On Feb 13, 10:05*am, "Doctor D" wrote:

I was in Surbiton over the weekend at the in-laws. At a birthday get
together I got chatting to their elderly neighbour who several months ago
had a shiny new Triax Unix 52A on a 10' mast fitted to his chimney. The mast
has a Fringe box which I has assumed was a splitter or filter as signal
strength is high there, being barely 10 miles from Crystal Palace.

My in-laws are still using an Aerialite 10A on their chimney with the
original 40 year old co-ax. Sometimes there's an odd blip but 99% of the
time DTTV reception is rock solid.

Ghosting is an issue here on analogue, and the neighbour had an Aerialite
Supreme group A directed at CP and a large Wolsey B (the one with the bow
tie shaped elements) directed at Guildford. When those were removed, the
neighbour told the rigger that the chimney they were on had offered much
better reception in the past, and the chimney above the lounge had provided
poor reception. Mr Rigger (who was recommended by the local Panasonic
dealer) assured neighbour that he can get him perfect digital pictures for
his new Freeview Panasonic TV with the aerial on the lounge chimney. This
chimney
offers much easier access (although he had to remove the scrap from the
other one)
and a much shorter cable run to the TV.

Two hours later Mr Rigger is struggling with ghosty analogue, and severe
pixilation on DTTV. He blames it on traffic, as from this chimney the aerial
looks along the A3 (from almost the same height) straight at CP. Mr Rigger
still claims this is the best chimney to use, although as far as neighbour
could see no readings were taken anywhere else on the house. Mr Rigger then
fits a Fringe masthead amplifier and shows neighbour some solid DTTV. He
claims £550 (yes, five hundred and fifty pounds) from neighbour and scoots.

Neighbour then spends some time setting up his new TV and discovers dreadful
analogue with severe patterning and unwatchable DTTV on four muxes.
Amazingly, AFAIK
Mr Rigger has not been asked to return and neighbour is back to watching the
free channels
provided by his old cable (Telewest, now Virgin) socket.

Was the new aerial purely for DTV? Was the neighbour "vulnerable"?
Sounds to me like he knew his stuff and (1) didn't insist in haveing
the job done how he wanted it (2) hasn't followed up the problems with
the installer. I would say he's as much to blame and hasn't really
been "ripped off" as a result of the analogue switch off.

MBQ