<snip>
>> Arfa
>
> I really appreciate your comprehensive comments, Arfa. Thank you. :-)
>
> FYI, here's a piccie of the antenna:
http://i44.tinypic.com/oumsch.jpg
>
> My eyes were playing tricks on me - it's a round section bar and 9, not 8,
> X's!
>
> I did speak to Sony's help line (a girl in Cairo, Egypt!!!). Her view was
> that it is definitely *not* a TV problem, but one of signal strength.
>
> Many thanks for your warning about cowboys and rip-off merchants. I'll be
> careful to select wisely if/when I need professional help.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dave
>
Looking at the picture, I think that you can be 90% sure that what you have
is a narrow bandwidth antenna from the analogue days. It may or may not
ultimately prove satisfactory for digital. If you remember back to the early
days of the 'digital TV revolution' with the TV ads featuring Johnny Vegas
and Monkey, the basic message was that you could just glue your shiny new
digital TV or STB to your existing antenna, and immediately enjoy all of the
benefits of the digital system. Well, yes and no. As far as I know, it was
always the intention that when everything was finally settled, the
multiplexes for each TV region, would largely match the blocks of band
originally used for analogue TV in those areas - hence an existing antenna
should work ok. However, it never really worked out that way in the interim.
To avoid interference problems to and from existing analogue services,
whilst these were phased out over whatever time period it was - around three
years I think it's been - multiplexes belonging to a geographical area, were
shoved all over the whole UHF band, which is about 400 MHz wide. So you
could easily finish up with one multiplex at the bottom of the band, and
another for your area, right at the top. That's the way it was where I am.
Also, whilst best efforts were made to co-locate digital transmitters on the
same sites as the existing analogue ones, that didn't always work out
either, so you could finish up with the analogue service, and the digital
service broadly in the same direction, but possibly several degrees apart.
If you have a highly directional existing analogue antenna, that could make
it quite a bit 'off-beam' for the digital service. On top of all of this,
they have had to adjust transmitter powers up and down as well, because of
mutual interference problems, and multiplex contents have also been shuffled
around. It is only in the last few months, as the analogue transmitters have
gasped their last, that there has finally been some efforts to stabilize the
whole situation, with finalised transmitter powers and multiplex locations
within the band. There has also been some shenanigans regarding what parts
of the UHF band are left available for TV use, after revised chunks are sold
off to the cell-phone operators. This has caused some problems with space
that the broadcasters thought was already allocated to allow broadcast of HD
within the Freeview terrestrial service, and has resulted in a rethink as to
how this is now being accomplished.
All in all, if you can live with the current situation for a little while
longer, you might find that it all settles down enough to give you perfectly
acceptable results, using that antenna. Of course, the exact reverse might
also turn out to be true ...
It would probably ultimately be worth getting the antenna replaced with an
up-to-date one, as you would then be guaranteed good reception under all
weather conditions, but as I said before, choose your rigger with care. Have
a look at the size and type of antennas that have appeared newly on your
street. If they are not massive and very complicated looking, then you
should be able to get a new one rigged on your house, again assuming that
it's not a 'difficult' installation, complete with new cable, which will be
very much better performing than the current cable you have, for less than
100 quid. A reputable rigger will not try to sell you anything different
than anyone else in the street has, and will not try to persuade you to have
a 'booster'. There have been a number of cases of disreputable riggers
cashing in on this whole affair, and the public's lack of understanding of
it, and plus 70 quid for a five quid un-needed Chinese amplifier, is one of
the rip-off methods that has been used by them.
Arfa