Digital Freeview boxes for under £22

dazza190574 · 10 January 2007 at 7:24PM

kate_bennington wrote:

Newbie here! On a connected topic: I have a freeview box but have trouble getting all the ITV channels, Channel 4 etc. I have been told by an aerial installation engineer that i need a new aerial which will cost £100 and possibly new cabling too. Am I being ripped off or is there an easier, cheaper solution?
Thanks
Kate

I had the same sort of problem. I live in a small block of flats and have a communal aerial which, thanks to previous tenants had been painted over numerous times, and therefore useless.

What I done instead though was bought a flat aerial from Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29193&criteria=aerial&doy=10m1

It is £19.99 but it works perfectly for me. The benefit is that you can hide the aerial behind a picture or sideboard if the signal is strong enough. The added benefit is you can take it with you if you move.

You can also get external areials for digital, or you could look into getting an amplifier. These plug into the electrical socket and then you plug the external aerial into that. I wouldn't pay £100 for an aerial.

BexTech · 10 January 2007 at 7:55PM

Leadplayer wrote:

Very true but an even easier solution is to visit what used to be " Dixons " our local one at Ilkeston in derbyshire offered to supply a box appx £20 and should the reception not be good exchange it for other brands until effective one found " WARNING DO NOT PAY FOR EXPENSIVE WIDE BAND AERIAL INSTALLATIONS " try different boxes 1st

Yes, wideband aerials can make matters worse. Though the actual cost of a wideband aerial should be the same or virtually the same as the cost of a banded aerial.

It may just be you need a aerial with a higher gain than the current aerial.

Different boxes also have differing sensitivity, so as you say trying a different box could just be enough to make the difference.

If you enter your details into Wolfbane for analogue and then digital reception, you should see whether both analogue and digital are transmitted in the same band. List under GP/Group.

http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tva.exe? - Analogue.

http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe? - Digital.

You may find your analogue is band B and digital is band E, but band E covers band B also, so you won't need a wideband aerial a band E aerial will be fine, you may find you are in a very high signal area and could get away with a band B aerial if that is what you already have, it might just pull in signals good enough outside band.

Group A (Red cap)* 471 MHz (CH 21) up to 599 MHz (CH37) (bottom 1/3 of the band)
(note that the A group originally only went up to CH35 but was “enhanced” some years ago)
Group B (Yellow cap)* 583MHz (CH 35) up to 727 MHz (CH 53) (middle 1/3 of the band)

Group C/D (Green cap)* 687MHz (CH 48) up to 847 MHz (CH68) (top 1/3 of the band)

In addition two sub groups (utilising about 2/3 of the whole band) were devised.

Group K (Grey cap)* 471 MHz (CH 21) up to 687 MHz (CH 48) (bottom 2/3 of the band)

Group E (Brown cap)* 583 MHz (CH 35) up to 847 MHz (CH 68) (top 2/3 of the band)

If an aerial is deigned to work over a large section of the band (eg a “Wideband”) it cannot be tuned precisely and therefore the gain and directivity will be lower. Thus if you need a high gain aerial, and are able to use a grouped antenna on your particular transmitter, a grouped aerial is always preferable.

(http://www.aerialsandtv.com/aerials.html).

BexTech · 10 January 2007 at 8:05PM

dazza190574 wrote:

You can also get external areials for digital, or you could look into getting an amplifier. These plug into the electrical socket and then you plug the external aerial into that. I wouldn't pay £100 for an aerial.

External aerials for digital are the same aerials as for analogue, as digital TV is transmitted within the same analogue wave form, there is no difference between an aerial used for digital and one used for analogue - they are the same thing.

The only difference is that digital TV is broadcast at a lower power at the moment to the analogue channels, so you may get excellent reception on analogue at the moment and not digital, because you are not close enough to the transmitter, it may be you need a new aerial - one that can pull in weaker signals, such as an extra high gain aerial, but this is no magical digital aerial, it is just an extra high gain aerial, the same as you would use when you are in an weak analogue reception area.

When analogue is switched off, the power will be increased for the digital channels.

Dave_Duggan · 10 January 2007 at 8:44PM

Richer Sounds are offering the Mico STB235 (Graded Freeview box) in-store for £19.95

Dave_Duggan · 10 January 2007 at 8:47PM

Richer Sounds are offering the Mico STB235 (Graded Freeview box) for £19.95.

eposmike · 10 January 2007 at 8:53PM

You can get freeview on a PC if you buy a £20-£30 usb stick from the likes of https://www.ebuyer.co.uk. Points to watch are;
1. The tiny included aerial is useless unless you're near to the transmitter.
2. So make sure you can get your roof aerial connected to your pc.
3. I have the Freecom one and it's great. All the channels but the program guide is a bit naff.
4. It is possible to use it as a PVR.
5. The format it records is a bit non standard. However I recorded West Wing some time ago. Burnt it to DVD and played it on my multiregion DVD player no problem at all.

So £25 odd quid for a PVR. How bad is that? Just be careful about the aerial.

marcellep · 10 January 2007 at 8:54PM

I bought my freeview box on Ebay a month ago for £8.74 that included postage too. Having a quick look just now there are a few second hand ones sitting at very low prices.

If using ebay just watch the postage and set a max bid and dont get carried away and bid more

glyn_s · 10 January 2007 at 8:54PM

does anyone know of a cheap freeview box that shows the channels on a display on the front rather than on-screen? i want to plug one into a stereo so i can get digital radio stations on it - i hope to use a splitter from my existing freeview aerial - but i need a display on the front to show the channel numbers or names otherwise i won't know what channel it's on - anyone know of one please?

BexTech · 10 January 2007 at 9:12PM

macker1965 wrote:

Sky have a non subscription service with a one off payment of £150. Loads of channels.

http://www.freesatfromsky.com

Or subscribe to Sky on the £15 per month minimum package and go via Quidco for £50 cashback, then cancel after 12 months - your viewing card will become a FTV card (FreeSatFromSky card) so you will be able to continue to watch the 5 FTV channels (card required) and the 100+ FTA channels (No card required).

kan-ga-ryu · 10 January 2007 at 9:20PM

Fran wrote:

I recently bought a 5 way Scart splitter, meaning you don't have to unplug when using different devices from Amazon. You can then have Freeview box, DVD, video, games or anything else with Scart lead connected at the same time.

Some of the cheaper Freeview boxes only have one Scart option, others have two which is worth checking if you might need two.

Asda do an automagic scart switcher for £9.99. It switches to the device that is switched on last. I've seen others but not at this price for an automagic.

But I think it only has four inputs.

KGR

Digital Freeview boxes for under £22

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