Bit of a housekeeping post I'm afraid. Do bear with me.
I live in North London. I have a Freeview box that I've used with no problems at this address for several months. Suddenly, as of yesterday, I can only get the following channels: BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, Ceebeebies, BBC News 24, and BBCi. Rescanning for channels does not help. Switching off at the mains and switching back on again does not help. The manufacturer of my Freeview box seems to have disappeared, as e-mails bounce back and their help desk has a recorded message saying they are away "until January 2nd 2007". Help! Is anybody else in the same boat? Anyone got any advice? I need to get this sorted before this week's episode of ER!
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8 comments:
Could be lots of things. Could be
1) the aerial - maybe a bird's started nesting on it.
2) interference - any building work started nearby, new tall buildings, new electrical devices, etc?
3) the box itself - can you borrow one or buy one (you can get them for about £10 in Sainsbury's now)?
4) the cabling - have you moved any furniture recently that could have put a kink in the wire?
5) a booster box breaking - is there something in a storeroom cupboard the aerial connects to?
Basically, you're going to have to check all the various components to find out which one is the cause. Hope you find out what the problem is!
By the time you've done all that you might as well have spent a tenner on a new one. Or perhaps it's a BBC plot to take over the minds of North Londoners.
I share your pain - I'm on my third Freeview box in as many years, and I'm currently finding out (as episodes of 30 Rock turn into an onscreen flick-book with a soundtrack by Norman Collier) that spending the best part of a hundred quid on one in no way guarantees any kind of longevity to the hardware.
Tinkering as per Mediumrob's suggestions sounds eminently wise, but you might well find that buying a new one might be the way to go. Pah. Pah, I say!
J
The thing is, the channels that I do get have perfect reception, so it does make me wonder if there is a problem at the transmission end - that they have moved a transmitter or something, so I can only get some of the channels now? In any case, 2, 4 and 5 are all OK as far as I know, I will investigate 1 and 3. I don't want to get a £10 cheapy as I use my PVR for pausing and recording too. Of course, I put my dodgy old Freeview box in the recycling last week... I might have known...
You can spend all the money you like on new boxes, but if it turns out to be the aerial, the aerial socket, the cables, the signal booster, some bloke with a ham radio next door or a great big new building, you'll still be condemned to a life of CBeebies and BBC1 only and you'll be £10-£200 further out of pocket. The box is just one link in the overall chain.
When I first got my Sky box, the installer spent about half an hour testing the socket, the cable, the box et al, before declaring there was something wrong with the aerial connection. Maintenance guy came round had a look in the cupboard in the hall and pointed to the four dangling cables: "You're supposed to have a signal booster box here." One signal booster box stolen from the development next door later and everything was fine. No problems with the Sky box at all and it's lasted over three years so far (touch wood).
As for the £10 cheapy, don't think of it as a replacement - think of it as a test box. If it doesn't work, you'll know there's a problem somewhere else in the chain and you'll have saved yourself the big wadge of cash you'd have spent buying a proper HDD replacement for your current box. If it does work, you'll have a box you can either keep spare, use in another room or generously give away to someone else. It's £10 - that's a round of drinks at most.
I had a very similar problem with my Freeview box, when it would drop one or more of the muxes and I'd lose, say, everything broadcast by Channel 4 on its various channels. Rescanning didn't work, but unplugging it and leaving it long enough for it to lose its memory usually worked.
I'm probably been obtuse, but when you say re-scanning, was it the 'restore factory settings' option? That's the only thing that worked on ours :)
Tried rescanning, tried restoring factory settings, tried unplugging for long periods of time, no joy. Rob's advice re a test box is probably on the money, but as I have no even remotely local purveyor of cheapskate Freeview boxes, I have called the aerial guy instead to see if he can sort it out. *Then* next stop is cheap new box, then pricy box. In the meantime, I am doing the Doctor Who puzzle I got for Christmas. So far, I have done all of the outside edge.
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