flashing TV and Media Center

I flashed new firmware to a LG 32LN5400-TA LCDTV last night, that was easy, just downloaded latest firmware file from LG, unzipped the image file, stuck it on a USB memory stick, in a folder called LG_DTV or similiar, plugged it in USB socket of  the TV and away it went and pretty much installed itself and it was updated. v03.30.31

Next I wanted to upgrade my Minix NEO X8H Plus Media Center,  that is Minix the hardware company, not Minix the POSIX/UNIX O/S. Anyway, this Minix box came with Android 4.4 and XBMC Media Center application, for watching movies, interfacing with PVR apps, TV, Music, player and manager. XBMC became Kodi, which is well known in Linux world as a media player and content manager. I bought this little box a few years ago, to interface with the TV and watch internet TV, but in recent years those TVs replaced by Smart TV's, so I can do all that internet TV stuff much faster and easier from the LG Smart TV's,  so the little Minix box started collecting dust.

Recently, I was curious to see if others had put these Media Centers to other uses and a bit of searching yielded many results, people use these little boxes as game consoles, by replacing the O/S  with other customised Linux based spins onto these boxes as retro Game consoles, or combination media center and games consoles,  but if I wanted a games console, I'd just go buy a Xbox or Playstation.  Anyway, coming back to the Minix box, I found some forums and in particular the Minux forum and people were upgrading them to get the latest functionality of Kodi, so I thought I have nothing to lose but upgrade the box to Android Lollipop 5.1.1  from the original KitKat 4.4 and put later Kodi player on.

Upgrading the  Minix  NEO X8H Plus unit was damned easy, the forum spelled out the procedure in half a page, two URLS, one for the USB burner utility, which is used to upload the latest firmware (being Android Lollipop 5.1.1) and the second URL to get the latest firmware image file.  Unzipped both into my Windows 10 based  laptop, installed the USB Burner utility v 2.0.9, watch the short video on Youtube, plugin the box via USB cable, run the installer and attempt upload,  except it would not connect between the NEO X8H and the laptop USB Burner utility,  I messed around for a couple hours, I even looked for later version of utility 2.1.7, still no good,  replicated the whole process on another laptop, still refuses to connect, checking the Windows Devices, I eventually clicked that it showing two 2.4GHz mouse drivers, then I eventually realised, I still had the wireless mouse and keyboard receivers plugged into the NEO's USB ports, removed the two receivers, started the process again, this time it connected fine, the Amlogic USB Burner utility didnt like any other devices plugged into the NEO, except for the power cable and OTG USB.

Started the download, fails at 98%,  tried again, still fails, and noting that it exits the USB program, try it all again on another Windows 10 laptop, fails again at 98% download.   I thinking is it the NEO at fault or not, so I decided to uninstall the USB Burner utility 2.1.7 and go back to the 2.0.9 version as referenced and supplied in the Minix forum URL's, bingo! now it connects and uploads to the NEO successfully, disconnect USB cable and power off and go plug the NEO into a TV and it is working,  with Lollipop 5.1.1.  Tested it all  working fine, still has XBMC player  Next step is to uninstall XBMC and download and install KODI player.   I very impressed with the guys on the Minix forum, simple plain instructions and procedure to follow, hard to understand  how some users screwed the upgrade up, but they do.  You would think that the later version of USB Burner utility would work, but no, it has some fault with respect to the NEO X8H+ during the flashing. Use the v 2.0.9 unless otherwise stated by the Minix forum.

the minixforum firmware releases

RFI from Foxtel IQ2 STB's on 10m & 6m bands

I noticed hearing modulated signals across 29 MHz band and 52-53 MHz bands when scanning the FM segments from time to time, not clean carriers but data  modulated carriers appearing then disappearing.  By accident, I just happening to hear this occurring one day and by chance doors were open in the house where I could see through doorways to the TV set where the XYL was flicking through Foxtel channels.  OMG, the modulation on the signal varying as channels are being changed, here was the culprit, our Foxtel IQ2 STB (set-top-box).

I got out the Uniden handheld scanner and did some sniffing around the  STB, but no, it seems to be radiating from the LED flat panel TV,  turned power off to the TV but noise still radiating, unplug power cable from TV and noise still there, unplug HDMI cable to Foxtel STB, then RFI signal drops off drastically.

Sniff closer to Foxtel box, very strong signal from the ethernet RJ45 cable and the HDMI cable.  Remove both cables and noise almost non-existant.  sniff the power cord at the rear of Foxtel STB and noise still very low,  plugin the HDMI and ethernet cables one at a time, pretty equally as strong.
I noticed it detected noise on 2m band too, but much lower levels than that of 10m and 6m bands.

Outcome, the Foxtel box itself not radiating but very bad when HDMI cable plugged into a LED flat panel TV, as it using the TV as a RFI antenna.  As a secondary source of RFI it using the Ethernet RJ45 cable as a nice antenna too. I think from memory the IQ2 box made by Pace.

Solution, grabbed my box of various  sized ferrite clipon cores, added 7mm ID and 9mm ID cores on the power, RJ-45 and HDMI cables, closest to the rear of the Foxtel IQ2 box, this suppressed the RFI  sufficiently, in terms of 10m and 6m bands, could now only receive RFI up to about 1 metre from the STB, whereas my  transceiver antenna could hear it from 20 metres away.   I also tried clamping some ferrite cores over the two coax leads running to the satellite dish LNA but that made absolutely no difference, so RFI not radiating back out via coaxes, that I could see.