Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mike G on August 11, 2013 at 9:56

Hi Susan. What sort of Freeview do you have, Satellite or Terrestrial?

Permalink Reply by Susan Mary on August 11, 2013 at 15:29

I have an aerial, is that terrestrial?  This happened last winter and I had to have connections replaced but it happened with rain.  Are connections not made to last very long?

Permalink Reply by Mike G on August 11, 2013 at 21:20

With terrestrial freeview it's possible to have a poor signal and still have a perfect looking picture, until rain or other things drop the signal beyond the point where the receiver works. What are the signal quality readings on your tv? They should be better than 80% if all is ok with your aerial.
Are you sure your aerial is a UHF one? Old VHF aerials (the big ones) don't work we'll with the UHF freeview signals.

Permalink Reply by Susan Mary on August 11, 2013 at 21:52

The aerial is newish, brought it from a freeview dealer (was new when I bought it).  Where do I find the signal quality readings?

Mike G said:

With terrestrial freeview it's possible to have a poor signal and still have a perfect looking picture, until rain or other things drop the signal beyond the point where the receiver works. What are the signal quality readings on your tv? They should be better than 80% if all is ok with your aerial.
Are you sure your aerial is a UHF one? Old VHF aerials (the big ones) don't work we'll with the UHF freeview signals.

Permalink Reply by Mike G on August 11, 2013 at 22:46

The signal quality and strength readings are usually in the tuning menu. To know how good all of the freeview channels are you need to look at the quality of a channel from each of the three muxes (groups) of channels. ie: look at the quality readings on TV1, TV3 and Maori TV and you will be checking one channel from each group.
If the aerial and cabling is recently installed, it should all be good. One thing to eliminate would be any splitters or other devices in the circuit between the aerial and the tv. These can cause the signals to be degraded if they're don't pass UHF well.

Was the aerial installed pointing at the correct freeview transmitter site? In some areas these are different to the old analog sites. Also the polarisation of the aerial is important and must match the polarisation of the site. ie: is the aerial lying flat (horizontal polarisation) or on edge (vertical).