Diddled over digital switchover?
The UK digital switchover is underway. It started earlier this year and finishes with the London region in 2012. But just what does it mean? If you're unclear, you're not alone. Many viewers are confused about what technology they need to receive a digital signal. Sadly, some rogue aerial installers are cashing in on this confusion to make a fast buck.
This week Rogue Traders headed to the West Country to investigate complaints we received about two such unscrupulous individuals: Dave Woodyatt and his boss Mitchell Elliott. We've been told that Dave has been installing TV aerials when they aren't needed, misdiagnosing faults and misleading customers about the works required.
But complaining to the company doesn't get the problem solved. The big boss, Mitchell Elliott, uses threats and abusive language to customers when they call to complain.
The company concerned is called 'Aerial Problems Solved Ltd' and is based in Gloucester. The same few people also run 'Perfect Pictures UK Ltd' registered in Bristol. We've found many other trading names and phone numbers they use, but whichever number you call, the same receptionist answers, and the same people do the work.
With many complaints about these companies including nasty threats made to customers, we thought it was about time we sent Aerial Problems Solved a clear signal of our own. So, Matt and Dan hopped on their bike and headed west to meet up with complainants Lynda Brown and her elderly father George.
George had been experiencing problems with his TV signal and so reached for the Yellow pages. He found Aerial Problems Solved's large advert, called them on a local number, and asked them to solve his problem.
Two engineers turned up, one was our rogue David Woodyatt. He told George his booster (an amplifier) had blown and he would need a new, bigger one to replace it. George paid £201 for the work, but when daughter Lynda switched on the TV there was no improvement to the fuzzy picture. David recommended that leaving the TV for 24 hours might improve the picture, as he headed out the door £201 richer.
The puzzling thing is that David asked George for a power lead to plug the new booster in to. This begs the question, if there was a booster there already, how was it being powered? In any case, whether there really was a booster that had 'blown' or not, a booster was not the root of George's problem.
After writing to the company for a refund he received no reply, and desperate to watch his favourite TV show 'Eggheads' without the fuzz, George paid another local company to fix it, which they easily did. They simply lowered George's aerial to avoid a tree whose leaves were blocking the signal. At a cost of only £40, the aerial problem was solved.
Matt and Dan decided it was time to see the full picture for themselves, so called on aerial expert 'Lee Mercer' to set a simple fault in our own 'Rogue Traders' house. The aerial was around 15 years old, but of good quality, and was capable of receiving a digital signal. The fault that Lee set was to simply unplug a cable in the attic.
We hired an elderly actor to pose as homeowner 'Martin' and placed a call with Aerial Problems Solved on a Cheltenham number. Then all that was left to do was for Matt and Dan to sit back and watch the team arrive to see if they were as perfect as their name suggests or, if as with complainant George, they started telling tall tales to add to their pot of gold.
David Woodyatt arrived and after only a few minutes in the loft spotted that the aerial cable was disconnected. But when he climbed back down to tell our homeowner the problem, his imagination kicked in, and he created a fairytale scenario in which Martin's non-existent signal booster had broken, needing to be replaced with another booster.
David pushed his luck further by removing the 18-element aerial and replacing it with an inferior 10-element aerial. David justified the works by telling our homeowner that the aerial he originally had was not capable of receiving a digital signal, which was not true.
The fairytale continues with David telling our homeowner that the business was a member of a trade organisation called the 'FDI'. In fact, it turns out the FDI doesn't exist.
The final bill, for works which should have been covered by the £65 call out charge, was a whopping £276.
It seems that Dave Woodyatt and Mitchell Elliott are laughing all the way to the bank while their customers are being left with depleted bank accounts and often with their problems remaining unsolved.
So what happens when unlucky customers try to complain? Many customers told us that when they complained to Perfect Pictures UK and Aerial Problems Solved, they met with abuse and very serious threats.
Chris Wakefield was one such unhappy customer. He was charged £192 for an aerial installation that he had been told would cost just £99 on offer. Chris paid the engineer, but rang their office to complain. He spoke to a very unpleasant man, who told Chris in extremely abusive language that he had Chris's money, and that he wouldn't be getting it back, before slamming the phone down.
Chris took Perfect pictures UK to court under consumer legislation and won, but he had to call in the bailiffs to recover the money and they were unable to gain anything from the address they were given. So no joy for Chris who despite all his efforts is now £250 out of pocket.
