Robin

I agree entirely with the concerns that some sellers will seek to exploit the sloppy nomenclature. But I still maintain that as a descriptive term, Digitial Aerial is a more reasonable description of what is being described than for example, my two fav oxymorons: English Tennis and Greek Wine People are repeatedly conned and scammed by both of these.

I am happy with the term "Digital Aerial" provided it is understood to be a short form of "Aerial suitable for digital TV reception". Like I said elsewhere, the 5 or so channels you got on analogue were usually quite tightly bunched in frequency so you might be in a place where the frequencies were around 800MHz and the yagi was about 8 inches wide. Next big transmitter in next region may well be at 300MHz and for that the yagi was 20 inches. You bought a shortish aerial matched to your area. With digital the channels are less bunched in frequency and so the "digital antennas" are all wide band compromise affairs - and with more elements. So let's say you have a 300MHz analogue aerial (and the installer 15 yrs ago put in crap 300MHz cable) and now you have 800MHz digital signals to receive. Your aerial will do a very bad job and the cable will finish off what dregs remain. I'd go an get a "Digital Aerial" which is what I did. ;)

Hi Elamessa In case you haven't decided yet. I was compelled to install a NordNet system because there was no alternative for me in Feb. Despite have a landline phone, Orange said adsl was "too complex" down my lane in the village. This was after they took my order and money. It was a hassle to get the money back. I digress. The option I took from NordNet had no capital costs, just a 2 yr tie in, by which time adsl here might be less complex. Its 35€ a month. The u/load and d'load speeds remind me of 15 yrs ago in UK. I have to keep an eye on the consumption cos when the limit is hit, you get a nice message offerin you another 1GB for 10€. I installed the dish myself, sent direct from Nordnet no probs, good build quality although drilling a double hole for the double cable through Fr masonry costs a few bits and a gallon of sweat. You get a nightly spam from NN telling you they didnt spot any spam to yr ("free") email account. There's another sat-internet outfit now so prices will drop. John at http://www.bigdishsat.com/ answered my e-mails and gave me advice on phone.

Hi folks I would not use my bank even though I have been with them since 1962. If I had used them to ship the proceeds of the sale of my Engl house over, let's say 1/2 million£, then it would have cost me about 5k£ more compared to using the trader I came to trust. For the 2 yrs pre moving over here, selling/buying I used a London trader for short visits. I'd phone them before midday, agree a trade/exch rate and then a contract would be exchanged by e-mail, I'd pay by IBAN that day and next morning before midday, the postie would have a reg letter containing the € notes I had bought. It beat local sources, M&S, Sainsb, PO, Bank, by typically 1 or 2%. So when it came to shipping over the house proceeds, which means you can't sleep for the hours it is invisible, I had learnt to trust them more than my bank. And it saved me 5k€ which went towards the kitchen. (You know what I mean - exterminate the curtains .) I use the same traders now for my regular UK income shipping, I learnt to avoid the end of the month when UK occupational pensions get shipped over, also 21st, when the university pension outfit transfers funds to its members who handed their life to it. Avoid the M25, you pay more. I am old enough to recall the old days, working in Germany and knowing the exch rate was fixed (to next devaluation.) I cannot say that I have yet come to terms with the 1% daily fluctuations. In have a strategy. In the end, it might save me 100€. wtf. But I am damned if I will let my UK bank RBS, or my Fr bank Chaix, cream an extra 2% off me just because they are a bank. Over a year for me, that is about a grand. I won't advertise my trader here, but if anyone wants dig deeper, I will give you an London landline #, the names of 3 trustworthy folk I know there and you can phone them and find out what they can do for you. I checked two traders and these ones gave the best rate. But if you really trust yr bank and feel comfortable with them, stick with yr bank and pay the 2%. I was sick for the hours my 1/2 million was in the aether, but the traders actually did it. My French bank Chaix holds on to an income IBAN transfer for 3 days. It is an scandal and I have'nt finished with them yet. e-mail me if you would like details of how I do it.

