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Freeview channel number changes

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  • Posted at 11:15am
  • 23 August 2008
  • by DoctorDigital-RT
  • 5 comments

Q RT lists More4 as Freeview channel 14, when in fact it's Freeview 13; and E4 as Freeview 29 (rather than 14). I don't know how many other channels are given the wrong Freeview number…
Pilar Lizana, via email

A With apologies to readers who have seen this query answered in Radio Times before: the channel numbers on our listings pages are correct! But sometimes, if a channel's Freeview number changes (as Channel 4's digital channels did last year), your digibox might not register it and will keep displaying the old numbers.

To put it right you need to retune your box. How to do this varies from box to box, but if you press Menu/Set-Up and look for an option to "rescan", "retune", "search", "find channels" or similar, you should find a way to make the digibox check its channel numbers from scratch and update them. Your box will then match the numbers listed in RT.

**

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Comments

  • Posted on 27 May 2009
  • at 3:03pm
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

Usually it means your aerial has been knocked. Is it a rooftop aerial or a set top one? Rooftop ones are less likely to be nudged but they're also more of a pain to check out. You could switch off Freeview and look at straight terrestrial broadcasts, if you're not in an area that's switched over.

If it's a set top aerial, just try moving it. In the future Freeview signals will be much stronger (they're handicapped now by having to not interfere with normal terrestrial signals) and it could be that you happen to be in a place where reception is delicate. If that's true for you, you'll also find that it depends on the time of day what channels are affected.

For anyone reading this who's just considering Freeview and now suspects it's a fragile thing, it isn't usually. My office happens to be in a bad patch and my set top aerial in here is an ancient and cheap affair so I'll have some of these problems at my desk but never any on my TV set in the living room.

One other possibility. If it's not your aerial, try retuning your digibox. There have been channels shuffling around in the last few months, though not BBC or ITV. It's possible that forcing the box to look again will sort it out.

  • Posted on 27 May 2009
  • at 2:16pm
  • by Jo Vale

Hi, there is no signal on my freeview box from BBC1 or BBC2. It is a recording freeview box about two years old. Yesterday it didn't receive ITV, today it does, but says 'no signal' for BBC 1 and BBC2. If aerial cable is plugged straight into the TV it works?

  • Posted on 30 March 2009
  • at 11:09am
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

FAO Derek - Check your aerial: it's unusual to lose only the channels from one company but it did just happen to me - and it was the ITV stations that went.

  • Posted on 29 March 2009
  • at 8:48pm
  • by Derek

Using a Toshiba set top digibox since 25th March I've lost all ITV programmes. Have retuned and did software update, to no effect. Can you please help or make any suggestions.

  • Posted on 27 March 2009
  • at 7:53pm
  • by ejays

why have all the numbers changed on freeview bbc1 is now 800?

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