Tim Jenks – is Senior Executive at the Confederation of Aerial Industries Ltd (CAI). He takes an aerial view of how the switch to digital TV is changing our way we receive TV in the home.
Things are looking up…
The advancing digital switch is making people look up. On to their own roof, not necessarily anybody else’s, just their own. Over 85% us have gone digital – well at least in the living room – 86% of all TVs in the South West of England are now digital. The availability of small screen TVs for under £200 with digital tuners built in, make it an affordable proposition for many to side-step the set-top-box scenario and the fiddling wiring that can prove too messy in confined spaces. However a small percentage have noticed some of the pictures they’re trying to watch keep breaking into squares.
In nine out of ten cases of snap, crackle and pop on the digital channels, it’s the aerial feeding the box or brand new digital telly. No ‘graceful degradation’ of a grainy tolerable picture that you put up with merely to avoid the hassle of getting an aerial man in. No, here comes the ‘digital cliff’ – and many of us are about to fall over it if we have aerials or aerial systems that resemble some of the miscarriages of justice we have pictured here.
Out first view is a fairly typical sight around the UK – this was taken near Whitehaven, where the starting gun for switchover was fired. It’s unlikely that the viewer here saw any pictures from a digi-box and it’s probable they were merely tolerating what they had in analogue. If you have an aerial rig resembling this, it’s time to consider some expenditure. Even if you are in Wales or the Granada Region, time is still on your side. CAI members are well educated in providing an ‘oven-ready’ solution for digital although you may not yet have a digitally friendly transmitter.
The Switch Decreed
The digital TV transition has been on the CAI’s agenda since 1999 when the government first decreed we were to switch off our old analogue method of broadcasting in favour of a more service friendly and economical way of transmitting using digital techniques. Our mobile cell phone operators did it years ago and satellite broadcasters like Sky did the whole switch within a couple of years.
However, there are about 24 million households in the UK – 16m of those holding dear to their aerial on the chimney or on the wall and about 5m households share an aerial system in flats. A certain percentage were going to be affected by either the dodgy nature of their existing aerials or the fact that transmissions were going to migrate to other parts of the frequency spread that their aerials could not receive. The latter being a particular worry in blocks of flats that only delivered specific channels to everyone’s signal outlet on the wall.
Time is great a healer however and with a concerted public awareness campaign paid for by the BBC through a body set up to deal with switchover, the nation has taken wholeheartedly to the task and generally ‘bought into’ the proposition.
Over 10 years has seen digital TV deliver a wider range of programming and services that the public have generally accepted as great progress. Initial trials dispelled fears of folk not being able to make the change – even the elderly loved the early experiments and not one person wanted to give back their digital boxes when trials were over!
Help at hand
As a trade association representing around 35-40% of the aerial installing industry, the CAI has been with digital from the start. This has meant it’s membership of around a 1000 companies – from the largest manufacturers of aerial kit right through to aerial riggers – have been gradually ‘selling’ digitally ready equipment for home TV receiving systems for those 10 years just mentioned.
This has meant that the ‘sins that analogue forgave us’ – like the ones pictured here – are gradually being eliminated by a CAI competent and trained workforce. NVQs and a link to the ‘digital tick’ that appears in our electrical retailers, has made for a greater awareness of calling on a tradesman who has been assessed and carries a mark that demonstrates reputability. This is vitally important in a digital world that will not tolerate the misdemeanours illustrated.
Not very good joined-up thinking….
We call the two pictures here the ‘cable graveyard’. Insulation tape used in this fashion only serves as a water trap and ultimate ‘death’ to the installation, not to mention the ‘hosepipe’ characteristics of coaxial cable feeding water into your brand new TV acquisition!
Plenty of Space…in space
With Freesat – the newer offering via satellite from the BBC and ITV – enabling digital switch right away for many, the true ‘oven-ready’ digital switchover is here. Satellite is wonderful for eradicating the nagging doubts and sometimes unreliability of aerial reception in parts where tall masts and expensive aerials have not always delivered a complete offering of available services.
Dishing up space…
BSkyB have had satellite ‘all their own way’ since the 1990’s, but not everyone wants to pay for movies and sport, so a mini-dish and receiver that can record and provide some High Definition TV (HDTV) is a solid proposition. HDTV is a major talking point at the moment. The issues surrounding its delivery via the aerial network are complex. Sky TV has capitalised on that and actually make HDTV sound cheap with free installation offers and subsidised receiver prices. However, Freesat is playing the catch-up game and new HD offerings from Five and C4 have just been announced making satellite TV a huge growth market in switchover areas.
The CAI has members in your area who can help and advise on all aspects of the digital switch whether it be your system in the block of flats you live in or you simply want to know if your aerial and TV equipment will up to the task of coping with the switch.
www.cai.org.uk and follow the links for the members in your area or simply read about the Confederation of Aerial Industries Ltd aims, objectives and how we equip our members to help you the viewer.