Getting the full picture

Over the Winter, on days that were particularly wet and windy, I found my evening television viewing interrupted by a break-up of the digital signal. Roundly cursing the quality of digital broadcasting, I would turn off the box and listen to a CD and read a book instead.

This last Sunday it happened again, and every channel I tried to watch was jumping, spitting and breaking up into static coloured blocks. Moving over to the TV I leant over the top of the set, as I usually do to access the On/Off button, and noticed some drops of water behind the unit on the shelf. They appeared to be underneath where the aerial cable entered the set, so I pulled out the aerial plug and found that there was rain water running down the inner core of the cable. Water is certainly not conducive to a good picture, and not safe either, so the set got turned off and the cable left lying in the fireplace.

Today an engineer called and fitted a new aerial on the roof - the old one was falling off the chimney anyway, and was very rusty - and a new cable right the way through, branching off to give two new points in two of the upstairs bedrooms. Guests will now be happy, and so am I, for although it wasn't particularly inexpensive to have done, the signal is now at full strength instead of the quarter strength is was before, and I have been able to put away the small indoor aerials that were up in the bedrooms, and which were not particularly effective anyway.

And I shall now be able to relax in the sitting room and view in safety when it's raining!