After hearing about the strength of the abuse that some customers received on the phone when they complained, Matt and Dan turned their attention to the big boss responsible; Mitchell Elliott. Mr Elliott has made extremely threatening remarks to customers insinuating they may come to some harm.
But at Rogue Traders we are not easily perturbed by a bit of colourful hot air, so Matt gave Mitchell a call, posing as the son of Martin our actor whose aerial was replaced unnecessarily.
Mitchell Elliott wasn't very willing to help Matt. In fact, at the start of the conversation he told Matt that 'Mitchell Elliott' was killed two years ago, and that his name was Mark Jones, secretary of a new company that has taken over the dissolved Aerial Problems Solved.
He then went on to make veiled threats to Matt, suggesting that he should hang up "for his own sake".
But Mitchell Elliott is alive and well, he hasn't cheated death, just his customers. So having established the full picture for ourselves we decided it was time to confront our two rogues.
The FDI is the fictional trade federation invented by Mitchell Elliott and referred to in his publicity, so it seemed only fair that it was the FDI that we brought to life to reveal our investigation to Aerial Problems Solved.
We invitee David to come to a house to look at an aerial problem, but in fact, Matt was waiting on the other side of the front door to greet him, dressed as an FDI inspector.
Matt quizzed David about the work he did when we filmed him at our 'rogue house'. David said he was no longer with the company and had little else to say on the matter.
Matt then tried to put our allegations to Mitchell Elliott, the big boss, but before Matt could reveal his true identity on the phone Mitchell dismissed Matt with his trademark foul language and hung up.
Mitchell Elliott is the big cheese behind the business, with the fast cars and the charming telephone manner. He's a slippery character to find and meet, but we decided to give it one last go and Matt headed to Mitchell's home address to pay him a visit in person.
Unsurprisingly no-one answered the door and Matt was only able to speak to Mitchell's receptionist and wife, 'Danielle' on the phone. Matt was told that Mitchell was away until the end of October. Even his wife claimed to have no idea where he was, despite the fact that she had passed the phone to him just hours earlier when Matt had phoned and received the verbal abuse.
Mitchell's absence was unfortunate, but it gave Matt the chance to admire one of Mitchell's expensive sports cars sat on the driveway, presumably funded by customers, who have paid over the odds for unnecessary works.
Since filming, David Woodyatt has provided Rogue Traders with the following statement
"I apologise to any third party who I may have encountered and unrightfully supplied unnecessary equipment to. We were encouraged on many occasions to make the most out of every job even if something wasn't necessary. I was never made aware of any complaints that were made; the office never forwarded information, and so was never able to assist with any problems people have incurred after the installation.
"I have since left the company as was unhappy with the way it was run but this does not excuse what happened at certain jobs and I apologise sincerely and honestly."
Are you worried about digital switchover? Remember if you have any new stories you want to investigate please send us your story as we can not publish any new allegations. You can also find out more about digital switchover and what you need to do to receive a digital signal.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~48~RS~)
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Hi All
My PVR digibox stopped working when I set off a scan in April this year - I had given up on it and plugged it in upstairs.
when the re-tune took place last week - it's now fixed!!!
Great!
only my very first freeview ITV DIGITAL box has stopped working
anyway it had no program guide with the new freeview..
so re-tune worked for me - Oh yes and I am in the Border region ie we are all 'old-hat'
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Rogue Trader Alert!
"Aerial Problems Solved" van spotted in Gosport at about 2.20p.m. this afternoon!
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as an aerial engineer i am quite anoyed at the wrong information you have given on watchdog tonight. you said 90 - 95% wont need to change there aerial. this is wrong. i work mainly in hertfordshire, so we're inbetween two transmitter, sandy heath and crystal palace. analoge on both of these is on the lower part of the band so a group A aerial is normaly used. the problem is sandy heath transmites its digital signals on the middle and upper band so a wide band aerial is required. so at least 50% of the people in my area need a new aerial! you cant generalise about aerial installations as every job is different.
also the comment if you get a good analoge then digital will be fine is wrong. for a start everyones idea of a good analoge signal is different! if there aerial or cabling is very old it may need replacing.
regards
clint
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since retune all my freeview tv's & boxes show poor quality pictures. two of my recievers are less than a year old & one tv is only a month old..
now most bbc channels are unwatchable when i had a good signal before retune.
my girlfriend has a 6 month old tv & now she can't recieve any chanels!
