Digital break-up

[Ian b]

I have two TVs, one digital working off an old aerial, one with a brand new (Argos) digibox, new aerial and cable. I am in the East midlands, so will be going digital next year. My transmitter is visible from my house, there are no obstructions and I am no more than about four miles away, yet both TVs break up. I'm really fed-up as it is very annoying. Any ideas? PLEASE. Also, my video will not record any of the digital channels with the new digibox and the quality is poor on the first 5 (BBC1,2:ITV1:C4 and five).

[Buenchico]

You might actually be too close to the transmitter. It's possible that the signal is 'swamping' the circuitry in your digital tuners.

If so, you'll need to connect an attenuator between each aerial lead and the TV / digibox:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=2 23051

The cause of your recording problems seems to be obvious: The video recorder is trying to record a signal from its own built-in analogue tuner rather than from the output of the digibox. To record that output you need to ensure that the recorder is set to record 'AV' rather than to any numbered channel. (Some manufacturers label 'AV', on the video recorders handset, as 'In', 'Line In', L1', 'Ext', 'Aux' or similar). You then select the channel by using the digibox's handset (and ensure that it's left switched on). Because you're (presumably) using an analogue recorder together with the digibox, you've only got one digital tuner in the system, so you won't be able to watch one digital channel while recording another.

Chris

[Ian b]

Thank you Chris. I haven't time to digest everything you said just now, but I will be looking into it over the next few days. Incidentally, other people have said about being too close to the transmitter, but hadn't offered a solution.

Ian

[Ian b]

Have sorted the video. There is an "input" button which when pressed selects the channel as 'AV'. Ian