I've never been able to receive Freeview very well. Didn't get Sky News, SSN, any music channels, but the rest were OK - if they did break up now and again though. Then recently something broke off the aerial and it went really bad. Got the aerial man out and he replaced it with a digital aerial.
It was much better, I could get SN, SSN etc. However I checked the signal strength to see if it had improved. It had not, if anything it had got worse - just 10-15% I did a rescan and since then most evenings I've lost the BBC multiplex and sometimes everything.
Phoned the bloke and he said the problem was the box and where we live. It's a cheapo Pace box which only does autotune - i.e. you can't manually tune in each channel. When it autotunes it does it too fast and doesn't pick the strongest channels. Apparrently the reason for this is because I live between 4 transmitters - Moel y Parc, Winter Hill, Wrekin and Sutton Coldfield. This completely confuses the rubbish Pace box and it doesn't tune in to the right frequencies.
He suggested buying a new box that allows you to manually tune, and he's told me the frequencies of the main multiplexes.
Does this sound right, or am I being led on a wild goose chase? Any help gratefully received before I go and get a new box!
Try borrowing one from a friend. You may find that another box has a more sensitive tuner than yours. The other thing to note is that the "signal strength" meters in things like digiboxes are often wildly inaccurate.
It could be the problem with interference from all those transmitters......I bought my Sister a freeview box (can't remember the make) and it didn't work too well when I tested it here.....even though I can see the transitter clearly out of my front room window on the other side of the valley here in Plymouth.
However, it worked perfectly when I plugged it in at her house (in the middle of nowhere in Cheshire) and she has been able to receive all the new channels (when I have rung to remind her to re-scan).
You could always try another box (they are from about £25 now).
I'm considering switching from Sky to Freeview as part of a personal cost-saving exercise at the moment. Just wondering if anyone can recommend a good Freeview box. Like Moz I'm between transmitters (Emley Moor and Bilsdale), so something with manual tuning would probably be beneficial. Any suggestions?
Moz - if memory serves me right, and based on the info you've given me, you live in the Wrexham area as well.
Not sure which "region" you get on your Freeview box, but I have three (regular) aerials for three regions (not sure which transmitter is which!)
The Central/Midlands aerial only picks up Mux 1/2/A/B, so no Sky or music channels - but holds up pretty well with the weather.
The Granada/North West aerial picks up all channels - but as soon as it rains I lose most of them, especially Mux 2/A (ITV,C4, five etc)
The Wales aerial only picks up Mux 1/2/A/B - but that also holds up pretty well with the weather - actually it seems to get better when it rains!
Don't know how long you've had this problem, but I'd generally blame the weather before the box. If the aerial is new and installed correctly though, it might be worth a look. You can always buy one and take it back if it makes no improvement.
For box reviews, Digital Spy has loads so you can choose the right one.
I've got a diff prob - indoor aerial into a Nokia TUTV box and I can get 5 muxes at one time at the expense of another - sometimes A, sometimes 2 - sometimes i get two Mux 2s and no Mux 1. Have to keep twiddling the aerial and rescanning - it's a nuisance.
I live on the Cheshire side of the Wirral, and I can pick up all the channels from Winter Hill from my indoor ariel, provided it's got something metal touching it. I have been able to pick up the Welsh channels in the past, but I can't seem to get them unles it's light drizzle.
I've had my Pace DTVA since 2002 (one of the first Freeview boxes) and its still going strong. The remote control is getting a bit confused in its old age but good nonetheless.
Ive have three Sagem set top boxes in the house all on indoor aeirals and all have near 100% signal strength.
purchased last year from Woolworths for £20 per box!
I do have an issue that they dont have manual controls on the box itself so if the remote is lost thats a pain, if I loose all the remotes thats a nightmare!
We have a Pacific (now Duaraband) DTT box I got from Asda, and from Winter Hill (WH being about 15 miles from Warrington) using a normal outdoor aerial we get near enough full signal on each MUX, but the Weather can alter the picture on the SDN MUX, but of late that one has been OK. On this box we have no problems and BBCi, Teletext on ITV/4 and Sky Text work like a dream and are very fast.
Though we bought one of these boxes (albeit Duaraband) for my nan, she has an older aerial and it picked up the SDN MUX, but the picture is very poor as is the audio, as according to what my nan told me the audio kept dropping out, now I'm not sure this is because of the Weather or because she has an old outdoor aerial.
If you just want one to watch the main things on TV then your best bet is getting a cheap one from Asda, Tesco, Woolworths etc. But presuming you like your DTT then I would recommened splashing out the money to get a Sony or Panasonic which have better features.
I have one of those Daewoo boxes (one of the 1st ones) which cost me aroudn £80-£90 about 2/3 years ago. It has served me well but it doesn't seem to be coping with alot of the extra channels of recent, it either goes "blocky" every 5-10 mins for a few seconds (usually E4 or ABC1) & on some cases when channel hopping on some channels the screen goes black, the sound goes & it turns itself off.
The remote doesn't turn it back on & the reset button wont restart it so I have to pull the plug out & put it back in again, Is it on the way out or is this a common occurance with this model?
but good nonetheless.