I’ve been in N.E. Spain for several years and only use Spanish TV for the weather in the mornings and the Premiership football on Saturdays. All analogue is going off on 12-01-2010. I’ve bought and installed a TDT aerial (same as my neighbour’s). My old analogue aerial had been breaking up with the tramontanas anyway.
My query is: do I need a TDT decoder? Also, I’ve taken the aerial lead from the old aerial and put it straight onto the new TDT aerial. Is this OK? (I did try a cheap Tesco decoder box but it wouldn’t pick up any signals - it was worth trying).
Any advice will gratefully received, please.

it is also a good idea to install a masthead amplifier and power supply, or if your system already has one, check to make sure it is all working (ie power light in the power supply for example).

also think about the cable system in the house, as if it breaks ff into 10 different rooms then you will lose some of the “strength” of the signal.

and make sure your aerial is set up correctly - normally for TDT the aerials “wings” are top and bottom, not left and right.

TVE has lost the rights to UK football from next season, and D+ (Spains satellite service) has them for the next 3 seasons, and so will be showing them on D+ subscription tv and on GOLtv (so you will either need a TDT receiver that is capable of reading a GOLTV viewing card, or a TV with a PCMAI card slot of a GOLTV card reader and viewing card)

Also check tdt1.es and / or tdt.com for your TDT transmitter locations…the latter allows you to input your postcode and location and tell you what services you should be able to receive (although it is a bit slow in mentioning “local” retransmitter sites!)

Thank you gentlemen, very helpful. One thing, when I connected the new aerial I disconnected the amplifier I have indoors (there is still a box connected on the aerial mast) on the presumption that any decoding box needed might conflict, electrically, with it. Am I now to understand that if I re-connect the amplifier I should be able to receive the digital signals? At this point in time I am receiving the analogue channels (somewhat weaker because I disconnected the amplifier, but I can still get the weather) via the new ‘digital’ aerial.
Sorry to be a pain, but if I don’t need to buy any more equipment I won’t.

krisani - 30 December 2009 10:01 PM

Thank you gentlemen, very helpful. One thing, when I connected the new aerial I disconnected the amplifier I have indoors (there is still a box connected on the aerial mast) on the presumption that any decoding box needed might conflict, electrically, with it. Am I now to understand that if I re-connect the amplifier I should be able to receive the digital signals? At this point in time I am receiving the analogue channels (somewhat weaker because I disconnected the amplifier, but I can still get the weather) via the new ‘digital’ aerial.
Sorry to be a pain, but if I don’t need to buy any more equipment I won’t.

You may have to use the amplifer and poewr supply,  but for the digital signals you will require an aerial configure the correct way (“wings” top and bottom). This is a different configuration to the analogue aerial (wings at the sides).

So if you get one aerial you will only be bale to receive digital OR analogue, not both.
Hence why some houses have two aerial for both systems, as some local regional channels will not be on TDT for a while yet.

You can always try the system without the amplifier first, see how that goes (its a good system if you should be gettng approx 30 digital channels),

If you do not get the 30 ish channel, try it with the amplifer on, and see if you receive more channels - if you do not then it will be that your amplifer / powersupply is no good and you may need a new one.