It was reported in the press last week that Freeview was experiencing signal problems due to adverse weather conditions. Around this time we were losing reception on BBC1 or ItV for several seconds or more. The freeview advice was not to retune the tv and once these specific weather conditions cleared, reception would be back to normal. We're still getting signal drop out. Just wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same?

In October 2015 I entered a contract with TalkTalk which expired in January 2016. As part of this contract I was sent a Freeview Box EVEN if I stated that I did not want it because I had no TV set. When the contract expired I was on a rolling contract until on 11/02/2016, when I decided to join Virgin Media. Before leaving TalkTalk I repeatedly contacted the staff by phone, chat and online to make sure my contract was indeed expired and to be advised on what to do with the Freeview Box. I was always told the contract was expired and I did not need to return the box. Excerpt of the transcript from chats and online replies from TalkTalk advisors are at the bottom of this post. However: On the 11/ 02/2016 I was charged £75 for the non restitution of the Freeview Box and immediately credited £ 75 back with a fee waiver. On the 29/03/2016 I was charged again £ 75 for the non-restitution of the same box. On the 19/04/2016 a Customer Service Manager told me that my contract terminated on February 2015 but not the 'TV portion' of it, following a phone call I made to them on 19/02/2015, (of which I have absolutely no recollection), in which 'I terminated the TV contract early'. However, she looked at the transcripts of the various advisors and agreed that I had been erroneously informed, and requested a refund of £75. On the 19/04/2016 the Online community executive told me: 'Your account is in credit for £75. A refund has been requested to send it back to your bank. Should be with you in 3-5 days. ' On 25/ 04/2016 a Customer Service Manager called me to inform me that the refund was cancelled as the Financial Team refused the claim as I cancelled my contract early. I rejected their argument on the basis that the staff repeatedly gave me the wrong advice, which led to the non restitution of the box and the Customer Service manager told me that she would escalate it again to the Financial Team I also would like to listen to the phone call in which I allegedly terminated a portion of my contract 12 days early!! I have no trust whatsoever in their procedure and I would like to escalate this further. Any advice is very appreciated Cris Here are some of excerpt of the replies I was given by TalkTalk staff: 18/01/2016 Chat operator - Shadil Shadil: Thanks for your patience, your contract ended on the 24/01/2015. Are you looking to renew your contract with us? CRistina: are you sure it ended on 24/1 2015? CRistina: 24 February 2015? end CRistina: 24 January 2015, a year ago? Shadil: Your contract ended on the 24/01/2015 and at the moment, you are on a rolling contract month to month contract with us. 19/01/2016 Chat operator - Barbara 19/02/2016 Chat operator - Ordella Barbara: Yes if you contract is over the You View Box is yours.  Ordella: Yes, I do see on the system your contract expired on the 24/01/2015 and you where on a rolling contract until the 11/02/2016 Ordella: You will be able to keep the you view box because you have reached the end of your contract with TalkTalk. 07/03/2016 02:32PM Online community executive: 'Basically the letters are being generated because your TV service shows as starting on the 23.02.2015 and ending 11.02.2016. i.e 12 days short of the full 12 months, but in all reality your contract ended in January. Its a system glitch causing the letter to be generated and also a bill will be produced showing the £75 fee, But this will be cleared at the same time, you will see this on the bill produced on the 11 March. The box is yours and does not need to returned. ' 'I agree your contract ended in January, however the box was sent regardless of if you connect it or not , it still forms part of the contract, Our system has put a different date on the start for the TV portion of your contract, our system shows it was connected at least once to your router on the 19 Feb 2015. Again the box is yours and does not need to be returned. ' Cris

