allegro wrote on Mar 28
th, 2012 at 6:22am:
JamesEB wrote on Mar 27
th, 2012 at 11:40pm:
We are having a terrible time and could do with some expert help.
Can you give a bit more detail please? Is it the usual poor reception trouble of the picture freezing and breaking up into blocks or is it something else. If the former then you should get a big improvement after switchover when the transmitters powers are raised.
I assume your aerial is pointed at Crystal Palace though I suppose it's possible you are receiving Bluebell Hill, the Reigate relay or (very unlikely) Dover. Please also tell us more about your installation. Is the aerial outdoors, in the loft or indoors? Are you using any sort of amplifier or booster? Are you feeding more than 1 set from the aerial?
It's always tricky to advise at a distance but I would hope that between Speedy and myself we can help a bit.
PS: Please do a postcode check here:
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/postcodechecker/ It's not foolproof but can give a guide. If you're willing to send speedy and myself your postcode by private message we can probably get more useful data from that website.
Speedy's website recommendations of PARAS and Bill Wright are both excellent. The rogues gallery on Bill Wright's site is a wonderful catalogue of how to get it wrong.
Thanks allegro, speedy, dave and kasg
A major difficulty is that we are old age pensioners and do not understand any of this.
I asked for a geo number for Digital UK because in trying to find out about an error message now on our screen it was suggested I ring them although it may not be anything to do with the changeover which is due to take place here on 4th and 18th April.
We have no cable in this area and have not been in a Freeview area but will after the changeover.
Originally we had an installation from Sky the type of which they have not done for years. It was a one off installation of free to air programs and Sky News but no viewing card or subscription. It had to be connected to the phone line for Sky active. Viewing cards could be purchased from Sky. The contract was for the installation day only and there was no further input from Sky. The digibox is connected to channel 7 of our Ferguson TV/DVD/Video Combi FTVD521T(A) described as a digital TV.
A couple of years ago we had a fault on the screen which both Sky and the Sky digibox manufacture and others said meant that just the LNB wanted changing. I took a lot of trouble finding an installer because of reports of cowboy installers but in the event could not have done any worse. To cut a very long story short, despite the fact that the fault was the LNB as I had told him and even though I had told him I wanted our system exactly as it was with no changes he insisted on changing the digibox and went away leaving us with a Technomate TM-5200D USB Super +. It was set on Southern Irish Sky News (ads in euros) and because there were no instructions we did not know what to do so it has been stuck on Southern Irish Sky News ever since (also no guarantee, invoice or receipt). This digibox has no viewing card slots.
It has worked fine like this until 2 or 3 weeks ago when we got an error message ! No Audio/Video.
I am trying so hard to get this fixed because our 87 year old has been diagnosed with a life threatening heart condition and he loves Sky News.
Be very grateful for any help
JamesEB