television signals strength quesiton

[p cooper]

SWMBO has just bought a new TV to replace the prior 10 yr old one. Works fine ( once id taken 90 minutes to understood the serbo-croat instruction manual) except that channel 3 (ITV) reception isnt very good - about on par with what Ch5 was on the old TV. FWIW Ch5 on the new TV is about the same as Ch5 on the old (and Ch3 on the new) John Lewis ( from whom we bought it - who also said the instruction manual was good!!) say its the aerial.

1) is this true - do modern TVs need more signal strength that old ones.? 2) if we improve reception for Ch3 are we going to loose it for the others ?

[Lee]

It would help if you said what it was about the display of CH3 that you are unhappy with.

I've found that, in general, modern tuners tend to be more sensitive, rather than less, but are more susceptible to interference.

Lee

[Bob Smith (UK)]

Has it found the ITV from a neighbouring area (eg Tyne-Tees when you are in Yorkshire)? Try searching manually for a stronger ITV.

Bob

[p cooper]

fuzzy image and vertical wavy lines down screen

[Lee]

Wavy lines are usually interference of some description... Have you checked whether it is picking up the correct channel for you area as Bob suggested?

Lee

[Set Square]

Are you sure that you're finding the *same* channel 3 signal as your old set - and haven't found a weaker signal from a different transmitter? Are the channel numbers the same?

Tell us which main and CH5 transmitters you're pointing at, and we'll tell you what channel numbers you should have.

[p cooper]

how do i do that - the auto tune function found the channels and the one we are using (channel 61 on the tv autofind thingy if that is relevant) was the best ITV signal

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

Certain to be.

that old ones.?

No, they are just as good if not better. Your problem is one of these:

The old TV was so poor that you didn't notice the problem.

The aerial has suffered damage just before the TV installation

The plug on the aerial cable has been pulled partly off the cable during the installation.

Your aerial cable is kinked or crushed

The TV has been set up using the horrible auto setup feature. You have no control over this and it may pick up another (unwanted) transmitter output.

loose it for the others ?

Improving CH3 will not affect the tightness of anything else. If you sort out the aerial system, all channels should be equally well received. If you LOSE other channels, then there is *still* an aerial problem.

[Bob Smith (UK)]

Look in the manual for "manual tuning". If you go to manual tuning, it will show you the channel numbers it has selected.

As Set Square said, if you tell us the name of your transmitters, we can tell you what the channel numbers should be. If you don't know that, you can look up your area on

has a table of channel numbers.

Bob

[G&M]

Some sets have a manual fine tune after the auto-tune is finished to get rid of these effects.