All posts by Keith Wright
Below are all of Keith Wright's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.As I have stated before, digital TV has provided many people with worse reception than was enjoyed under analogue. I have now had 2 new aerials installed, 2 signal boosters and upgraded cabling and although matters have improved I still get picture break up/interference at leat 3 times per evening. There needs to be a digitasl TV Ombudsman; someone we can contact to dispel the myths of digital TV; I don't have bottomless pockets !
| link to this comment |
'jb38', many many thanks for your informed advice. We have looked into the possibility of having a satellite dish installed (cable does not currently cover our estate); Sky installers have twice visited our house to install a satellite dish but have been unable to obtain a signal on both occasions; so I suspect any TV service which relies on satellite dish reception is out of the question. As I keep saying, can I have analogue back please ? Our reception was so so much better in those days.
| link to this comment |
We frequently receive heavily pixellated pictures and interference on many of our Freeview channels. Over the last five years we have had professionally installed, a new aerial, two signal booster/amplifiers, re-wired co-axial et.c. late last year, all of our channels were adversely affected so we yet again had to seek professional advice from an aerial installer. The installer advised us that, on this occasion, we were almost certainly subject to interference from a nearby 4G transmission mast (we can see this mast approx. 200 metres from our house); we therefore paid 80 for a filter to be connected direct to our aerial mast. This filter did seem to alleviate the problem where all of the channels were subject to interference. Unfortunately, the long-standing problem of some channels frequently being pixellated has not been alleviated; some days reception is fine, some days it is not. We have now spent 100s trying to resolve this issue, unsuccessfully. We really were better off with analogue !
We tried to sign up for Sky, but they were unable to obtain a signal from any point outside our house (although all of our neighbours have no problems); I have contacted Virgin to enquire about cable but they do not currently have cable provision in our vicinity. Anyone have any suggestions ? Postcode = WA9 5UH; our signals come from Winter Hill.
| link to this comment |
MikeP:
Thanks for getting back to me Mike. I can confirm that there are significant trees in the vicinity of our house, but I really would not have thought their density or height would be such that they adversely affected the quality of our reception. We have one small (almond) tree in our front garden which does not extend to any where near the height of our aerial, some distance (50 yards approx.) from our house are a number of large trees, which from my layman's geography would be in the general direction of Winter Hill. Obviously, I know that trees do grow, but we never experienced any reception problems in the days of analogue TV.
Sorry about my post-code not appearing (WA9 5UH); I can't see where on the web-site it requests this.
As for the 4G issue; from my research, I understand that I should have received a post-card from At800, advising me that the switch-on of 4G could affect my TV reception; as I did not receive any such postcard and as the publicity of At800's services has been non-existent, I knew nothing about the potential 4G problem. I only found out about the 4G hiatus when I personally contacted an aerial installer who remedied the problem by installing a filtering device. having been alerted to the problem, I then did my research and it was only then I found out about the existence of At800.
I would have preferred to stay with Freeview, but I am disappointed and feel 'let down' after the hundreds of 's I have now spent on attempting to at least restore normality; sadly, the problems persist with a few TV channels. This is why I feel compelled to explore the possibility of Virgin. Again, as a layman, I know nothing about the speed of my broadband connection; however, I can confirm that I did watch a 2 hour long film off YouTube last Saturday and only experienced buffering (for approx. 3 seconds) on one occasion. In any event, I like to think that Virgin would advise me as to all the options/what best suited et.c.
| link to this comment |
MikeP: Thanks for getting back to me again Mike. Our reception is now simply intolerable; my beloved 'X Files" was unwatchable on Chanel 5 last night (I'll have to resort to 'Demand 5'). We are extremely annoyed and frustrated by/with Freeview TV; as previously stated, we never had any such issues with analogue. I appreciate what you recommend as regards "a good aerial contractor", but I have now genuinely spent hundreds of pounds trying to resolve this with at least three different contractors already. To date, we have had 2 aerials, 2 booster amplifiers, renewed co-ax cable, 4G filter and our problems have returned. We really don't know where to turn to next. is there an Ombudsman for Freeview ? We would seriously like to complain.
| link to this comment |
Tuesday 3 April 2012 1:40PM
St. Helens
I am supposedly receiving my transmissions from Winter Hill but for the past week reception has been intermittent all day for all channels, with the dreaded 'No Signal' icon being the only consistent viewing available ! I have a signal booster and a digital aerial (both professionally installed), so I don't understand why this is happening. This also happened last year, so, so much for progress eh ? Can we have analogue back please ? Is there anything I can do ? Can I complain to anyone ?