HORSTED KEYNES DIGITAL TV SWITCHOVER IS COMING
IT ALL STARTS AT THE END OF FEBRUARY 2012 !

The good thing about the digital TV switchover is that most villagers will need to do nothing or very little when it comes. For a start if you have Sky TV or Freesat in your home and do not have others sets with an aerial in the kitchen, bedrooms etc. then you can count yourself lucky and stop reading here. You need do nothing at all!

If you have a digital TV that is connected to an outside aerial even if you already have Freeview then you will need to do a little retuning and you may need to repeat this several times this year. If you don't then you will find some channels missing and you will not receive the new channels that are coming. That is all that will happen, nothing will blow up, you will just not have all the channels that you could.

One problem that you will have to deal with is if you still use an old fashioned video tape recorder. You will continue to be able to play back your existing recordings but after the switchover date you will no longer be able to make any recordings on your video. There will be a few people who have bought a digital adapter for their video recorder, these will continue to work and will just need retuning when you retune your TV. If you do have an old fashioned video then it will be easiest to buy a new hard disk recorder, they are not particularly expensive and are extremely easy to use. Buy one and you will continue to be able to view one digital channel while playing back or recording any other. Many of them will also work as a digital adapter for an old analogue TV.

It is doubtful that anyone in our area will need a new aerial as long as their existing aerial works. Even then it would be wise to leave it for now and wait to see what happens as the signals are being dramtically boosted at switchover and most if not all aerials will work fine. Do not get a new aerial now "just in case" - it's almost certainly not necessary.

Your webmaster has many years electronics experience and although I am too old and decrepit now to climb on ladders I will be happy to offer help if you get stuck. Phone number at the end of this section.

It is doubtful, but if anyone in the village has a very old set and can at present only watch BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel4 then it will be necessary to buy a set top box which will convert your old TV to digital. This will also get you lots of new channels - completely free! Even black and white sets can be convirted. You do not need a wide screen TV either. Sets that are 40 years old will still work. OK? Set top boxes are cheap (£15 in Sainsbury's when I last looked) so it's not the end of the world. Again your old aerial will probably work fine too, a new one is NOT necessary at this stage and probably not necessary at all.

When do I need to retune?

This is where the answer gets just a little complicated and this is where some local knowledge will come in helpful. As stated elsewhere on this site we in Horsted Keynes get our TV signals from different directions depending on which part of the village we live in. One web site suggests that if you get one sort of local TV news that will tell you automatically which way your aerial is pointing. Oh no it won't!!! We know of at least two villagers who watch the "wrong" local news because they prefer it! The only certain way to know is to look at the aerial on your roof and see which way it is pointing. Here is a diagram to show you which end of your aerial is which.

If your aerial is pointing roughly south west then you will be the first to go digital as you are on the Midhurst transmitter. If pointing roughly eastwards then you are on Heathfield and can wait until the early spring. Finally if pointing in a sort of northerly direction (i.e. towards London) then guess what, you are on the London Crystal Palace transmitter and your switch over comes in April. Actually few people use Crystal Palace as their main transmitter around here. A few outlying farms are the main exceptions.

There is a "useful" tool which shows which transmitter you use on the official website Digital UK . I put useful in inverted commas as it is not too accurate. It seems to assume that almost everyone in the village gets their TV from Heathfield and I can tell you this just is not so - it's all a bit of a muddle around here! So it really is better to look on your roof and see which way your aerial points.

As a rough guide though you can assume that if you live on the western edge of the village then you may find yourself on Midhurst. Some outlying areas towards the station and beyond are on Crystal Palace and the rest of the village mostly uses Heathfield. There are though aerials pointing at Crystal Palace on the village green, and aerials pointing at Midhurst in Bonfire Lane! So please look!

What do you actually need to do to retune? If you have a digital TV or a digibox then you simply need to perform a retune on the above dates. This should bring in the new channels. The third retune will be because they are changing the way that some of the channels transmit. If you don't do this then as mentioned earlier you will find some channels missing or breaking up all the time.

We think that most people will have few problems with the switch over as it has been well publicised. It may be old sets or TVs that are in the spare room and used infrequently that cause the trouble. "Aunty Ethel is visiting tomorrow and the TV in the spare room does not work" will be a common cry.

If you need help then please give us a ring on 791624 but do also take a look on the Digital UK web site as you will find some simple instructions there and more important you will find copies of the instructions for almost every set and box sold in the UK.

Finally, a short warning. If you do need a new or improved aerial then do please be slightly cautious. There are aerial firms that serve our area that have been featured on Watchdog and not because they offer an efficient or cheap service! Please ask your neighbours before picking up the phone. Some companies even have a local telephone number but are in fact based many, many miles away in London, Hampshire and even Cambridge. Guess who pays their extra travelling expenses? It's not them! Again we may be able to help or recommend a reliable contractor if you give us a ring, but good aerial firms will be very busy - it's a one off nice little earner for even the best of them.

Questions (and hopefully some answers!)

We are happy to answer any questions that you may have and pass on the answers here. Do please ask if you want to know anything not already covered.

Will I still need my aerial amplifier?
We had a special amplifier fitted on the roof to help with continental interference. There is also a special power box behind the TV, will we still need these after switch over?
Answer: This is one of those questions that can only really be answered "maybe". It rather depends on why the amplifier was fitted in the first place but what you must not do is remove the power unit behind your TV without also removing the amplifier itself on the roof. If you were to do this would would lose ALL your signals both analogue and digital. A nonpowered amplifier will block everything! We suspect that as you live in the village the aerial installer decided to put you on a weaker transmitter (almost certainly Heathfield) to avoid having to point your aerial at Midhurst and beyond that the coast. In this case yes, you will need to keep the amplifier or you may have problems getting all your channels. If and when you have an aerial man on the roof then be all means ask them to check if the amplifier is still needed. For now we suggest that you keep it. If after the second retune you find that you are not able to view all the channels then you are going to be one of the few who will need an immediate new aerial.