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Matt's explanation of the digital aerial needed to watch digital channels was a bit patronising on tonights episode of Watchdog. He said that 95% of aerials will be ok, but failed to say what the other 5% would need to do to enable them to receive digital after the switchover. He then went on to refer viewers to the BBC Website.
The people most likely to fail to understand the requirements for the switchover are the same as those most unlikely to have internet access and probably fall into the 5% he speaks of. Those without digital boxes of some kind already in the house are unlikely to have, or even want, internet access and it is these people that Watchdog or Rogue traders should clearly explain the situation to.
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I have three freeview boxes in my home and have lost all ITV channels on all of the boxes since the re-tune. I have booked in to have my aerial upgraded next week at a cost of £ 110.00 but have no idea whether this will work or not.
It seems the re tune has been a complete fiasco and the push to get channel 5 into more homes has not been worth the loss of channels to a huge amount of people whose service worked perfectly well prior. "If it aint broke dont fix it!"
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Having worked as a field engineer for Ofcom and before that the RA and DTI dealing with TV interference problems I know that this isn't a new problem but the digital switch over is just giving the cowboys a new excuse. I also agree that the 90 to 95% will be ok statement is misleading and may be harmful to legitimate installers I had to change my own aerial to get a decent digital signal and I know what I'm doing! Perhaps Watchdog should also investigate the recent digital retune that has left loads of people with dead boxes or missing channels! They wouldn't have got that with analogue TV. Digital is not the holy grail that is being promoted, there are many technical issues with it that analogue didn't have, one simple example is wideband noise from poorly suppressed scooter engines passing my house can completely freeze my digibox yet would have been a brief annoyance with analogue broadcasts.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
We have a sony tv model no kd-32dx40u and have had problems after the national re-tune, we have no digital channels and can only watch analogue channels 1 – 4. we have tried ringing sony on 08705 111999 the automated services tells you to ring the national retune no 084560001246, who in-turn tell you to ring sony, you just end up going around in circles! The advice given on the recorded message does not help either as it tells you to go to channel 80 on your digital tv to start the re-tune again, but if you have no digital channels how can you go to channel 80! Watchdog please help..
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Freeview dongles for computers are also suffering. Half of my channels have disappeared, and many of the ones that currently show up in the list of availables, don't actually work. Anyone else encountered these problems? I use a WinTV setup.
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@ hey_whats_up. Please get your set-up checked out before you pay £110 for an upgrade. If you were receiving digital channels before you re-tuned your freeview boxes then you should not need a new aerial now.
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Since the re-tune my 2 year old Sony digital/analogue TV does not retain the channels. It will have 80 channels available at night but when I turn it on again in the morning it has only 5 channels. Then in the afternoon 19 channels may be available. I feel angry because the TV has worked fine for the past 2 years but is now useless. What should I do? Buy a new TV? Get a new aerial? Either way it is going to cost a lot.(We were told that this retune was going to improve our reception. What a joke.) Any advice would be appreciated.
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In the USA they did the digital switchover all on the same day so why have it spread out over four/five years ?.
I was not affected myself but I did help friends/relatives who did get caught out.
If your box is shown some Channels in the 800 range after the recent retune here is a tip.
Unplug aerial from Unit and do a rescan and when complete plug the aerial back in and do another rescan. { or even better a factory reset }
Trust me in most cases it will help.
There is a few people in between two transmitters and in that case only a manual tune will work.
Go to the ' Digital UK ' site put in your post code and then tick the 'I am in the aerial installation trade ' before clicking Go .
This will tell you where your aerial should be pointing and lots of useful information.
You will find lots of information on the ' Digital Spy ' Forum site.
You will see there is lots of people who had recent problems but with a bit of time they found solutions so rather than buying a new aerial check there first.
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After retuning I lost twenty channels and am now forced to buy a new STB! This is a farce, and the sooner the spokeswoman for Freeview takes her head out of the sand and admits how big this problem is - the better. We've been treated like idiots -partronised that we obvious don't understand how to retune a STB(!) and are now facing subsidising the expansion plans -double the insult. Very annoyed indeed.
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i retuned my sony bravia tv and now only get bbc1 ,bbc2,cbbc, news
need more channels please help.
