Digital Aerial Question

[The Reid]

Following up to mike

they already did when I asked about cooker points :-)

[Tony Bryer]

I was very impressed by my brother's account of an aerial installer who he employed at his new house in Surrey which picks up CP and another better transmitter. The trick was to leave the aerial unplugged from the set until it had scanner past the CP channels (26-33?) then plug it in whereon the set would lock in to all the local ones. I guess you could achieve the same result with a lot of manual tuning but this sounded like a neat trick.

[Christian McArdle]

I doubt I'd have problems like this. Crystal Palace is very marginal from my location. Quite why many round here persist in using it, I don't know. I prefer having local news, really.

Hannington is only 16 miles away, whilst CP is about 30 miles and has the wrong region. You actually have to have a good aerial to pick up CP, rather than the crappy contract job we've got now. If it isn't pointed at the transmitter, you aren't going to get your TV accidentally receiving it.

Christian.

[Mark Carver]

For analogue I agree. But remember that Hannington digital has a major (deliberate) null in its radiation towards the east. In practice this means that places such as Chineham, Sherfield, Bramley, Basing, Hook, Camberley, Sandhurst, Yateley, and all points in between get little or no signal, so for Freeview Crystal Palace is the only option.

[Christian McArdle]

Luckily I live in Reading, where the Hannington signal is relatively good. Despite living on the east side of town, I also live on a hill, so I should get a reasonably clear view. There's plenty enough aerials pointing in that direction already and a DAT75 should do the business, even with a pile of passive splitting going on.

If I can't get a signal, I can always stick it at CP and get annoying news from Barking. Local news is bad enough when it is local. It is much worse when it is about a missing dog 50 miles away.

Christian.

[Adrian C]

Heh. Hope I'll remember that next time I wander into someones house to work on their electrics.

Think this topic/warning deserves it's own thread(opps pun!)!

[Adrian C]

Television over mobile phone will be begging for some bandwidth as well.

Very important to give kiddies something to watch during daytime school breaks rather doing that running about healthy thing.

[The Reid]

Following up to Christian McArdle

that must be the lost dog I just found, locked into our allotment site, I doubt anybody had been down there for days. couldn't get near enough to it to read its collar, it just kept running from gate to gate. So I opened the non road end and it was off in a straight line, so hopefully knew where it was going.

[John Cartmell]

Do you seriously think they will want to restrict it to breaks? ;-(

[Owain]

If the government laid down that all schools take their breaks at the same time perhaps they could impose a "teenagers' truce" on broadcasters?

Owain

[The Natural Philosopher]

I wondered where he had got to. Yes, he knows the way home, but is always up for a bit of action of the female variety..;-)