What causes bad TV reception and ideas on how to fix it
Antenna Quotes
from local antenna technicians
One of the most irritating things is bad reception on your TV. There are a variety of things that can cause this, and we’ve listed four of the most common problems and solutions below:
1. Remote locations
Or rather, how far you are from the transmitting tower of your local TV station. The further away your nearest transmission tower, the worse quality reception you will have. If you live within 50 km of the nearest tower then your reception should be pretty good. If you’re definitely within a 50km radius and the reception is still poor, then there will be other factors affecting your TV antenna. Generally speaking, the closer you are to a tower the better your TV reception should be.
2. “Line of Sight”
You also need to take into account what’s between your antenna and the transmission tower. If you live in a flat sparsely populated area then you’re going to have a pretty clear line of sight between your house and the transmission tower. If there are tall buildings or big mountains around you, then the line of sight is going to be impaired and thus the quality of your TV reception will be too.
Areas like these are known as reception black spots.
3. Condition and age of your antenna.
The average householder in Australia only services or upgrades their antenna every 12 years, with 600,000 being sold annually. The average age for antennae in Australia is around 5 years old.
Lots can happen in those 12 years, the antenna can deteriorate as can the cabling, the local environment can change, new structures can be built in the line of sight and there are ongoing changes happening to the networks – such as the current move towards digital TV.
Perhaps a new antenna will solve your problems!
4. Changes to the set up you use for your TV.
This is a really common cause of bad reception, especially if it’s suddenly become worse recently. So have a look at the following points and see if any apply to you:
- Have you added extra TV points around the house or are you running televisions off the single antenna?
- Have you increased the physical distance between your TV reception point and your antenna?
- Have you (intentionally or not, maybe the weather?) altered the physical location of your external TV antenna?
- Have you had any work on your roof done which could knock the antenna out of place?
- Have you bought a new TV or upgraded to digital?
Any of these actions could seriously impact on the quality of your TV reception. As well as the above points it could be something as simple as one of the ideas below!
- How new is your TV? Technology has come a long way recently and it may just be that you need to buy a new one.
- Could the problem actually be the TV Network Transmission? There has been lots of testing done recently, what with the upcoming switch to digital and it could be that this is what's affecting you. You can find out if this is the problems by contacting FACTS (Federation of Commercial Television Stations) an facts@facts.org.au.
- Could there be local interference? Bad reception can be caused by the local use of electronic devices and machinery.
If you are still experiencing reception problems after checking all of these then get an inspection and antenna system check from a trained technician. They’ll be best placed to help you sort it out, so get quotes today by posting a job here.
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After the down pour last Friday in Melbourne my Philips LCD TV shows the channels - ten, eleven, one hd, nine, go and gem pixilated. All other cannels work fine. before the down pour so did the above channels.
over a year ago by Kathy
Does anyone have any idea what went wrong? -
Good Tips!
over a year ago by d
Antenna Quotes
from local antenna technicians