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I retuned my sony bravia tv now only get bbc1,bbc2,ccbs,news please help.
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Before the retune on the 30th we had a full signal with every channel working fine. Since then we have lost around 6 channels, one of which being channel 5 which i thought this was all aimed at.
Very Frustrating!!
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I have a Sagem PVR6280TUK Digital Recorder and have lost ITV1 Ch 4 and Ch5 (and probably some others) since the retune. It was bought from Asda in December 2007 so this is not one of the older boxes referred to by the Freeview spokesperson.
I have spoken to Sagem and got the impression that the problem with this model is well known to them. Nevertheless they did not offer out any hope of a fix. Nor did they seem particularly interested. I also spoke to Asda and took a long time convincing them that it was not a fault with the aerial system or the transmitters since we have other boxes in the house which are o.k. In any case their attitude is that it is outside guarantee.
I hope Watchdog will keep up pressure on Freeview and the manufacturers.
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Having retuned our freeview box on 30 September, we have had to retune each time we have turned the television and freeview box on since then, when freeview is turned off, some channels become 'lost' most notably BBC2. Having seen information before the retune and this specifying that there would be no problems, I would like to dispute that. I have never had problems with my set top box and find it entirely unsatisfactory that a retune which is supposed to help, has in effect hindered. I do not expect a product in this day and age, which I have to retune each time I turn it on.
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well my Freeviwe box is only 4 months old and it is a freeviwe plss and since the 30 Sep it is not working like it was before. i have lost ITV channles.
this update was ment to make it better it has not i am back on analogue TV just 1 2 3 4 channels now.
has digital is NOT watchable
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I am really annoyed too!! I had to give up virgin media because i couldnt afford it and made do with the freeview channels which are built into my Toshiba Tv, and since this flaming re-tune the picture on alot of the channels which I actually like to watch just break up and is now unwatchable!!
Freeview put this right!!
We paid the extra when we bought the tv's with Freeview built in, people have paid for set Freeview top boxes, this is not right!! Just what have you done!!????
I want my television back how it was before 'PERFECT'!!
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Who can we write to in order to complain about the fact that we can no longer retain television channels after the re-tune? Is their an official complaints address? Thank you.
[Note from Watchdog: Hi there - if you want to complain you could try this web page and phone number:
Contact us
Call our helpline for more information on re-tuning
08456 05 11 22
http://www.tvretune.co.uk/
Hope that helps!
Best wishes, Farin
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BBC channels fine before re-tuning now worse and on occasions unwatchable. Digital reciever less that one month old.
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I have also lost channels since the retune. At first I thought it was one multiplex that was missing however after checking this I am still receiving one channel from the multiplex. I have lost BBC 1, 2, 3 and and News 24.
The TV keeps informing me that there are new channels however they are not picked up on a re-tune. [TV removed]. This is not an Ariel problem as my second tv receives all channels.
I also no of other new free-view boxes which have lost channels such as ITV4 and BBC 3.
This problem should have been identified before re-tune. It's not as if Freeview boxes are new technology.
I refuse to but another box now until switch over as I do not want this happening again.
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I have fitted a new wideband aerial, low loss co-ax cable and my 10 months old Sony LCD works fine EXCEPT sometimes when the picture gets blocky/broken up. This occurs when some vehicles/motorcycles pass my property which have little or no electrical suppression on them.
There was never any problem with my analogue signal but the digital is poor due to the break-up.
The retune went well, all channels sorted themselves out on my TV and my older Phillips Freeview box (on my video).
As has been said above, the type of aerial depends upon what the Analogue/Digital is being broadcast on. It does not depend on your postcode BUT WHAT TRANSMITTER YOU RECEIVE YOUR SIGNALS FROM. Note down the direction of you aerial and find out your transmitter BEFORE CONTACTING DIGITAL AND BE ADAMANT THAT YOU ARE RECEIVING FROM XXXX TRANSMITTER. I had an On-Digital box when I lived in Yeovil because Mendip transmitter broadcast the signal and that's where my aerial pointed. They were adamant that I could not receive digital because my postcode was in a non-digital area (Stotland-Honiton).
