Apsattv
23-11-2007, 10:55 PM
Massive TV transmitters planted around Sussex may be the cause of a digital TV debacle across the county.
Betty and George Field, from Brighton, spent £600 pounds of their savings on a new Panasonic digital TV only to be told they might be too close to the transmitter for their equipment to work.
Mrs Field, 75, said: "The Whitehawk transmitter is almost in our back garden but we cannot get any of the digital channels.
"My husband is almost 80 so I'm worried he might never get the benefit of a digital picture on TV."
The couple bought the TV from Richer Sounds on London Road, Brighton, in September but haven't had so much as a glimpse at the new channels.
Mrs Field said: "We paid the council £8 to take our perfectly good old TV away because we thought everyone had to switch.
"We really looked forward to the documentary channels and George, who is a keyboard player, wanted to see the new music channels.
"But after setting the new one up we were really disappointed to find out it didn't work.
"We called all the helplines and they said we might need to buy a new aerial for £125 or a decoder for £150 but they couldn't guarantee any of them would work.
"At our age we cannot afford to spend money on things that don't work.
"We don't go out on the town. We don't play bingo, drink or smoke. The TV is our thing."
But electronics experts believe the truth is that the Field family's TV may not work because their Tailgate Close home is too close to the supersized TV transmitter planted on Whitehawk Hill.
A member of the technical team at Richer Sounds said: "Often the signal is too strong for aerials close by so you need to buy equipment to calm down the strength of the signal."
Mrs Field said: "It's laughable. We don't like the transmitter anyway. It takes up the whole of the skyline and now it's stopping us getting digital."
The Fields could have spent up to £200, a third of the original price of the TV, trying to work out what was wrong with it.
Richer Sounds admitted they had no way of guaranteeing which piece of equipment people needed or if the problem was in fact to do with the area the customer lives in.
Betty and George Field, from Brighton, spent £600 pounds of their savings on a new Panasonic digital TV only to be told they might be too close to the transmitter for their equipment to work.
Mrs Field, 75, said: "The Whitehawk transmitter is almost in our back garden but we cannot get any of the digital channels.
"My husband is almost 80 so I'm worried he might never get the benefit of a digital picture on TV."
The couple bought the TV from Richer Sounds on London Road, Brighton, in September but haven't had so much as a glimpse at the new channels.
Mrs Field said: "We paid the council £8 to take our perfectly good old TV away because we thought everyone had to switch.
"We really looked forward to the documentary channels and George, who is a keyboard player, wanted to see the new music channels.
"But after setting the new one up we were really disappointed to find out it didn't work.
"We called all the helplines and they said we might need to buy a new aerial for £125 or a decoder for £150 but they couldn't guarantee any of them would work.
"At our age we cannot afford to spend money on things that don't work.
"We don't go out on the town. We don't play bingo, drink or smoke. The TV is our thing."
But electronics experts believe the truth is that the Field family's TV may not work because their Tailgate Close home is too close to the supersized TV transmitter planted on Whitehawk Hill.
A member of the technical team at Richer Sounds said: "Often the signal is too strong for aerials close by so you need to buy equipment to calm down the strength of the signal."
Mrs Field said: "It's laughable. We don't like the transmitter anyway. It takes up the whole of the skyline and now it's stopping us getting digital."
The Fields could have spent up to £200, a third of the original price of the TV, trying to work out what was wrong with it.
Richer Sounds admitted they had no way of guaranteeing which piece of equipment people needed or if the problem was in fact to do with the area the customer lives in.