In Lowestoft, we don't have cable, and are unlikely to unless Virgin can stump up a few (hundred) million pounds to lay the necessary conduits from Gorlestone / Yarmouth down the road to Lowestoft.
So for TV we're left with the option of Freeview on the fringes of the Tacolneston transmitter way out in Norfolk, or a satellite dish. Many houses in Lowestoft have a dish, but the Freeview reception is, for the most part, alright, when the seagulls don't disrupt it by flying onto the aerial! But a few friends of mine have suggested that I get a dish rather than an aerial for my room, and I don't know which one to go for!
Ideally I'd have both, and the tuner card for an HTPC to go with it, but that's for another day I guess. I'm leaning towards the dish, as there are lots of channels carried on it, and the signal's good in most weathers. The Freeview signal's unlikely to improve until the analogue switchoff in 2011 (at least that's what people say, I have no clue myself and am sceptical), so any aerial installed has ideally got to be a high-gain one to receive the weak-ish signal (50% strength, 90-something % quality at least according to my dad's Sagem PVR) from the transmitter.
Will the digital terrestrial signal strength improve when analogue's switched off? Can anybody in the area suggest which would be better to have at this stage?
I'm all for future-proofing, and that's what I'm trying to do, but splitting the signal from the current aerial's also only going to make things worse at the moment.