Also when I had a temporary job retuning for Channel 5, Stage 1 was retuning for the Litchfield transmitter (majority were receiving Waltham near Melton Mowbray). Stage 2 was for Waltham and some were on Litchfield. Guess what - the majority of the stage 1 videos were retuned to the same signal as the Waltham signal. So Joe Public NEEDS to know more information than anything these companies say and be adamant that they listen when they are right.
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Hi Everyone
As a member of the aerial & Satellite profession, I can confirm that there is more involved in the Digital Switch than will be widely explained to the public.
The Digital Switch and it's complexities will mean that the majority of Digital Terrestrial Receivers & Digital Terrestrial Televisions will work with existing Aerials once the Digital Switchover in each region begins.
There will, however, be some notable, exceptions to this rule.
As has been noted, some older " First Generation " Digital Televisions and set top boxes may fail!
In some regions, some main transmitters will move from one "Band" to another, after Digital Switchover! Most new aerial installs should be fine provided that the installer provides a " Wide-band " Aerial. This should guarantee the full compliment of Digital channels after Digital Switchover.
In some areas of the country, there are local transmitters. These transmitters are normally found where reception is poor, from the main transmitter, for example. In some cases, the "Band " on these local transmitters, sometimes called Relay Transmitters, may also be subject to change. In these cases, it is likely that a new aerial will be required, where the full compliment of Digital channels can not be received.
It is also worth mentioning that local Relay Transmitters will only carry the " Public Service Broadcasters ". For example :- BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel FIVE. This is due to the local Relay Transmitters only being allowed to transmit on a small part of the "Band", in order that no interference is caused to other local Relay Transmitters and also to avoid interference from the main transmitter.
I hope that this information is of use and that it explains, particularly to the general public, that, in some cases, aerial replacement is necessary, but that this will only become an issue once the region concerned becomes fully Digital.
In the meantime, I would always give the following advice. If you are having your aerial replaced, as a result of wind damage or just plain old age, please make sure that the new aerial that is installed for you is a " Wide-band " aerial. This should allow you to receive the full compliment of Digital channels available to you at the time of Switchover.
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Hi, Our newest top set box/hard-drive recorder [brand removed] can not be retuned to pick up BBC1 BBC2 BBC3 BBC news24, After several tries I have managed to get BBC4 and CeeBees and BBC Parliament. All other stations as before the retune I have managed to retune successfully along with the new Quest. I have 2 older boxes including the first one we bought when Freeview first started up. A 'On-Digital' box. No bother they retuned all the stations including the BBC's,1,2&3without hiccough but as for [our current box] which was OK before the request to do this retune has let us down badly. The BBC's are the channels I most want to watch and record.
I have little faith in the digital service and as when it becomes the only alternative for us in 2011. The interference with the reception during IE full moon and/or high pressure weather can result in picture fragmentation in to small boxes and extremely loud clicks on the audio. our dear old analogue only gives ghosting and slight loss of picture quality which is easier to live with.
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I am so annoyed as on the 30th September we were to retune our digital boxes to receive channel 5 better and so that we didn’t lose other channels. I did retune my box and have been retuning it ever since as I can still get the channels but they are now jumpy and largely unwatchable!!!!! I can get BBC channels clearly but that’s it, all other channels now are cutting out which for me is so annoying as I work on shifts and record a large amount of the programs I want to see and now can’t rely on the fact I’ll have a signal. Please can someone help with this!!!
Martina Near Rochester
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Since the last retune of our Freeview box we have lost nearly all the channels and the picture reception is very very poor, often just a blank screen. This service is not good enough!
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as a rdi installer working within a small family firm with over forty years trading in the same town and location, we see many new firms come and go just taking the customers money and leaving them with poor quality work may i say digital uk seem to be doing a very good job dealing with the digital switch over ..but we are receiving many phone calls with regards to the digital switch help scheme mainly poor levels of service being given by the company that was given the contract to install the equipment for the old aged pensioners
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We also have a new set top box (purchased at the beginning of this year), but we have to retune every time we switch it on. I have tried turning off the TV and leaving the digibox on but it makes no difference. It worked fine before the retune but now has to be re-tuned daily to be able to watch anything. The picture quality has also gone downhill. We are getting very frustrated with it. We are not the only ones. My father who lives in Torquay also loses all of the BBC channels every time he switches on and his TV is the latest model and brand new!! He is unable to re-tune it by himself (being 77) so I have to go round every couple of days to do it for him. When is this problem going to be sorted out? Perhaps we should take our business to another provider or would we still have the same problems?
