I seem to be going through a spell of ‘service meltdown’ and I’m beginning to wonder who has got it in for me…
We’re on the Freeview television system which has suddenly stopped giving us any television stations.
After yesterday’s problems with BT Broadband, I suspected the blame lay somewhere in BT’s domain, but a quick telephone call to the BT Vision helpdesk soon told me the problem was with the Oxford television transmitter.
A little bit of googling told me that the people I needed to speak to were an outfit called DigitalUK.
Cue one telephone call to DigitalUK’s call centre which was answered by an avuncular male voice:
Me: Hello! I’m calling to tell you that all of our television channels seem to have disappeared.
Him: Ah. That could be irritating. Where do you live?
Me: Witney, Oxfordshire.
Him: [beat] All I can say is, you’re not alone. [beat] [beat] The engineers are carrying out some work on your local digital television transmitter. While they’re doing this you will be unable to receive the normal range of stations.
Me: Tell me more.
Him: According to the information I have, the engineers have been working on your local television transmitter, they are in the process of switching from the reserve transmitter to the main transmitter. While they’re doing this, everything has been switched to low power.
Me: Well that makes a kind of sense. Is there an expected date for completion?
Him: It says ‘by the end of the week’.
Me: Thank you very much.
And the story ends there. Except no, it really doesn’t because an hour later I picked up this message via Twitter:
It’s been confirmed a fire at the main TV transmitter site has left almost 400,000 homes across Oxfordshire without a TV signal.
Something hasn’t gone too well in the switch-over, methinks.
I’m not going bonkers about this. It is, after all, only television and – frankly – we really don’t watch very much live television.
But if anyone is looking in, wanting to know why you can’t get any television stations in Oxfordshire, at least you know now.
Oh yes, and ‘hello’ to any new readers who may have arrived here by the power of google.
I knew they were doing the work, because we’ve had only patchy coverage on half the channels since early February now, not that they gave us any forewarning for that.
And now, just as they’re almost finished they set fire to the whole bloody lot 🙁
Crikey, I was just about to write a post about my lack of TV signal, after a neighbour came round and complained about theirs. It seems that the whole of Oxfordshire is without TV.
That comment about the TV Transmitter being on fire made me laugh….. the net result of a day’s worth of BT Engineers ‘improving’ the signal.
The great god of technology has looked at Brennig Jones and has decided to beast him.
Only explanation of current events.
“It is, after all, only television”
Only? Telly is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.
It informs and educates. It entertains and enlightens. It’s comfort for the lonely and essential for the bed-ridden. It keeps the kids quiet for half an hour whilst you tidy the house up. And it’s kept me in gainful employment for the past 17 years.
When BT knock off your broadband again and it’s too wet to go out on the gee-gees and you’ve run out of the Kleenex Man Size, you won’t be saying that it’s only telly then, will you, eh?