Hello all. I'm new here, so forgive me if this is a FAQ, but:
I've been watching Freeview on my old Nokia box for years. Up until a few days ago, everything was fine, but now I have lost Channel 4, ITV, etc. Sky News is OK, as is Channel 5. I am using an aerial reception booster, and it *seems* to still be working OK. I'm on the 4th floor of a listed building, and have never actually seen my aerial (my guess is that it is pointed to Whitehawk Hill, as I am on the Brighton seafront). Could it be that some workmen (there has been some scaffolding up recently) dislodged the aerial? What can I do to try to identify the problem? I tried tuning to another UHF channel, but that didn't help.
Have there been any other reports of freeview loss in Brighton recently?
My Pace Freeview box is very odd at times. It occasionally freezes when it can't handle the EPG list and sometime's gets a better signal when i
unplug
the aerial. Not to mention the remote control gets confused sometimes!
Glad it's not just me then. My Sagem thing upstairs often freezes, or goes wildly up and down the EPG when I have the audacity to try to change channel. Seems to often need "resetting". Which means swearing at it, then switching it on and off at the wall.
My digital box hates flourescent lighting. The stuff generates tons of electrical noise, which is reflected in the breaking up of the picture and sound.
Unfortunately for me, due to my mother being obsessed about saving electricity, pretty much every light in this house is a flourescent one, so if I'm recording or watching TV there's usually many shouts of 'don't turn the lights on'. Sounds silly, but it can become very annoying when the picture and sound breaks up all the time due to people turning the lights on and off.
My box has decided it will occasionally freeze anywhere between channels 25 and 29 inclusive during flicking through the channels. Such is the magnitude of this lock-up, one has to pull the plug out. I don't know what's so fabulous about the Top-up TV Channels that the box occasionally doesn't like, but the problem doesn't occur on anywhere else on the EPG, it only happens in that four channel TUTV gap between Price-Drop and ITV4.
This only started when the EPG was reshuffled previously, and the box doesn't have a TUTV slot on it.
Ahh, the pitfalls of freeview. Something I've had to deal with this very morning.
Take a look at the BBC Weather website. Under the explanation of symbols you shall see 30 or so differing images. My box, a Sony thing, seem to work with all of one of these images - Sun. You name it, it has an excuse. Flicking through channels - way too much. Using the EPG - too much. And the latest gem trying to use the BBC News Multiscreen. We'll not go there for fear of my blood pressure.
In 2008, I believe, the Central region, yes that bastion of culture, is set to recieve entirely digital signals. Well, if this morning is anything to go by they can truely keep it. I suppose I'm providing an entirely accurate review though. My box does, when it so pleases, provide an excellent service. The technical problems are however, to say the least, somewhat annoying. I'm sick to death of the amber light (showing it has, yet again, crashed). The amount of times I have now unplugged the damn thing is well countless.
I do have severe reservation about the quality of the techinology ahead of the digital switch over, but that, is a story for another time.
We're Okay here for Freeview, though the Weather does depend really, since we've had the Box the SDN MUX has been okay most of the time, but when it goes cooler or warmer really, then the reception does alter. When we had a bad cold snap back in February or March, at night time we completely lost the SDN and ITV/C4 MUXes, the BBC ones were just managing to get a picture, and the two NGW MUXes weren't 100% but we had a picture.
Though this was an area problem AIUI, as some who I know who has Top Up TV lost all of her channels when we had the cold snap.
Thanks for all the replies. I'll cross my fingers and hope that it's the heat. So here's wishing that it starts raining in time for the free FilmFour spell!
I normally watch Sky, but I recently bought a new TV with Freeview in-built, so I've had the opportunity to see the varying signal I am receiving on DTT.
Oddly, even though I can see the transmitter out of my front room window, there are noticeable differences on certain days. C4 was very bad the other day, even though it was perfect weather.
I have suffered problems with the Sky digiboxes during the 8 years I've had them, but that was always due to extreme weather such as the recent thunder storms - which just requires a re-boot of the box.
Freeview seems alot more eratic regarding reliable reception
