Reception issues is it my aerial?

Hello all,

hoping i can either get some advice or be directed to somewhere online that can. I have a very basic TV set up currently with just the 'basic' freeview channels through a roof aerial and a laptop that i attach through HDMI for streaming Amazon Prime/Iplayer etc. I have not been using terrestrial for a couple of months only streaming but swapped back over Christmas and discovered that i had no reception due to claimed 'weak signal' auto tuning showed i had lost most of my channels even ITV and Channel 4.

Read up on manual tuning, found the transmitter and the 'channels' to search for out of the 7, only 2 had signal that produced channels ( 25 and 42) but one of the signals was only 10% - i still have almost no channels, including ITV and Channels 4 ones! I have swapped out the aeriel cable, checked the wall socket, removed the HDMI cable and laptop in case of interference - still nothing. As my home is rented i need to narrow down if this is definitely an aeriel issue at this point and my landlord should be fixing or replacing - does this sound likely? have i missed any checks?

Thank you.

What region are you in - been a few retunes this year. Had to get a new aerial myself earlier this year thanks to some muxes being moved to new channels.

Guess it would depend on your contract with the landlord whether it is up to them to replace it.

What transmitter are you getting your TV from if its a UHF channel 25? You've listed Midlands Today as your BBC region, so are you getting your TV signal from Sutton Coldfield? Sutton is Band B, so so the channel range of received signals should be strongest from it between UHF channels 36 and 55. If you're getting anything on channel 25 you may be getting that from a relay, there are copious relays dotted around the Midlands depending on where you are:
https://ukfree.tv/maps/tvregions/46

Thanks for getting back to me - I did a freeview transmitter check before the manual tune and i am under Waltham, the manual tune advice was to search under 32/34/35/29/37/31 and 55 - i only found channels on 32( i got 25) and 29( i got 42) 29 is the particulalry iffy one that only showed 10% signal just as i tested, the picture was breaking up on the channel it defaulted to when finished. I can go and check which ones i am getting if that helps? i know all of the ITV apart from ITV 2+1 are missing and all Channel 4.

I would say the aerial will be older than 8 years as someone i know lived here before. I am happy to pay for a new aerial rather than him sending someone up there to do a temporary fix, if anyone knows a good one to buy or suggest - i just dont want to ask for him to fix it if it could possibly be something in the house causing the issue! Have read up on the HDMI interference issue which i did not know about and its possible that is contributing as i did a manual retune, plugged in HDMI for streaming and after got the weak/no signal warning again - but the manual retune showing the low signal i assume is defintely an aerial issue?

Is the roof aerial outside or in the loft?

As far as you can tell is the cable continuous all the way to the TV?

42 doesn't sound like Waltham - do you get Midlands Today or East Midlands Today?

It might also be useful to know whether the rods on the aerial are horizontal (eg parallel to the ground) or vertical (pointing at the ground).

A broad idea of where you are (doesn't need to be any more specific than the city at this stage) would be useful too.

What is "i only found channels on 32( i got 25) and 29( i got 42)" supposed to mean? Do you mean you get 25 Freeview channels on channel 32 and 42 channels on Channel 29? For Waltham Channel 32 is PSB1 and channel 29 is COM4, you can see what channels are on which multiplexes at https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/multiplexes

Are you fortunate enough to be in an area where you can receive multiple transmitter signals? I'm wondering if that's what happened here and you've somehow ended up "looking" at another transmitter?

42 is on Sutton Coldfield.

UK Free is a mess of a site, and not up to date, it's missing much of the 700 MHz clearance details for some other sites

Use the info box on mb21's Waltham index page, that is up to date

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=679

Aaerial in on the roof and the cable outside looks fine as far as i can see.

[quote Are you fortunate enough to be in an area where you can receive multiple transmitter signals? I'm wondering if that's what happened here and you've somehow ended up "looking" at another transmitter?[/quote]

This is from freeview that supplied the numbers to input in the manual retune, only 2 gave me channels - i dont understand what you are asking?:

Waltham
BBC A D3&4 BBC B HD SDN ARQ A ARQ B COM7 HD

The numbers were connected to the above ( i would post the whole thing but the formatting is broken)

I get East Midlands Today, i cannot see which way the aerial is set up but will try to get someone with better eyesight to check.

Re 42 - it was 42 channels found from using number 29 in the manual check, i did not use 42 as the search number.