Weak digital tv signal help?

Hoploz

My mum lives in a modern small block of flats. She is having problems getting tv reception in her bedroom - she has always used the wall socket but the last few months the picture is breaking up and is unwatchable. Her TV seemed go have gone srong so I got her a brand new one. Signal strength on the tv display suggests it is receiving 70+%

The managing agents did send a man out but had no joy fixing it. Not many residents are complaining, as they have Sky or don't watch much tv, so there is little support for (spending any more money) getting a resolution.

To solve it once and for all, I bought a little amplified aerial. Identical to one I use to watch tv in a room with no aerial. I get 90+% signal but when I tried this I found this also gave only 70+% and the picture still breaks up constantly.

I'm at a loss to know what to do to resolve this for her. Her lounge tv is fine.

Any suggestions for a solution please??

dominoman

She needs to get the main aerial repaired. That's the kind of thing that the shared fund is for in a block of flats.

An amplifier works for analogue signals, but it does nothing for digital.

maninthestreet

dominoman wrote: »

An amplifier works for analogue signals, but it does nothing for digital.

Are you sure about that? Their is no such thing as a 'digital aerial' so how could a signal amplifier fail to amplify a signal?

OP - a 70% signal strength should be adequate - my TV (Panasonic) works fine as long as both signal strength and signal quality are greater than 50%.

Hoploz

There is enough signal for a picture but it continually breaks up into pixels and she can't watch it

dj1471

It sounds like interference rather than poor signal. Does the screen that shows the signal strength also give the bit error rate?

How long ago did this start? 4G phone masts can affect digital TV reception, check here whether she is potentially affected. There are of course numerous other possible causes of interference.

If the signal is already 70% an amplifier may actually make the situation worse.

maninthestreet

Hoploz wrote: »

There is enough signal for a picture but it continually breaks up into pixels and she can't watch it

Try buying an amplifier (ignore the earlier post that states they won't work with a 'digital signal'):

http://www.maxview.co.uk/plug-in-signal-boosters

Hoploz

Thanks dj1471, that's helpful. I hadn't heard of this 4G issue. The online diagnostic tool is pretty vague, but I've sent a message to see if it is likely to be the cause or not. Thank you.

Maninthestreet I have seen boosters in Argos but they were only about £3 so I assumed they were rubbish. Is Maxview a good make? Will investigate if I get nowhere with this 4g thing.

Waterlily24

We have the same problem with two of our televisions, the lounge one and the kitchen one are perfect but the one in the bedroom and my craft room are quite bad. Looked at the G4 thing but didn't really understand it lol.

Waterlily24

Meant to say that we've tried a booster but it didn't make any difference.

keith969

When the picture starts breaking up into pixels it's because the error correction can no longer correct the image From noise in the signal. This is different from analog tv where noise makes the picture gradually worse. A booster won't help if the noise is coming from interference as it will amplify the interference just as well as the noise. You'll find some TVs perform better than others with noise, which can sometimes be why a tv in one room has a better picture than another, if fed from the same aerial with a splitter. have you tried swapping the TVs over to see if this is the case? Also check the tv lead and socket as it could be a poor connection. A tv aerial engineer should be able to check the signal strength and may be able to help, although it sounds like you had this done?

Also try retuning the tv, sometimes you can pick up signals from multiple transmitters and it helps switching to a stronger channel.

[Deleted User]

I had interference from 4G. If you send them an email they'll check whether your area is affected and send you a free filter if it is.