Having decided to actually read my TV manual I found out that I could get Freeview well for free, plus my TV has Freesat as well. To treat myself I decided to look around for a nice second hand recorder for my new look TV. Lucky for me I managed to pick up a Humax 9300T for just £25.00. Read most of the Humax forums and found the manual too. Then looked to find a way to factory reset the machine, which was so easy. Finally after some more searching I was able to locate the hidden Humax Managers special page, woo I say, so I looked around the site for a Freesat set recorder. Not only are they cheap you can still a full years warranty from Humax. and only pay a fraction of the price for a refurbished unit, instead of paying nearly £200-00 for a new one I managed to pick one up for a lot less. Bye Bye Virgin, many more free channels both on Freeview and Freesat, 300+ and then some bonus radio channels, where can you find this site well I will share just for the fellow Caggers so here is the link please see here, http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/refurbished.html Since Virgin is selling the smallest TV bundle for less channels for more money it was time to reduce my package to Broadband and Telephone to just £21.99

HD channels on Sandstrom TV's Hi Does anyone know if you can get HD Chanels on the Sandstrom 24" TV that I have just bought Freeview say there are 4 available but I cannot se on the Menu? Help? Robert

Just to let folks know who live in the Rowley Regis & Cradley Heath areas within the West Midlands. 4G testing begins today only in these areas on how freeview signals will be affected by the launch of the full range of 4G services later this year, which in effect at the full 4G launch could affect 10% of the population recieving freeview. Information about the test is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21788339 and a further site on who to contact should you be affected https://at800.tv/ Now the fallout from this could be huge, as when the full 4G launch goes ahead as many as 1 million households could be affected, of which a small percentage will totally loose freeview permanently and will need to rely on other means such as satellite tv or cable. The biggest insult however is while some faults can be fixed by the use of a small filter, other problems may not be so easy to fix in which case a visit from a TV aerial installer will be required, a contribution of £50.00+VAT will be made to affected households but the remainder must be met by the householder, and this will be the cause of the biggest of upset as why should someone be directly affected by the actions of another party namely the mobile phone operators? I can foresee many small claims ending up in the small claims court over this problem.

Today I bought a Freeview+ box from Argos. It scanned Ok but I can't get some of the channels I can get with my old Freeview box. The guarantee says I can't take it back unless it's faulty. I've checked on the Freeview site and the channels I am missing are shown as receivable i my postcode. So am I able to take the darn thing back and say it's faulty or not fit for purpose? If I can't return it and get a refund I suppose I will have to get an aerial booster and cross my fingers that it does the trick. Can anyone help with this. What I really want to do is get a refund and start again rather than have to lay out even more money - with no certainty that it'll ever work/get as many channels as my old Freeview box.

:-xI purchased a Huma Foxsat HDRS from comet middlebrook Bolton on 20th.September 2012 and took it back on 22nd.September 2012 because it was not suitable. The manager not the pleasentest of people said that they would not take the box back because it had been plugged in. I cannot afford to let £219 sit in a box,cannot afford to waste so much money has both my wife and I are in our seventies.!HELP

New 4G mobile phone network will leave people facing £200 bills to cut out interference More than 2 million Freeview customers face bills of up to £212 – more than the cost of a year’s subscription to cable television – in order to pay for interference with signals caused by the 4G mobile network. Freeview and the BBC last night told The Independent of their anger at the Government’s apparent determination to dump the costs of installing signal filter equipment on householders rather than the mobile phone companies which will enjoy huge financial benefit from the introduction of 4G next year. Estimates suggest that between 2.3m and 3m households – within 2km of 4G transmitters - face interference with their television pictures, with some losing their signals entirely. “If you don’t have a filter you literally won’t be able to watch television. You will get very significant pixelation and the picture will break up and you won’t be able to carry on watching Freeview. They are stopping people watching Coronation Street,” said Ilse Howling, managing director of Freeview. “It will cause interference for a large number of Freeview homes and we are really concerned about that. We think the Government has got this wrong and this is really unfair.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/millions-will-have-to-pay-to-get-freeview-tv-7899834.html

Hi Caggers Thought this article from the Independent may be of interest. As usual the Government has known about this problem but aint interested get the taxpayer to cough up to fix it themselves. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/millions-will-have-to-pay-to-get-freeview-tv-7899834.html?origin=internalSearch