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Tv Is Unviewable!

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Scarlett | 23:01 Sun 27th Sep 2015 | Technology
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For days now my TV has had static? on it- first on BBC programmes and now on all channels. The picture pixellates, breaks up into lots of geometric shapes.The sound is crackly and starts and stops but basically you can't hear anything. I always thought this was a problem caused by weather but it's been like it now for ages. Is my TV the problem and how can I fix it? I have a flat screen, small TV, about the same size as a PC monitor. Thanks
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What make model is the TV?

Presume is has inbuilt Freeview channels, if so try testing using an external Freeview box or if possible connect it to you Computer to see if the screen works ok.
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I don't have a freeview box and I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to begin to plug it into my computer!
Assuming that there's not actually a fault with your TV set (which seems unlikely, from what you've written), the problem is clearly related to insufficient signal strength.

The strength of the signal arriving at your aerial doesn't remain constant. It's affected by many things, including the 11-year sunspot cycle, individual solar flares, atmospheric pressure & precipitation, interference from electrical devices in your own house and those of your neighbours, physical obstructions to the signal path (such as a new building being erected or a tree growing), etc, etc.

Further, TV aerials should ideally have elements which are exactly the right length to 'resonate' with the frequencies of the multiplexes (= 'bundles of channels') that they're designed to receive. So (in an ideal world) you should have lots of different aerials on your roof in order to receive all of the different frequencies. That's clearly impractical, so any aerial you use will only be a 'rough match' to the incoming frequencies and is likely to be better at receiving some of them than others.

Your aerial has, up until now, been good enough to handle signals on all of the necessary frequencies when there has been reasonably good signal strength. However (as you've indicated yourself) it's not been good enough to cope when the signal has been adversely affected by the weather. (When that occurs, you tend to lose those channels which are in 'multiplexes' that use frequencies which your aerial's elements are poorly matched to first which, in your case, seems to be the BBC ones).

For some reason your aerial is now providing your TV set with a poorer quality signal than before, resulting in the problems that you've been experiencing recently. That could be due to factors entirely outside your control. (e.g. sunspot AR2422 is currently facing earth and expected to cause some communication problems here). However it might also be something as simple as the wind having knocked your aerial out of alignment. (Step outside and take a look. Check that your aerial points in the same direction as those on your neighbour's houses and that it's not pointing towards either the ground or the sky!).

However the problem has arisen though, you need to improve the strength of the signal that's being fed to your TV. You could consider calling in an aerial fitter but it's probable that you could get away with simply installing a signal booster. The major supermarkets sell them for around a tenner, as does Argos:
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1068388.htm
try a full retune of your channels i found that sorted me out once

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