to take the official ACMA publications, extract the data, clean it up and generate the files required by Beyonwiz firmware.

To the best of my knowledge, there have not been any changes to the RF spectrum allocation for quite a while and the scan tables included in the firmware are accurate. The scan algorithm is actually quite clever and while scanning the official list of frequencies it will also read additional hints that broadcasters can transmit. These hints provide alternative frequencies that may be used in the area. This feature allows the scan algorithm to find additional transmitters that may be used in difficult reception areas to fill in gaps.

If the MATV in your building is configured to do something strange (for example use amplifiers to only deliver signal from a secondary transmitter, while not letting the primary RF channel through), then it is possible for the location scan to fail to find certain services. A full scan will get around this.

The reason for location scan vs full scan is the speed of the scan. A location scan in an area with good reception will take a fraction of the time it takes to perform a full scan. For 99.5% of the users out there, this is the preferred method. For the remaining 0.5% with more difficult reception, the full scan option will still allow the unit to work correctly - it will just take a little longer to get there. Having said that, Beyonwiz PVRs are much, much faster at scans than most other equipment, even when performing a full scan.

[Altimes]

For reference, I have found that having the list of local appropriate rf channels handy.

Useful site:

https://ozdigitaltv.com/transmitters/NS ... Willoughby

SBS uses 557.5 on its manly and king cross repeaters. I happen to be located such that all 3 Sydney transmitters are just able to be picked up . It turns out to be quicker to do 5 manual scans than having to identify and edit out from the channels with weaker signals from the 70+ that get found.