The digital switchover has begun. In the lake district there are now places in which it is now not possible to receive analogue TV. The old signals have now been replaced with digital Freeview signals. The switchover went seamlessly and put to rest many of the fears which the authorities had about potential chaos. Most homes already had digital TV before the switchover occurred.

The switchover will not come to Oxfordshire until 2011. By then nearly all homes in Oxfordshire will already have digital TV, either via Sky, BBC freesat or freeview from a digital aerial installation – so virtually no one should be left without television pictures. The biggest problem will be small TV’s in kitchens or bedrooms. Many of these are older analogue sets and so after switchover will only show black and white snow. These TV’s will need digiboxes attaching and possibly aerial signals improving before they can be made to work again.

The process of switchover is still being altered slightly as lessons are learnt from each region to be switched, but it will be something like this:

BBC2 analogue and Channel 4 analogue will have a warning message permanently overlaid telling viewers that the service will end in a few weeks. Then BBC2 and channel 4 will go. A few weeks later the other channels will have the same treatment, the digital services will be re-allocated to some of the old analogue frequencies and the switchover will be complete.

Oxford aerials will be here to help with advice and installation work to help everyone through the switchover in our area!