More Digital TV Trouble

[Mamyalynne]

Am sure all you techies are getting a bit fed up with it but....my area went digital on 02/12/09, I did all the relevant reinstalls and all was fine. Then yesterday 08/12/09 the picture started to drop out (still have good sound) after 10-15 minutes, if I go on standby and leave it a while I get picture back but the same happens again. Have reinstalled both the TV and Digital recorder and spoken to the helpline who advised doing it again with no aerial then with it reconnected.

Problem persists, am I looking at a new aerial?? If so its odd it worked well for 6 days after switchover, HELP!

Mamya

[Buenchico]

You've correctly diagnosed the cause of the problem as insufficient signal strength. It's not surprising that you got good reception for a few days but then suffered a loss of signal. It's because the strength of the signals arriving at your aerial can vary quite widely. They're affected by the weather (with, for example, rain or snow obstructing the signal path), atmospheric pressure and the number of hours of daylight in a day (both of which affect the height of the radio-reflective layer of the earth's ionosphere), the 11-year sunspot cycle and individual solar flares on the surface of the sun (which again affect the ionosphere but also create electrical storms which can block signals) ad many other things. The signals were initially strong enough but are now (for the time being) no longer so.

You might need a new aerial. (If so, it's wisest to replace the cabling as well as the aerial). However the fact that your signal strength is nearly good enough for decent reception suggests that a cheap signal booster should solve the problem for far less cost.

Chris

[Mamyalynne]

Thankyou very much for that Chris, its well worth a try as when the picture comes back it is well over 75%. It would cost me dear else wise as I am in a three storey block and am sure health and safety would require a whole gang of workers LOL