aerial suitable for digital conversion?

katejo

I have just read a poster in Curry's which said that you could test the suitability of your aerial for digital by selecting Teletext 284 and it would display white spots on the screen. If there are gaps, the aerial is not any good. I tried this on my 2 tv's. One is on cable so doesn't matter as much. The other is a 1 year old flat screen with freeview built in. The test did not work at all as my newer tv would not find this teletext number at all. The older one found it but did not do the test.

I probably do need a new aerial but don't want to buy one if it is not necessary. I am not sure whether the newer tv with Freeview built in will need aerial replacement or not.

cajef

Only one way to find out, install the TV using the old aerial and see what the reception and signal strength are like, no point paying for a new aerial unless you actually need one.

Fifer

katejo wrote: »

I have just read a poster in Curry's which said that you could test the suitability of your aerial for digital by selecting Teletext 284 and it would display white spots on the screen. If there are gaps, the aerial is not any good. I tried this on my 2 tv's. One is on cable so doesn't matter as much. The other is a 1 year old flat screen with freeview built in. The test did not work at all as my newer tv would not find this teletext number at all. The older one found it but did not do the test.

I probably do need a new aerial but don't want to buy one if it is not necessary. I am not sure whether the newer tv with Freeview built in will need aerial replacement or not.

I suspect the reception your aerial provides on the built-in Freeview tuner will be a far better indication of its suitability than a teletext page. Do you get all the channels? Then no problem.

j2011

Teletext 284

That is on an analogue channel not a digital channel.

Are you already watching freeview?

katejo

cajef wrote: »

Only one way to find out, install the TV using the old aerial and see what the reception and signal strength are like, no point paying for a new aerial unless you actually need one.

Thanks but think you have misunderstood me. The aerial works fine now because the digital switchover will not happen until approx april 2012. I am just trying to find out whether my tv with Freeview will stop working after the switchover due to the aerial needing replacement.

katejo

j2011 wrote: »

That is on an analogue channel not a digital channel.

Are you already watching freeview?

I have got 2 tv's. One currently has both analogue and digital via cable (Virgin). The other is a much newer flat screen digital using Freeview (built in). I am not sure whether the newer one will require a new aerial since Freeview uses the aerial.

cajef

katejo wrote: »

Thanks but think you have misunderstood me. The aerial works fine now because the digital switchover will not happen until approx april 2012. I am just trying to find out whether my tv with Freeview will stop working after the switchover due to the aerial needing replacement.

If it is working now why would it require a new aerial after the switchover?

Kew2u

I'm sure I read that the change over will not require a change of aerial. 'Cowboys' are jumping on this band wagon. Go to the BBC site....see what they say.

katejo

cajef wrote: »

If it is working now why would it require a new aerial after the switchover?

Simply because the aerial is at least six years old (when i moved in) and may not be suited to digital only. I am just trying to check this. It may not be a problem but i just can't find a definite answer.

victor2

My aerials are over 20 years old. They worked fine before the switchover (which has happened here) and still work.
There's no such thing as a digital aerial. If Freeview works now, there's no reason why it won't work after analogue gets switched off. In fact it may be better as Freeview signal strengths are getting boosted as analogue goes off.

katejo

Thanks Victor2! useful to hear that from someone who has already had the changeover. I'm planning to replace my other older non flat screen tv anyway but that one uses cable so shouldn't be a problem.