No signal

[fudge]

My mum gets freeview tv , and she had a new outside ariel put up about 6 months ago , Now when it rains she gets no signal appear on her screen and cannot get any channels appart from bbc1 and 2 . But as soon as it stops raining she gets a perfect signal and receives all her channels . Has anyone any idea as to why this is . Thanks.

[Chris]

Digital signals are not like analogue. With old fashioned analogue TV, as the reception gets worse there is a steady worsening of the picture on the screen. But with digital, you continue to get a good picture as the signal strength gets weaker and weaker, down to a certain point when it suddenly just drops off a cliff.

Has this been the case ever since the new aerial went up? If so, I would suggest the most likely answer is the aerial was never properly aligned with the transmitter. If it's a recent thing then the aerial may have come loose on its mounting. It might be poor cabling as well, but a badly positioned aerial is my chief suspect.

[Kymmy]

One other thing to suspect on the badly installed antenna front is was the antenna wiring properly sealed, water ingress can cause the exact problem with the problem curing itself once the rain stops..

[fudge]

As far as im aware , it started to happen about 2 months after it was put up . I was there yesterday and it was raining hard and the only channel she could get was bbc 1 and 2 , Later last night when it had stoped raining she phoned me to say all channels were now back.

When its not raining all channels are perfect

[Chris]

Either the aerial has worked itself loose enough that it's no longer pointing at the transmitter properly, or as Kymmy suggests, water may be getting into it. I still think it's more likely that the aerial has shifted, as water in the works wouldn't clear as soon as the rain stops. It would take time to dry out.

Of course, as we had a rather dry and bright May and June this year, it may be that it the aerial has been badly aligned all along and it has only become apparent with the deteriorating weather.

I think you need a man with a long ladder to go up and inspect it.

[fudge]

I will phone her now , and tell her to get in touch with the guy who put it up and hopefully he will come back to check it out.
Many thanks.

[fudge]

She had the guy come back out to check it over , He told her there was nothing wrong . He then looked at her free view box and said it was not tuned in properly.
Now i retuned it in myself only a couple of weeks ago. mum said he did not even turn her tv on but he said he had retuned it for her by touching something at back of box .
I dont know if he was just fobbing her of . But today i got her a new tv with the free view build in, so if it happens again then it must be the aireal and i will have to make sure im there when he calls back

[Chris]

What a pile of dooh dooh. The box can't be tuned in just a bit - it either is or it isn't. And the fact that it works at all proves that it is tuned, and always was.