This shouldn't be causing this many problems. Also, will we have to re-tune again every time another area switches over? Someone please help and get us some answers.
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Good show! Mr Elliott is clearly suffering anxiety since his exposure on Rogue Traders. He should be brought to account and repay those he has fiddled - why do these people seemingly get away with it? He must be worried as steps have been taken to shield his fancy cars from the eyes of passers by the erection of closed in high gates !!
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i am an rdi registerd aerial installer i have worked on small caravans all the way to large buildings , flats and pubs .. i believe the aerial shown in your problem was not correct to be described as a wide band it is clearly a banded aerial and with the digital switchover they reorganize the transponders so the banded aerial may fail on lower frequency digital muxes after the changeover , this is all very technical but im just pointing out that the descriptions by your expert are wrong . Another thing is im sure many engineers will agree that 'Y' splitter depicted are very cheap and can induce noise causing freezing on digital viewing .. 1 last thing i am most annoyed that at the 90 - 95% quote every job is different working in devon on the switchover areas known as Fringe areas often need to have new aerials or re. aligned aerials as digital signal is alot harder to get a clean signal .. i have also used the aerial that the "rogue traders" use the size or amount of elements on the aerial does not show its quality it is well known a smaller aerial with good signal will perform far better than large aerial with too much signal ... i am not condoning the customer service of the engineers shown ...its shocking
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I have one TV with Freeview, one Freeview set top box and one PVR with twin Freeview tuners. The TV and set top box were retuned successfully but I have lost ITV3 and ITV4 on the PVR. I have tried re-tuning it six or seven times but still end up with the same result.
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I have a 3year old Sagem digital recorder. In March this year an update caused it to lose BBC4, BBC Parliament and BBC Radio. In October I lost Film4 and Dave. Retuning doesn't help, and Sagem said they no longer support this model with program update broadcasts. It seems that current technology goes out of date faster and faster. Soon it will be difficult to to get the product home before it's obsolete! So this is progress!
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Hi as an rdi registered installer and a cai plus member i would just like to comment that the area i operate in which is herefordshire that most of the old aerials in place around the county are just not suitable to recieve digital signals and do need to be changed for a wideband aerial to improve the signals.What you do find is that when there is the need to replace these aerials that the brackets the old aerials are on are just not suitable for the sometimes heavier wideband aerials so more equipment is needed which can increase the cost so it is almost impossible to estimate the cost over the phone which every customer seems to want. Every job is different no two are the same.And as for the Y splitter that was in the loft shown on your show i would advise replacing these everytime i see one as all aerial installers know the signal can be reduced quite significantly when these are in place. Since your show was shown customers are now thinking that they dont need to have their aerials replaced and that i am just there to con them and make a quick buck due to your inaccurate information next time a bit more research should be taken, maybe less time showing off on a bike and playing dress up and more time looking into the facts.
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I have been reading some of the posts left on this forum and I am quite shocked to see that everyone seems to be blaming Digital UK for these issues so I thought I would put my bit in!
On 30 September, Freeview reorganised the order in which channels appear on your electronic programme guide, so some of the numbers will have changed.
A limited number of early Freeview TVs and boxes may re-order channels when re-tuned, a list of known affected models affected is available on the Re-Tune website.
Who is responsible for these changes?
The technical operation and communications plan to inform Freeview viewers was jointly agreed by Freeview, the UK’s public service broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five) and Digital UK.
WERE YOU ALL AWARE OF THIS LITTLE FACT?
Digital TV also uses less broadcast space which means that after switchover, there will be more room for new services such as wireless broadband, local TV and High Definition Television (HDTV).
To keep your TV service, you will need to convert your TVs to digital before your area’s switchover date.
Download more information about the digital TV switchover. here
For the majority of the affected Boxes/TV's, the Manufacturers are working on an over air download, these downloads are usually sent out during the night and this is the reason why, if you check your user guide, Freeview recommends that all set top boxes or IDTV's (Television sets with Freeview integrated in them), should be turned off only by the remote control, not at the wall or at the power switch of the Digital television.
The reason for this is to enable every box to pick up any download/update automatically, therefore cutting out a lot (not all) of the issues people are blaming Digital UK and The Re-Tune helpline for! Freeview also say It is good practice to re-tune from time to time to pick up new channels. Satellite, cable and analogue TV services will not be affected.
