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Vision On
Following our move to wireless broadband, the latest technological leap-forward at the Lemon and Panda Free House (otherwise known as Chris and Mine) has occurred. BT Vision has been ordered and we now have a widescreen HD-ready flatscreen television.
The latter, it has to be said, was particularly important since our old CRT box was somewhat precariously balanced in the only available space and was thus in constant danger of going all “Curse of Peladon” on our asses.
So… the new telly arrived on Saturday and - as with the previous setup - I let Chris plumb it all in. He activated its internal Freeview receiver, tuned it in and gave it a whirl… only to find that ITV, Channel 4 (and all their offspring) and BBC3 and BBC4 weren’t receivable. Or if they were they were only so for about thirty seconds a time.
This wasn’t good news. For me the whole point of having Freeview is for BBC3 and BBC4, plus we wanted digital Channel 4 because our analogue reception was lousy and interfered with Hollyoaks. Without these our plans for having BT Vision were in jeopardy since it doesn’t actually pipe any freeview services through the hub, just its own channels.
We may, we realised with horror, have to get cable. Which would mean a separate supplier and everything.
As it turns out however, it’s just that I shouldn’t let Chris do anything technical. On a quick visit to B&Q I picked up a new co-ax lead just in case the existing frayed one was exacerbating the problem. And, whilst Chris lurked in his bedroom (on either World of War or DudesNude - it’s hard to tell), I examined the aerial point.
It seems our existing aerial lead was plugged into a socket marked “FM”. This was presumably because the one marked “TV” had an obviously different connector, but I had an inkling that I knew what the problem was, and so I slammed the new lead into the TV slot with a gender-changer attached.
Suddenly both analogue and Freeview sprang to perfect glorious - not to mention stable - life, and I felt a mixture of insufferable smugness and relief that actually everything could go ahead with BT as planned.
Naturally I then wandered (with my usual caution) into Chris’ bedroom and told him the good news, although I will confess that this was an announcement mixed with a certain amount of ribbing. After all, the whole cause of our reception issues over the last month was his inability to cope with an opposite gender.
Quell Surprise.
Posted on August 22, 2007 | Filed Under Battles with Technology, My So-Called Life
Comments
Response left by Emma on August 22nd, 2007
Told you so. Glad to hear you found the correct connection. Looking forward to seeing stuff in pin sharp crickeyvision!
What TV did you get?
Response left by Pandemonia on August 23rd, 2007
“Told you so”? Bollocks you did.
You muttered something indistinct about aerials for Freeview needing two dimensions or something.
All of this, however, was my work. ALL MY OWN!
Response left by Rob on August 23rd, 2007
Got something to say?
Any sort of technology and I have a stormy relationship at best, beset with the odd complete meltdown followed by mass destruction and total inilation of my sanity….this said I could surely never revert back to the insane days of the 1980’s….just what did we do with our time and more to the point how did we cope without communication devices pouring forth from every possible connection point in the home, I just can’t remember.
Glad all has worked with extra kudos for defeating the technology….1 up for the human contingent. Good luck with BT, I myself just switched to Sky Broadband with a full two thumbs up.
As for a recieving Hollyoaks in 30 sec incriments…..surely that improved the dialogue and acting to a much more enjoyable experience.