T.V. Reception Problem.

The obvious course of action is to plug the TV in elsewhere where reception is known to be good.

My first suspicion would be the UHF signal I'm afraid - the slightest error in making off the terminations on a co-ax (e.g. a single strand of the screen touching something connected to the centre conductor) can completely kill the signal to the TV. In the old analogue days getting the wrong 'band' of aerial for the local area could be almost as catastrophic (but I think most are wideband these days to cover the digital range) - as can getting the wrong polarization (vertical or horizontal) for the local transmitter. Given the problems with two sets, I'd suspect the common element (the aerial setup) first.


   - Andy.

The second set does tune Andy. It is only the first that is locked and shows no life on the auto-tuning mode. I shall return tomorrow and take my signal strength meter with me.


Z.

The second set does tune Andy.

Does it find all the channels though? Or are the two sets just responding to a lack of signal slightly differently?

  - Andy.

Is there a method of rebooting the TV?



With the more modern TVs the answer is yes.

Find the make and model and look on-line for the method.

With some it is an easy thing to do, with other makes it may be an involved process that appears to have little logic attached to it!

Thanks all. The second set has a frozen screen on the auto-tune screen. Even after turning the set off and trying to get auto-tune to work the same frozen page appears and nothing happens at all. On my sets, even if there were no channels available I can see the progress bar moving across the screen as the set is searching, and then the page will say "no channels found" if unsuccessful, so it confirms that at least it  has looked for them. If successful the set will show "X new channels found". The second set here is not playing ball at all.


Z.

You could try manual tuning. We often have to do that with our caravan as frequently different transmitters give different results with different channels.

At home it's worse with FM (DAB is so poor quality I don't even make the effort) as they built a hill between us and the 'best' transmitter so I get some programs from Sutton Coldfield. some from Peterborough the odd one from Waltham and don't even try radio 4 but the local Fosse FM from Loughborough University is good even though we shouldn't get it. That's the problem on living on a flood plain!

I live in an area where there are 3 main transmitters of much the same signal strength, Belmont, Sutton Coldfield and Sandy Heath, the latter being my preferred choice.

I have several TVs, one only a few months old, and they all search for channels very well.

On the odd occasion I have forgotten to plug the aerial in they go through the motions and claim no channels available.

The screens have never frozen,

I suggest there is something much more amiss than a dodgy signal.

Perhaps there is something locally that is swamping the TV tuners with a overpowering signal causing the lock up?

If the tv is showing a screen and not "No Signal" then it is probably a software problem, or a fault.


I would

1.  Measure the signal where the tv is plugged in (is it the same socket as the tv which does tune?) to make sure it is adequate.

2. Switch the tv off and unplug it.  Leave it unplugged for a about a minute and try again.

3. If that does not work try a hard reboot.  As suggested above, look on the internet to get the instructions for the particular make and model.

If you have a known working tv of your own it might be reassuring to try retuning that on the tv socket in question.


David


Edit:  Have you tried replacing the lead between the socket and the set?

Do you know the model - the problem is that every maker is subtly different in how they implement the self tuning algorithm. There may be a known problem & work-around.


That said,  the only thing I have seen that permanently  'bricks' a TV, or anything else for that matter, that is not a proper hardware fault, is normally a partial download off air of new program 'firmware' for the decoders- if the download is interrupted, then when the TV is restarted, the computer inside tries to run the half finished code, problems arise when it falls  off the end of its incomplete list of instructions....


The better designs make this impossible, by not overwriting the original code with the new until the download is complete and has been verified in some way -  but not all models do, as it requires more memory to in effect have 2 copies at once, and some designs save that money and just say 'do not switch off while updating' which is really no protection at all..