As for the boxes affected by the Re-Tune event (which is separate to the National Changeover by the way) because the Manufacturer no longer exists, well, that's just bad luck! These boxes would not have worked forever, regardless of the Re-Tune event and this is the case with most products you can buy for any purpose, nothing lasts forever.
In regards to the new Set Top Boxes and TV's, well the manufacturers were well aware of the upcoming Re-Tune, but I don't think they realised the difference it would make to the way they actually Manufacture their products, but they just seem to be in denial and try to get you back to Re-Tune helpline.
to me, it look pretty clear who is having issues with the Re-Tune, yip, the Manufacturers are the ones who do not seem to be getting mentioned at all yet they try to bounce the blame back to the Re-Tune Helpline, it is the Manufacturers who are ultimately responsible for the way your Set Top Box or IDTV unscrambles the signal it is receiving from the transmitters. Not just older types but every product, including the newer ones. Sony, being the main culprit by turning their telephone lines off altogether and giving you a pre-recorded message to contact the Re-Tune Helpline!
Which is not very fair as the Re-Tue helpline can only guide you through it by using the instructions which the manufacturers have provided them with!
As for the following comment I saw on this forum, I could not believe what I was seeing, the following was actually posted by watchdog -
Note from Watchdog: Hi there - if you want to complain you could try this web page and phone number:
Contact us
Call our helpline for more information on re-tuning
08456 05 11 22
http://www.tvretune.co.uk/
why would anyone want to complain to the Re-Tune helpline? Bearing in mind the most important part of the name – HELPLINE.
By all means call the helpline if you are having trouble re-tuning and they will do their best, Using only information provided by the Manufacturers and Freeview they will try their best to get your box or TV Re-Tuned IF they have the correct information available to them, they are a Helpline and they get the advice from exactly the same website, tvretune.co.uk, by accessing each of the individual Manufacturers guides, so if any of the issues are being redirected to the Manufacturers, it is because the re-tune helpline do not have the relevant information available to them in the first place!
This is the same with Digital UK, the majority of the operators trying to help are only accessing a website that is freely available to the public at www.digitaluk.co.uk
So for Watchdog to suggest that you complain through The Re-Tune helpline is very misleading. And a bit of a contradiction!
Digital UK is the independent, Not-For-Profit organisation leading the process of digital TV switchover in the UK.
They provide impartial information on what people need to do to prepare for the switch to digital, and when they need to do it. The company was set up by public broadcasters at the request of the Government.
Who are the Public Broadcasters you ask?
Well, they are generally BBC, ITV, CHANEL 4, CHANNEL 5 and TELETEXT
Digital UK works closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), as well as the regulator Ofcom, to prepare the UK for the biggest change in broadcasting since the introduction of colour.
One last point I need to make, the Help-scheme which provides people who qualify, with an Ariel and a Set Top Box
The Help Scheme is run by the BBC under an agreement with Government
The Help Scheme is managed by eaga plc. on behalf of the BBC
– surprise surprise, they don't mention that on BBC's Watchdog Programme that I have noticed anyway, however this information is all in the websites above, available to every single member of the public, why has nobody noticed this?
Because you all just look for the easiest target and blame them, without even bothering to try and find anything out about them and the services they DO provide, everyone seems to be concentrate on blaming Digital UK and the Re-Tune Helpline and totally overlooking the fact that both of these sites have been set up to help people through both Re-Tuning AND The Digital changeover.
So please, everyone, stop blaming the people who are stepping up to help and concentrate on finding the correct people to vent you anger at and force them to sort it!
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I thought fellow bloggers would be interested with the following development.
When I retuned my digital box I was a bit put out because I could no longer get Channel 5, a real pain as it was one I watched regularly.Then for no apparent reason two weeks later it suddenly reappeared!!! Great I thought, I was also pleased to find that I also had other channels that I never had before.
I finished watching tv this Tuesday evening, everything was perfectly ok.On turning on my tv Wednesday I found that I have no signal at all so I am unable to watch anything!!!!I rang my local tv man and he informed me that he is being inundated with calls from people with exactly the same problem. He advised that it has to be down to the powers that be mucking about with the signal! I find this so frustrating as there is no way of ringing them to find out what on earth is going on.
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