Freeview aerial question

MuttleyCAFC

As this site is the font of much wisdom, I was wondering if anybody can point me in the right direction. We have Virgin TV but freeview in the bedroom that is run via a HD hard drive box. This is useful as my wife likes soaps and those American tv movies on Channel five that drive me potty. 

Anyway, she watched her film yesterday and directly afterwards the signal went. I tested the signal strength via the box and it was zero. So I assumed a transmitter outage, but looking online, it seems all the transmitters were working fine. I have looked carefully at the aerial and it looks fine. Still no joy this morning, so I thought the best way to test the aerial would be to buy an indoor aerial. I know it is unlikely to run freeview very well, but I reasoned it should have some channels and a weak signal at least would tell me the issue is with my main aerial. I bought one (a powered Blaupunkt) but It hasn't got any signal like the main aerial either. 

I have also tried both aerials direct to the tv bypassing the box but no joy. I quite like the challenge of fixing it, it is something to do, but it is baffling me. If the aerial was faulty, the indoor aerial should surely be registering something. But if there is a transmitter failure why can't I see anybody locally complaining about it on the local facebook page? Any advice gratefully received.

I can rig up my laptop so my wife can watch the soaps/films but it stops me doing a bit of work etc... also, I don't want to do anything major if it may be a transmitter fault.

danny777

Ask your neighbours if they've got the problem. You can still phone them you know.

MuttleyCAFC

My immediate neighbours don't have freeview - sorry, I tried that. I should have said.

swords_alive

I lost bbc1 briefly last night. Assumed it was a transmitter fault.

MuttleyCAFC

We went from having a good signal to no signal. 

MuttleyCAFC

I'm going to wait a few days and see if it comes back, before I start embarking on any drastic solutions.

letthegoodtimesroll

Our kitchen tv (and one of the bedroom ones) is connected to the aerial in the loft and so is picking up freeview channels and the picture was working ok last night and since this morning.

aliwibble

Muttley have you tried powering down the HDD box for 10 or 15 minutes, and then doing a rescan while still connected to the main aerial?

Raith_C_Chattonell

Forgive me if this is daft, but you say you've tried swapping the aerial and bypassing the box.  The one thing you haven't swapped out is the telly itself -just wondering if the aerial input socket has come lose or broken. 

Spitfire76

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

Forgive me if this is daft, but you say you've tried swapping the aerial and bypassing the box.  The one thing you haven't swapped out is the telly itself -just wondering if the aerial input socket has come lose or broken. 

I’ve had this on a tv b4 , it done my head in I was convinced the tv was ok as my vhs ( was 1993!) was working on it fine , I ended up on the roof a week later thinking the wire must b disconnected up there but no so a few days later my mate brought his tv round & bobs ur uncle worked straight away , took my tv the TV repair shop (remember them!) & the areal socket wire had become disconnected inside the TV , no idea how it happened not dropped or banged just happened, I felt a right plonker not checking with another tv 1st but we only had the 1 in the house.

MuttleyCAFC

I have managed to get it working with the new indoor aerial, so it must be my external aerial. Strange as it was working fine and is pretty new. Mind you, it could be the channels have come back. I sent the wife up to watch her film before I could re-test as I recorded Michael Palin in North Korea and wanted to watch that, but I can play about with it later. I know the transmitter is transmitting at least! Thanks for your help and contributions.