I have recently moved to an area that appears to have bad television reception...had great difficulty with retuning my television, and very poor signal until I bought a digital amplified indoor aerial. Now my television is working well, but still when I try to record programmes on the DVD recorder, whatever is recorded frequently freezes or blacks out completely.
Does anybody have any suggestions as to how the signal could be improved? Preferably, as I am a little old lady (!) nothing too technical, please.

You may be a little old lady, but your explanation of your problem is excellent, hopefully members on this forum will be able to help you.

1st question, have you retuned the HXD870? You mention retuning your Television but not the HXD870.

2nd question, assuming the answer to question 1 is ... I have retuned the HXD870. If you watch some television programs live on the HXD870 do those freeze up too?

Oh, thank you for that! Yes, I have retuned the DVD player, and it also freezes and sometimes indicates poor signal when watching live programmes, but generally not as frequently as when it's recording.

Is your TV the type which has Freeview builtin into it too? What is the make/model of your TV?

You do mention you have an indoor aerial, this is probably the problem, those aerials generally only work acceptably on Freeview in areas where the signal is good, old sttyle Analog TV (where the picture is mostly a square shaped image) is able to work on poor signals. It is likely we may soon decide you have to get a proper aerial installed ... but not quite yet.

Do the following while watching a BBC channel and a Film4 channel. Watch live TV through the HXD870, press 'System Menu', then 'Initial Setup', then 'Digital Tuner' and then 'Signal Check', then reply to this email with what it tells you for each channel.

ps. i think those steps to find the 'signal check' menu options are correct, I am recalling this from memory and not sitting in front of my TV.

Have done as you suggested...your memory was correct. The signal check for both channels was in the 80% range, and it said the signal was 'fair'.

My television is an LG26JC55 and does have built in Freeview.

Thanks for your help...I sort of thought it was something to do with the poor signal, am in a rented flat and have no idea of the state of the outside aerial...I just posted in the hope that there was some sort of magic gizmo that I didn't know about, that would improve things.

So if you tune the LG and HXD870 to the same Freeview channel, is it only the HXD870 picture which freezes from time to time .... no problems at all on the LG?

You may have to watch a few channels and swap between the LG and HXD870 over the course of a whole evening to decide if this is true.

Generally no problems with the LG, unless I've moved the aerial and it's not in the best position.

OK, I would say we are moving towards blaming the aerial.

I assume you have two cables connected to the aerial, one for power to the aerial, the 2nd is the cable you connect to the HXD870. Yes? This cable is connected to the 'Digital In' socket on the HXD870?

You also have a cable from the HXD870 (from the socket called Digital Out) connected to the LG TV? Yes?

If Yes to all the above, then try to keep the cables at short as possible (I mean the two aerial cables, I do not care about the power cables), if you can coil the cable up so the loops you make are no bigger than about 3 inches ... does this help.

Pz you are a geeenius!!
Sorry I haven't posted earlier...been away.
Last night I coiled the digital aerial cable...bit sceptically, I must admit....and secured it with an elastic band, then recorded a programme. Wasn't till the end of watching it today that I suddenly realised it hadn't frozen once!
Still have to do more testing, but I think that's the first time there've been no blips at all. Thank you so much.

Are you using an HDMI cable to connect the Sony to the TV... rather than scart?

If so, these can be a significant source of interference to UHF channels.

No, am using a scart. Reception has certainly improved, but still no way perfect.

Should add, it was always perfect before I moved house.