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Television switchover

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Television switchover

sludgeguts

sludgeguts

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So when we are all forced to go digital with the telly progs, why will I need to buy a new aerial?
My old aerial got channels 1 - 5 perfectlyl
but when I plug in the new telly with built in freeview, it struggles to find ch1 - and then only ropey quality.

So why, oh why is digital suposedly better
 
As far as I'm aware, the existing aerials will do the job, although in your case you may be in a marginal reception area where channels 1 to 5 may indeed have been received very well, but for the higher number of digital channels you may need a higher gain aerial or a signal booster.

In a former life I worked for Granada and at the time of the introduction of Channel 5 had to visit a tremendous number of clients because of reception problems. These were often in areas where there were hills, and especially where there were local transmitters that broadcast only to a very local area because the hills prevented the signal from Winter Hill reaching the aerials. We ended up re-tuning the TV sets to pick up Ch5 from roundabout the same area as videos and satellite boxes.

As far as I know, the only benefit to digital TV is that as the signal is compressed, the same principal as MP3 viewers can receive more channels. The classical music purists are less than impressed with MP3 and digital audio broadcasts so it remains to be seen if the TV signal will be compropmised in the same way.
 
sludgeguts said:
So when we are all forced to go digital with the telly progs, why will I need to buy a new aerial?
My old aerial got channels 1 - 5 perfectlyl
but when I plug in the new telly with built in freeview, it struggles to find ch1 - and then only ropey quality.

So why, oh why is digital suposedly better
Click to expand...

Your "old aerial" is for vhf or uhf, its not designed to pick up the c or ku bands that satellite telivisions use. Your new telly has a built in tuner, not the dish it needs to pick up the signal. In europe we mainly use the ku band which has a max capacity of 32 transponders per satellite, which can be used to utalise lots of channels or high def channels. You will need to get a dish and set it up for Astra 28.2E

Why are we changing to satellite? Terestial is rubbish, plain and simple (fuzzy in bad weather, noise interference, poor picture quality etc). With dvb there is perfect picture quality and it either works or it dosent. It also means you can have channels you cant reach with the normal wavelengths of terestial.

The sooner terestial goes, the better, I cant wait to see the back of it (y)
 
simple to get less.
we had every free view channel for a while we lost a few somehow.
they also suffer weather now since before you got a nice clear signal. now its a far higher tolerance on reception and that's why its a bad idea
 
Picture quality is better. but when there's interference it's much more noticable than a slightly fuzzy picture which is rubbish (n)

They supposedly boosted the signal here when they switched over but still not that good. The benefits do seem to outweigh the downsides though.
 
Anything like this is going to involve change. Some people will need a new aerial to recieve a good Digital reception but there is no point in geting one unless you live in a protected building.
Sky often have deals and the most it will ever cost to install is £150 and if you dont want to pay a monthly subscription then they have a freeview.
Im sure virgin will do similar.
Then there is freesat and freesat HD. The only people that will loose out at all are the one whol go and buy a cheap set top box from ASDA and expect it to work.
 
i used a cheap set top box from ASDA for years with no problem on an old aerial in the attic, only changed because mrs dave bought a box that records now, still a cheap one but from argos.
the asda one in now in my bedroom with an aerial sitting ontop of the tv an gets most channels

i can still se channels when people post in grumpy thread that their satellite has gone funny because of weather
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys.
Interesting point about the weather.
My old aerial was a real cheapo from wilko & was never affected by the weather.
As for reception, I worked for a while in a residential home (many years ago) & we had a lounge which was not served by an aerial outlet - but we had a huge swiss cheese plant sat taking up all of one corner - this made THE most fantastic aerial by stripping back the shield & inserting just the copper core into the main stem.
Back to my OP though, it seems that over the years we have made great improvements in technology, in as little as 30 years, we have more computing power in a small mobile phone than we ever did in the computer lab where I first learned about computing.
In fact, early mobile phones required enormous aerials in order to work whereas the modern mobiles can stream perfectly watchable telly without so much as a hint of aerial - but I still need to climb on my roof & bolt a some unsightly bits of metal to the chimney / side of the house in order to utilise freeview. Seems to me to be a backward step.
 
sludgeguts said:
Thanks guys.
Interesting point about the weather.
My old aerial was a real cheapo from wilko & was never affected by the weather.
As for reception, I worked for a while in a residential home (many years ago) & we had a lounge which was not served by an aerial outlet - but we had a huge swiss cheese plant sat taking up all of one corner - this made THE most fantastic aerial by stripping back the shield & inserting just the copper core into the main stem.
Back to my OP though, it seems that over the years we have made great improvements in technology, in as little as 30 years, we have more computing power in a small mobile phone than we ever did in the computer lab where I first learned about computing.
In fact, early mobile phones required enormous aerials in order to work whereas the modern mobiles can stream perfectly watchable telly without so much as a hint of aerial - but I still need to climb on my roof & bolt a some unsightly bits of metal to the chimney / side of the house in order to utilise freeview. Seems to me to be a backward step.
Click to expand...


only if you havent embraced newer cable and satellite technology :p
 
sludgeguts said:
So when we are all forced to go digital with the telly progs, why will I need to buy a new aerial?
My old aerial got channels 1 - 5 perfectlyl
but when I plug in the new telly with built in freeview, it struggles to find ch1 - and then only ropey quality.

So why, oh why is digital suposedly better
Click to expand...
Digital Freeview BBC 1, BBC 2, Dave and Dave Ja Vu, are intermittent or more often completely dead for us since the digital switchover, bad weather makes a noticable difference. At the switchover halfway point digital always worked and analogue always worked. I think we need a new aerial or freesat.
 
custard said:
only if you havent embraced newer cable and satellite technology :p
Click to expand...

Yes, I have virgin/ntl/whoever the heck owns it these days but in the coming months I may have need to ditch cable to claw back some cash.
I'm on the base pack as it is but the bloody kids keep racking up huge phone bills - despite them having their own mobiles with all sorts of freebies on their tariffs.

I have noticed one for all does an outdoor aerial that isn't very large so I'm very tempted to look into that one.
 
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