Monday

A bit of a puzzle this morning, I had to go to Sticklepath near Washford where they were receiving a very poor signal from the Midlands. I discounted the Midlands remark, assuming they were just watching the ITV high definition channel, in which case you would get Midlands news. When I got there the main problem was in the Granny annex and was being caused by one of those moulded white aerial leads, they are usually bought from proper job in Minehead and every time I see one I chuck it straight in the bin. That was the poor signal dealt with but I couldn’t work out where the signal was coming from, it wasn’t Mendip, that was for sure. A bit of research and I found it was Ridge Hill near Hereford – Midlands tv! I have no idea how they were getting signal from there but it was a strong signal and we left it at that, although I did promise to return and try to get either Washford or Wenvoe for them.

First call this afternoon was to a tv I had sold an old customer in Watchet, it needed a retune but they said it had a funny picture as well. I wasn’t sure what that could be but it just turned out to be the picture had the wrong aspect ratio, they had been fiddling and a quick reset to 16:9 and all was well.

Then it was up to a property on North Hill where my advice was needed regarding a new tv and possibly mounting it on the wall when it was delivered.

Tuesday

This morning Im was back to a job I’d quoted on last week. I had some new aerial points to put in, one in the kitchen and one in the conservatory. I had sussed out the best way to do it when I called before and it was all fairly straightforward apart from drilling a couple of very hard walls and running two aerial leads around the eaves of what was quite a tall house in the rain.

The afternoon was taken up by one job, I wasn’t sure how long it would take so I made sure nothing else was booked in for today. I had been there a few days ago and found that the aerial system wasn’t connected to the living room, although there were two leads there. I soon found out why, most of the connections into the distribution amp in the loft were not plugged in, but worst of all someone had taken the aerial input and plugged it into an output socket. So once that was sorted out everything worked and it was just a case of setting up the new Humax PVR in the living room and a new tv, Bluray player and a further Humax PVR in the bedroom. Not as complicated or as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Wednesday

A quick retune to start the day followed by a drive out to Higher Vexford where a Sharp tv was displaying a solid red screen, they also wanted to know if the aerial sockets were working correctly. Well the tv was a write off and the sockets all worked well, getting signal from Stockland Hill. One tv in the bedroom needed a new remote control though, so I said I would order one up and get back to her.

I had a new satellite dish to put up in Wheddon cross next. It was a tall building and the the dish had to go right up to the top of the gable end in order to clear the surrounding trees. Luckily he had put a ladder up for me and the dish was soon up, the cabling was a little harder though as it had to go right round the side of the house. Once it was all installed we tried his sky box, all the major channels were now working perfectly but there were a couple of the lesser channels that were still breaking up. I knew it couldn’t be the dish so I tried a new HD box in the place of his old Sky+, that sorted it out and he bought the box off me.

Thursday

I had a lovely property in Bossington Lane to visit this morning. They had just moved in and had their sky set up but wanted signal in other rooms, especially the Mum’s annex. They wanted a simple aerial connection so I said I could either put them on the local Porlock relay or Carmel in South Wales, which would give them more channels. They opted for Porlock, even having an old aerial on the roof that may be of use. To get on the roof I had to go through a trap door in the bathroom and then out through a skylight onto a flat roof, a bit of a job getting all the tools up there. It wasn’t long before I discovered there was no reception from Porlock, probably interference from Kilvey Hill in South Wales, the same transmitter that had been causing havoc in Old Cleeve since last July. So I explained and we put a new aerial up to get her Carmel, they accepted that the news would not be local but there would be plenty of channels. It was a bit of a job to run the cable round the end of the house, with it being very high, then there was the distraction of the postman turning up and wanting to talk about motorbikes. Eventually the lead was in to the Mum’s annex and I set the tv up for her, she was ok with the Welsh news.

An old customer was my first call in the afternoon, I have been looking after her tv’s for many years and now she had no signal on her bedroom tv, there was no problem in the living room as she has sky there but the bedroom is quite important to her as she goes to bed very early. I popped up into the loft expecting the mast head amp to have failed only to find no signal at all off the aerial, so she would need me to call back as soon as possible and fit a new one.

Then it was just a matter of advice regarding mounting a tv on the wall and adding a spur off the aerial to make it work.

Friday

A couple of easy ones this morning, the first one had a dodgy you view receiver, they didn’t need it and so I plugged the aerial straight into the tv, tuned it in and removed the receiver, job done. Then out to Carhampton where the lady was using a set top aerial to get signal from the local relay. The aerial wasn’t working and substituting it with another one she had lying behind the tv got her going.

Back to the harbour in Watchet this afternoon, I had to fit the loft aerial and wall mount the tv for the lady I had visited last week. Easy enough, the reception in the loft, or should I say the cupboard in the loft conversion, was very good, I used a log periodic aerial because of the lack of space in there and it worked very well. I drilled up from the built in wardrobe in the bedroom and dropped the aerial lead down. She asked me to mount the tv on the side of the wardrobe using a swivel bracket and by doing so meant I could hide all the cabling.

Another Watchet call next, a sky dish had moved in the storms, not surprising as it was mounted on a 1″ pole and a 6″ bracket, all very flimsy. I aligned it for her and told her I would probably have to come back at some point and mount it properly, maybe up on the chimney on it’s own wall bracket which would make it more stable.

Just a smart tv to set up and I could go home. That sounds easy but by the time I created accounts and signed them into all the iPlayers I had been there for over an hour!

Saturday

I don’t normally do Saturdays but poor old Pat, who I had visited on Thursday, needed a new aerial for her bedroom telly. Luckily it was a bungalow and from the flat garage roof I could just walk up the tiles to the aerial. Reception was good and I was able to remove the masthead amp in the loft as it was no longer needed.