Hi folks I would not use my bank even though I have been with them since 1962. If I had used them to ship the proceeds of the sale of my Engl house over, let's say 1/2 million£, then it would have cost me about 5k£ more compared to using the trader I came to trust. For the 2 yrs pre moving over here, selling/buying I used a London trader for short visits. I'd phone them before midday, agree a trade/exch rate and then a contract would be exchanged by e-mail, I'd pay by IBAN that day and next morning before midday, the postie would have a reg letter containing the € notes I had bought. It beat local sources, M&S, Sainsb, PO, Bank, by typically 1 or 2%. So when it came to shipping over the house proceeds, which means you can't sleep for the hours it is invisible, I had learnt to trust them more than my bank. And it saved me 5k€ which went towards the kitchen. (You know what I mean - exterminate the curtains .) I use the same traders now for my regular UK income shipping, I learnt to avoid the end of the month when UK occupational pensions get shipped over, also 21st, when the university pension outfit transfers funds to its members who handed their life to it. Avoid the M25, you pay more. I am old enough to recall the old days, working in Germany and knowing the exch rate was fixed (to next devaluation.) I cannot say that I have yet come to terms with the 1% daily fluctuations. In have a strategy. In the end, it might save me 100€. wtf. But I am damned if I will let my UK bank RBS, or my Fr bank Chaix, cream an extra 2% off me just because they are a bank. Over a year for me, that is about a grand. I won't advertise my trader here, but if anyone wants dig deeper, I will give you an London landline #, the names of 3 trustworthy folk I know there and you can phone them and find out what they can do for you. I checked two traders and these ones gave the best rate. But if you really trust yr bank and feel comfortable with them, stick with yr bank and pay the 2%. I was sick for the hours my 1/2 million was in the aether, but the traders actually did it. My French bank Chaix holds on to an income IBAN transfer for 3 days. It is an scandal and I have'nt finished with them yet. e-mail me if you would like details of how I do it.

Thank you Sid. I looked at a few forums and I liked the attitudes here. There is one where folk moan because the local tax office can't/won't speak English. What abt the Germans, Belgians, Dutch, Spanish and Italians? It's one of 57 reasons I came here, to stop paying taxes which get used to pay expensive interpreters for those who won't learn the language. Altho I bet English local tax offices don't discuss tax law in French, German etc. . .

Very true Anton. But as you suggest, unless the transmitter is very close, a 30dB gain yagi will be OK. I could see Wintr Hill from S Manch, but 30 mils away, no probl.

Hi Nearly R, Firstly, it's a good idea to get a "digital" antenna to replace yr old one. The few channels you got on analogue were all clustered together in frequency and your local antenna was optimised for the local frequencies. The digital signals are locally spread over the whole band and you need a wide band antenna. That's why they have all the extra elements and X beams. And the same antennas work anywhere. Yanno, with digital signals, you really can't overdo the antenna but you can underdo it. Even on terrestrial, flapping tree branches can give you pixellations. If you put one in with too low gain you have a problem. If higher than you needed, no problem. All for a few €. Nails in horses hooves spriing to mind. I did look at antenna prices at the local brico and in UK. They are not that different - like a few € only, and I bought local, saved the hassle of lugging it on Eurost/TGV and losing cheddar cheese space. If you want your antenna high up and like me, don't care for long ladders, then a local TV artisan will prob do the job (incl antenna and good new cable) for up to 100€. Haggle as usual. Also, if analogue is still running in yr area (final switch everywhere is in Nov) then the digital signals will almost certainly be on low power till the final switch off of analogue. I come under Vaucluse for TV, even tho I'm in Gard (local hills) and altho I can just about see Mont Ventoux, I didn't get a digital squeak until they switched analogue off in July and bumped the digital power up by 100. I got Marseile digital OK and now my antenna points half way between both and I get both transmitters. Mont Ventoux is more liable to storm outages.

ahah Théière! So if 29 people jump into the pool and one drowns, there is no loss of weight. I'm a bit worried that unwashed, we all have 1 ml of that stuff on us. I guess Tamsin was just about worth a dose of noro. . . ;) I still take chances . . .

