I have inherited my mum's old Grundig GDT1500 Freeview set top box, which I want to set up in the kitchen, attached to the portable television there

I have set it up with the television's own aerial, which gives a good analogue reception but when I plug the aerial into the digibox itself, whilst I can play around with the menus and dowload the channels etc, when I go to view a channel I get "no signal"

Do these set top boxes not work with portable aerials at all, or would it be worth going out and getting a better one?? or are they only designed to receive the signal from an external aerial??

Whilst my portable telly is big and hoooge and I could probably do with dumping it and buying a flat screen Digitelly etc, my kitchen telly is a TV/VCR combo and I love it........
and you can't get them anymore now - and I would so love to be able to watch or record E4/More4 in the kitchen!

so any ideas, hints or tips please

It really depends on the strength and quality of signal you are getting at that point in the house. A lot of digiboxes will show a "no signal" message if the signal gets below a certain level to avoid displaying jerky/frozen pictures full of artifacts. Whereas an analogue TV picture just get progressively worse with more snow the weaker the signal.

Some diy shops sell an amplified TV aerial for portables so you could try one of these (and take it back if it doesn't work). I used one as a stop gap in my bedroom until I moved house which worked (just).

At the end of the day though there is no substitute for a connection to a proper roof aerial.