Hi,

How suitable would the Topfield be for a marginal Freeview location?

We can currently only receive Muxes 1 and 2, which contain all the channels that we need. We get acceptable reception of those channels with both an old Pace On-Digital box and a Humax PVR.

Any reason to suppose that Topfield would be worse, or more sensitive to signal quality?

I worry a little about suppliers or manufacturers disclaiming responsibility if we're at a location where Freeview is officially not available. In fact some retailers won't sell until checking the buyer's postcode.

Ta in advance, Tony S

In the thread about tuner sensitivity, one user reports a pleasant experience compared to other boxes. It's really impossible to answer, since it will vary for everyone's installation.

Nigel.

I have a toppy with the *new* tuners. My signal strength is just OK on all muxes (required masthead amp), but I have quality problems, appearing as ghosting on analogue. As I said in the thread about tuner sensitivity, the toppy comes out best by far compared with:
- original Philips OnDigital box
- Panasonic TUCT 20
- Netgem iPlayer+
- Sharp iDTV

I don't mean to e patronising, but you DO have a wideband aerial?

I don't consider that patronising at all, I should have said. We have a Group A aerial, so inherently it won't receive muxes other than 1 and 2 from Durris.

I haven't changed it because some of the other muxes are transmitted at significantly lower powers (some at 1/4 power), and from lower down the mast as well. I could change the aerial to a wide band, with a higher gain and find it still can't pick up the other muxes. Wolfbane recommends "amplified extra-high gain", and Freeview just says no reception at our location.

I planned to leave the aerial as-is until either it need attention anyway, or we start to feel the need for the other channels.

Tony S