Her outdoors wanted a lawn in our new house. So I converted the inherited gravel pit into one. It was max 9 inches gravel and reddish/brown Languedoc soil on limestone - with rocky outcrops. Prescription: 1. Forget everything you ever knew about lawns in England. 2. If you don't have a forage then perhaps forget it. It will cost spades if you use town water. 3. Get a large amount of Mr Brico 'gazon rustique' seed. 4. If you have moist soil then throw on a lot of gravel and rake it in together with some engrais. 5. Put twice as much seed on as it says on the packet or as you would in England and rake it in very deep. Then rake it in deeper. 6. Keep watering several times a day and when you've stopped watering, start again. 7. After a month, you can see the bare patches, so seed the patches again, raking in deep. 8. When it's long enough to cut, do not box the clippings, leave them to mulch. It depends whether you want a lawn or not. The one I have now, after 4 months is better than any I ever had in England. I suspect the gravel helps. Things to watch out for: If it gets very hot/sunny while the seed is germinating then you will lose them. The sprouts will not survive a midday baking. If you water them while hot, you are essentially boiling "bean" sprouts. Put lots of water on in the evening when it will sink in without evaporating. I raked back to the edge of the rocky outcrops and made them a feature. 2 inches gravel/soil was minimum. It can be done! Just don't start in August (or July)

When I lived near Abingdon up to 1992, for one year I had recurrent "mild" diarrhea. (I once got noro when a PhD student kissed me straght after she got off a med cruise. That was "bad" diarrhea). I tried everything over 6 months to find out what was up with my gut, eliminating this that and the other. Then one evening on Central News, they revealed that Thames Water had been slipping us all cryptosporidium for the last year but that it "Only affects infants and the elderly". i.e. the usual lying crap from water companies when they poison their customers. They upped the chlorine (to satisfy those who didnt know it was useless) and popped something else obnoxious into the supply, and since then, I have never, ever drunk from an English tap or used ice cubes from one. My mild d stopped within weeks. I am sure a miscreant could unknowingly introduce it into your pool, but it would be a rare shot. I shall just hose down my visitors if they want a swim. . . .

Hi Araucaria, I'm new here and maybe you've solved yr problem. I offer you 24 yrs experience of fiddling with dishes and receivers. Your symptoms suggest that you are only getting one of the H/V polarisations and since you changed the LNB after the orage, it points to the receiver having a fault, or less likely, the cabling. Sat tranmissions have horizontal and vertical polarisations. Terrestrial is usually H (antenna mounted flat) but sometimes you see V from local transmitters. For sat, both are equally exploited to avoid adjacent channel interference. You swivelled the LNB in its mount by "quite a long way" and by doing so, you went from H to V (or V to H). This switching is normally done by yr receiver sending either 13.5V or 17V to the LNB. I guess that bit isn't working in yr receiver. You can do a test. C4 is on H and C4+1 is on V, so if my diagnosis is partly right, you will get one and not the other. If you have a freesat receiver, then at some stage, you typed in a postcode so that the receiver chooses the BBC & ITV for yr area. BBC1 London is on H but BBC1 East Yorks is on V. Try London and Hull postcodes and see if one works and not the other. (The polarisation postcode police will not knock on yr door). That is my likely diagnosis. There are other possibilities. 1st; yr 55cm dish is a bit small for Auverne. I had 55cm in Wilmslow and upped to 90cm in Languedoc. You can never have a dish that is too big although a Jodrell might burn out yr receiver input. 2nd; there have been some changes in last weeks, TV companies switching to transponders that are more tightly focussed on UK. I thought this was just a HD thingie, but they play with this all the time. This might have caught yr smalsh dish out. So what do you do? With the receiver off, pull the cable from LNB and check the plug integrity. It might need tightening. I doubt this, cos if the wire ships 13.5V it will ship 18V. It's only electricity. As suggested by others above and it is always a very good move, try a different receiver. If that works, time to dump yours NOW. It is not worth wasting time or money on something that is unbelievably cheap, given what it does, like pick up signals from a transmitter running on the power of a lightbulb, 24,000 miles away. Chinese electronics are both cheap and good quality. Apple use them. They have the world by the throat. If a different receiver shows the same symptoms then I shall be staggered, but that still leaves the cabling and the LNB. But you swappped LNBs so it means the cabling. best Robin