George wrote:

Hi-gain,outdoor in the region of £20/25

Yes I know a normal analogue aerial on a freeview box will work when the
switchover applies but the sister doesn't want a FV box hooked up to the TV.

If she does not want a box, then she needs a new TV. The aerial
(regardless of type) will not magically add digital reception to an
analogue TV.

Before you go changing aerials, find out what group[1] aerial you will
need, now and after switchover:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tech/...ils/81plan.pdf

If post switchover uses the same grouping as your current setup, you
will be better staying with your current aerial or one similar to it
rather than going for a "digital"[2]


[1] Aerials were traditionally "grouped" - i.e. that meant they were
tuned to work best in a subset of the full range of frequencies used for
TV transmission. This gets round the difficulty of making a wideband
aerial that attempts to serve the whole range. Group A being the lowest
set of frequencies, B the next, up to Group C/D serving the highest. The
other letters you see represent wider groups, and the widest is the
group K "wideband" that (in theory) works across the full spread of
frequencies. Needless to say, the wider the group, the less optimum the
performance in general.


[2] The ad men seem to have hit upon this meaningless term to mean a
"wideband" aerial. These may be required in some places where the
channel allocations place the different channel groups in non adjacent
areas of the spectrum.




--
Cheers,

John.

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