If I had the money, I'd buy shares in Sky now.

[Nick]

Why?

Well, we all know there's the analogue TV switch off on the way with Feb 2011 being the final date.

So we'll all be watching Freeview... except that that's not quite the case.

Sure, the transmitters, once they've stopped broadcasting analogue, will have their output power increase, by as much as twelve times in some areas, but there's still a flaw in Freeview which no amount of boosting, so I'm told, will help.

Having spent the last two nights without the vast majority of Freeview channels and having had an engineer around to check my kit out, it seems that Freeview is plagued by that most nefarious of British foibles... the weather.

I did notice that on the hottest days in our very short summer last year, Freeview reception was patchy.

Well, with the temperature hovering around the -3 mark right now, it seems that really cold weather kills it too.

Yep, high pressure and low pressure weather fronts kill off Freeview in areas where reception is a bit iffy.

So what are the options? Well, finding an honest aerial company is pretty easy and they'll tell you whether your aerial needs upgrading or not... which mine doesn't. Nor do I need any more signal boosters as I've got everything set just right... a strong singal with not much noise and not over amplified.

But still no Freeview.

So my options are these: Sit it out and just accept that in really cold or hot weather there's no telly, or switch to Sky.

Now, as some will be faced with a bill of around £120-200 for a new receiving set-up, the £30 installation plus £16 a month for Sky's basic package, which gives you loads more channels than Freeview, starts to look like a very good deal.

And, seeing as Sky reception is only impaired by very, very, heavy cloud cover, you've got something that's more reliable and cheaper.

And get this... after 12 months you can kill the contract, keep the box and switch to Sky Freeview, which, although it gives you less than DVB Freeview, (no E4, More 4 and others), at least you've still got something to watch when the weather gets too bad... or too nice.

[0iD]

Freeview here is minimal too, so I went to Maplin, picked up a satelite dish, reciever et-al for £150. Comes with clear instructions on setup, £5 for a signal strenght indicator, now we get scads of free channels.

And free euro smut too.... bonus!

[Funkstar]

Sky is also reliant on the weather, perhaps not to the extent Freeview is in some areas, but it does have problems. Heavy rain can knock the whole dish off the air.

Thats mainly to do with the ass cheap mini dishes they use these days. A proper quality 60cm+ dish should sort the problem.

[dangel]

My freeview seems far less affected by the weather than my sky was/is..
Heavy rain was the main sky-killer for me too.

[directhex]

there's always freesat

[Lee @ SCAN]

My freeview is totally borked to use the scientific phrase.

During the day some of the channels do not appear - mainly channel 5. It's just has a red dot in the corner of the screen and at night it gets worse with visble blocking artifacts and the sound popping and squealing all over the place.

I've tried 3 boxes - 1 Nokia old box, durabrand asda cheapo special and a bush tv box and I cannot believe that out of the 3 of them that the oldest box - the nokia gets more channels than the others.

My Sky installation at the parents used to go flakey when it rained as well. Seeing as I live in Manchester, having something that is affected by the rain is quite ironic really.

[directhex]

sky dishes are too small. they're 45cm, and all-weather reception for sky's sats really requires 60cm

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by Nick

seeing as Sky reception is only impaired by very, very, heavy cloud cover,

Bit of a bummer for blighty then .

[Howard]

I'm sure the weather affected my Freeview signal slightly. So I got a V+ box installed. Cables under the ground aren't affected by weather

[j.o.s.h.1408]

what about cable tv like virgin? that cant be affected b yweather

[tiggerai]

well you should have tried my freeview... I lost the picture each time the bloke in the mini round the back started his car up, or whenever upstairs had a phonecall...

Sky it was.

[Agent]

MK is the black hole for everything to be fair though.

No decent Freeview signals, Bad phone reception, crappy internet coverage....

[Howard]

Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

what about cable tv like virgin? that cant be affected b yweather

Yeah that's pretty much what I said, in the post above yours

[dangel]

Originally Posted by tiggerai

well you should have tried my freeview... I lost the picture each time the bloke in the mini round the back started his car up, or whenever upstairs had a phonecall...

Sky it was.

That's usually because you've got unshielded cabling - a lot of houses were build with crappy brown coax with no shielding. I had my cable replaced along with the aerial when I went to freeview.

[pollaxe]

Originally Posted by Agent

MK is the black hole for everything to be fair though.

No decent Freeview signals, Bad phone reception, crappy internet coverage....

You should try living in rural Herefordshire.

[Nick]

Yeah but that's made up for by being able to say you're the home of the SAS... MK gets the accolade of being the home of the concrete cow... and drivers with uneven wear on their tyres from all the roundabouts.