[burb]

I have a SHARP LC 37XD1E tv , since the BBC2 switch off i cannot receive any of the BBC channels on FREEVIEW, only on this tv all other tv's & freeview boxes i have receive all channels SHARP say i need an upgrade at a cost to me which seems unfair when the tv was working fine before November 4th any ideas.

[ROYOLD]

You have not given your location.

If you are in the Granada area receiving from Winter Hill then all BBC stations on freeview have started transmissions in 8K mode. Some older equipment is incompatible with this new mode which all freeview stations will adopt after final dso date.

Maybe your Sharp TV is one of these unfortunates although I cannot find it listed.

Full official list of receivers incompatible with 8k mode - Freeview - Digital Spy Forums

[fernandez]

It seems the TV was introduced in 2007
Sharp LC37XD1E Review

so IMHO it should still work even after the recent upgrades.

It may well be a case of contacting Sharp again to try to get this fixed without charge on a set only 2 years old citing 'not fit for the purpose for which it was sold'
Sale of Goods Act Fact Sheet - BIS

[ntaylo]

I have exactly the same TV. Despite living only four miles from Winter Hill I have been unable to get the set to tune into the new Channel 62 BBC NW Freeview Mux and am currently enjoying BBC Wales from the Moel y Parc transmitter.

The XD1E can deal with 8K FFT and 64QAM because that is the format used by Moel y Parc. Thought the issue might be saturation of the digital tuner due to the 100kW power upgrade. However, no matter what I do with or without in-line attenuators, I cannot get the TV to accept a digital service on Channel 62. Read somewhere about a negative offset on this channel and wondered whether that may be the issue. E-mailed Sharp customer services and got a reply in 10 minutes (!) saying that there is an upgrade available. This consists of a module that needs to be fitted into the Conditional Access (CA) slot around the back of the set. OK Sharp are cheeky in asking for a £15 deposit but this will be refunded on its return and postage is covered. The CA module is currently sitting at the Post Office delivery office (signature required) so I have not yet tried it to confirm that it works but it sounds promising.

Cheers - Nick

[ROYOLD]

The BBC channels from Moel-Y-Parc are being transmitted on channel 45 at 20KW and BBC Northwest from WH on channel 62 at between 66KW & 100KW. I have two aerials on the roof. One directed on Moel and the other on WH. I get good reception from both transmitters.

Doing an autoscan on equipment connected to the WH aerial always results in hovering around channel 45 which is the first strong channel found. My Panasonics & Grundig AV stuff can deal with this & correctly selects WH channels as main. My Toshiba DVD recorder & Humax machines can't deal with this and always select Wales as the main channels. Therefore I have to do a manual scan on these after firstly clearing the tuner of all data.

If your Sharp TV allows you to do a manual scan then do this on the WH channels:

Freeview on Winter Hill TV transmitter | ukfree.tv - independent digital TV + switchover advice, since 2002

If you cannot do a manual scan then firstly do an auto tune with no aerial connected - to clear out the current tuner data. Then do an autoscan again but leave the aerial out until it reaches around channel 50 then re-insert it. This should bypass Moel on 45 and leave you with a tuner populated with just the Northwest channels.

It may or may not work.

[burb]

Thanks for the replies
The tv does not pick any channels up until
626000 khz. I have only one aerial(a great whopper)
pointed at winter hill i am in Congleton Cheshire.

[ntaylo]

ROYOLD - Well meaning advice but be assured I have tried all this stuff. The Sharp XD1E TVs have a manual tune option which allows any (analogue) channel number to be selected for digital carrier detection. Even after wiping out all previous channels the set will not under any circumstances detect a Freeview MUX on Channel 62 - all other Winter Hill and Moel y Parc channels are fine. I am convinced that the issue is the negative offset on this transmission channel. I look forward to testing the firmware update when I pick up the CA card at the weekend. Will keep folks posted! Cheers - Nick

[Adrian_F]

Have you tried a manual scan with a negative offset of 166kHz for Ch62 ? (That is 801.834 MHz.)

[burb]

Sharp phoned today
ALL tv's in this series will not find the BBC channels
without an update sent on a Cam card
£15 refundably when card returned
Seems wrong when these tv's are less than 2 years old
Still i think the picture quality on this set gets better with age it thats possible.

[ntaylo]

Adrian F - thanks for the suggestion about entering the frequency with the negative offset applied. The standard manual tuning mode on these TVs uses the analogue channel numbers (Ch-62, Ch-64 etc) and this is where the TV fails to detect the digital carrier. It is possible, however, to select the frequency (shown in kHz - eg 802000) and so it should be possible to enter the correct frequency with negative offset and see if the TV locks onto the Freeview Mux. Since I had already contacted Sharp and received the CA card, I ran the software upgrade instead (takes only two minutes) and confirm that the BBC North West channels can now be received!

When the final DSO step takes place in just over a week I will delete all channels and run a manual scan on the new set of Winter Hill frequencies to avoid the duplication that can occur with an automatic tune, especially since the Moel y Parc frequencies are first to be scanned. Cheers - Nick

[billynw]

Gents, Is there any chance you could let me know the number you called?

I have email sharp a few times but get know reply.

Many thanks
Billy