All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
margaret allison: My best suggestion would be for her to get someone from a reputable company to come and look at it, or go to a electrical retailer and ask some questions (if she is London, she could visit the TV dept of a certain store in Oxford Street during a quite weekday, the chaps there will do their best.!)
OK, she seems to have bought a new TV in the past couple of years, and either 'She seem to have a lot of trouble receiving TV channels' or the TV 'doesn't work'. If the TV is simply dead, then it should go back to the store (if she bought it from where I work, she has a five year warrenty, but most places its just a year, unless she got an extended warrenty). If it comes on, but she is not getting a signal, firstly make sure that its connected to the aerial (the lead can fall out - happens more often than you might think), and then make sure that if she is in a flat, etc, that the central aerial system hasn't got a problem. If she has her own aerial, then it might be it has a problem, and in that case, its best if a professional gets called out. In terms of cost to have it checked, there might be a callout charge, but since you can have a new aerial fitted and cabled for no more than £189 in London, she certainly should be charged a lot less than that for just a service check.
Although most people do use dish or cable in the States, aerials are still widely used - there is a website here http://www.antennaweb.org…spx, for instance. And while your sister could get cable from Virgin or via a dish from Sky, she would have to pay extra for both those services. Right now, she just has to pay her licence fee and have a way of getting TV signals. I suspect that her system might just have a simple fault, but its best if a professional gets it sorted out. A look through websites like 'Trust Our Trades' might be a good start in finding someone reliable (a bit like Angie's List).
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MikeP: I'm not sure that digital TV is any less ' consumer-friendly as analogue was'. Most of the problems that people report seem to be little different - poor reception caused by aerial system failures, the problems of geography, tuned into the wrong transmitter and occasional problems caused by high pressure.
On the other hand, certain problems seem to have disappeared. I know my parents no longer pick up French TV when there is a high pressure system along the South Coast. And while poor signal strength continues to be a problem for some, its simply that whereas the picture used to be very snowy, its now very blocky!
Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same. I certainly agree withyour comments about broadband speed though!
Perhaps this is a project for Brian - has there actually be a change in the number of complaints, or is it simply that we can now complain more easily, and perhaps fail to understand how TV actually works?
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Terry Jones: If both your TV's have gone, that points to a problem with the aerial system. Could be a loose connection, etc, and therefore you've got to check to pinpoint the fault.
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Richard Theobald: Could be a problem with your aerial, and you've lost that mux. Check aerial connections, etc.
There was engineering work being done yesterday, which reduced HD signal strength, but it was only for about half an hour. Bolehill (Derbyshire, England) Freeview Light transmitter
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Darrell Reid: If you click on the links, you can see the information for yourself. Your 23km from Darvel, and with a normal aerial, should have a fine signal, with no need for any amplification. But you have a portable aerial, and they are normally rubbish...
The first thing to do is to check that the HD reciever is fine, and tuned in, so put it inot the downstairs TV's aerial feed, and let it do its thing (if that TV is coming off an aerial, couldn't you have taken a feed from that in the first place?). Then think about the portable aerial. The Digital UK site should have the bearing for Darvel (65 degrees), and providing nothing is in the way, you might be OK.
I'm totally at a loss to understand why your getting no signal at all though, and if you've connected a bit of coax to the main aerial feed, and there is still nothing, something is very very wrong.
Dave Lindsay is much cleverer than me, so perhaps he has an answer!
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Mike Cushman: Your just 5km from the transmitter - try taking the aerial lead out of the wall, and see if the cable alone will act as an aerial. If your not getting all the muxes, then there is a fault on your system.
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Angela Barker: I get my signal from Waltham, and its fine, which confirms what 'they say'. Logically, if its not the transmitter, it must be you. There are two things that could be happening.
Firstly, your aerial system has a problem. Corroded or frayed cable, moisture in the system, etc. Thats sounds the most likely reason.
Secondly, because you've retuned, you've possibly lost Waltham, but found another transmitter, either a 'light' one, or one much further away. Or you've got no more than the strongest signals from Waltham, becuase your aerial system is up the creek. If you've lost signal, its normally the aerial, so retuning is pointless, and makes the problem potentially worse.
Check your system. And then make sure your tuned to Waltham. And then get your system sorted out.
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Sunday 4 January 2015 7:25PM
Rog Parsons: Since I use Waltham, yet live in North Cambridgeshire (not far from Stamford..), I get East Midlands, rather than Anglia. However, I cannot imagine why, as MikeP put it, someone in Stamford would want news from Telford - by no stretch is it even close to 'local'. In TV terms, local is a somewhat strange term, because the regions are largely based, as MikeP pointed out, on the terrain and of course on the position of transmitters.
There are always people who are going to be annoyed that they cannot their 'local' news, but life is the art of the possible, and as you point out, Freesat can supply any 'local' news service anyway, so there are alternatives.
BTW - Although the combined colour TV & radio licence might have been £11 in 1969, as Brianist recently pointed out, its cost in real terms was the modern day equivalent of over £157 at 2013 prices Television licensing in the United Kingdom (historical) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So we pay less in real terms for more channels, with more content...