Spanish TV Reception

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Alan-LaCala
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Spanish TV Reception

Postby Alan-LaCala » Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:38 pm

Mine is bad. Would it be improved with a digital TV?

Alan
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El Cid
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Postby El Cid » Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:03 pm

The is no such thing as a digital TV! If you mean a TV with a digital TDT tuner then that might help but you can achieve the same thing by buying a cheap TDT tuner for less than €50 and just plugging it in to your TV and connecting it to your normal aeriel.

If you have an acceptable but poor signal a TDT tuner will probably improve it. You might need a more suitable aeriel if your current one is an old one.

It's a question of try it and see.

Sid

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Postby Beachcomber » Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:28 pm

The thing to remember about TDT is that you either get a signal or you don't. With analogue if you have a bad signal it is very snowy whereas with TDT you get nothing.

pmb
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Postby pmb » Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:41 pm

Put your codigo postal into www.tdt.es and it should tell you if you can get it in your area.

Alan-LaCala
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Postby Alan-LaCala » Sat Oct 21, 2006 10:44 pm

We get a green light for reception in La Cala. Our villa however is quite near to the Gran Hotel and normal spanish Tv reception is terrible, although I believe the aeriel is old.

I wonder if digital will be better? Is it affected by nearby buildings?

Sid, grateful for the info, but any TV with a thingy inside which gives me digital tv, is a Digital TV. :roll:

We want to change to a LCD TV and will get one which is HD Ready; the only query is TDT or not.

Alan
Remember that everything that Fred Astaire did, Ginger Rogers did too; except she did it backwards and wearing high heels!

El Cid
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Postby El Cid » Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:10 pm

Alan-LaCala wrote: Sid, grateful for the info, but any TV with a thingy inside which gives me digital tv, is a Digital TV. Alan
Yes, that would qualify as a "Digital TV" but the TV is still analogue, only the tuner is "digital". Apart from the latest HD TVs they haven't changed for about 30 years.

Many people seem to think that they will have to change their TVs to get "Digital TV" - that is clearly not true. All they need to do is get a digital tuner or digital satellite receiver.

Sid

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Postby Beachcomber » Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:35 am

The post code facility gives a general indication of what should be available in an area but it does not take into account geographical black spots in the area of a given post code.

According to the post code checker I should be able to receive 27 channels but no-one in my area gets any at all and only very fuzzy analogue signals.

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peteroldracer
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Postby peteroldracer » Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:48 pm

One thing to check if you are getting poor reception of Spanish tv - how many miles of wiring are in the house?!
We followed recommendations of sparkies when they wired our (new) house, and they basically followed the architect's plans, putting aerial sockets in each bedroom and both sitting rooms, upstairs and down. Even with a new large high-gain aerial on the roof, pictures were bad until the penny dropped that all this wiring in the walls sucked up the signal! I installed a signal booster (around 15€) and got a massive improvement, although in our area we get our (analogue) transmissions from what looks like an old oil drum up a pole on a nearby hilltop!
If you think this may be the case with you, try and find where the cable comes in to the house, disconnect any other coax cables from junction boxes and splitters, and plus the direct feed into your tele - if good picture that way but bad before, try a booster.
Any forum member who is a technical tv person - please check me on this!
I am going to leave well alone with Spanish digital tv signal until I have to do something, as it took every bit of my little brain to wire up the satellite box, the video and/or dvd, the analogue tv wires and a home cinema set-up, so I can tape from any channel, so adding more wires would fuse my cerebral cortex!
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Nikvin
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Postby Nikvin » Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:43 pm

We tried one of those digital tuner thingies,,,,,,,,,, zilch, nada, rien, nothing...not even "snow". The postcode search said we shpould be able to receive quite a lot of channels, though not all, it was partially available. It certainlt wasnt a problem being in a valley dip or similar as we are up in the mountains, in a village witj a VERY extensive clear view etc..
Anyway, I found out last week that apparently the mast in a nearby village hasnt yet been upgraded! henece the zero reception possibilities, and goodnes only knows when they will upgrade. Luckily the gizmo box thingy didnt cost us anything as the local shop, let us have it on a slae or return type basis, and we saved him the hassle of getting on his roof to try and point his in the right direction.


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