Hi jigman......I personally have never been able to get satisfaction with Freeview without a decent aerial........I live near Barnsley, South Yorkshire and no amount of fiddling would get me a signal for the Freeview channels until I installed an aerial in my roofspace............I got the 18 element outdoor or loft model from Maplin Electronics at �19.99 and as I said installed it in the roofspace ....I now get all the channels and share the aerial with two TV's
this link should get you to the page....or just Google
Maplins..........good luck..........commoner. ;-)
http://www.maplin.co.uk/searchpages/LOFT_AERIAL.htm