News

Over the past few days I've received half a dozen calls or so from people living on Westlands as well as the other side of the Westlands ring road in Coppice way and Crofters way areas of Droitwich all complaining of the same thing. I believe this particular bout of TV interference is being emitted from the mobile phone mast postioned on the Berry Hill side of the Kidderminster road just as you head out of Droitwich towards Hampton Lovett, as seen in my photo above, click to enlarge.

Although this mobile phone mast has been located for a while now it appears that it's conversion to 4G took place some time last Sunday (28th of February 2016)

Every time one of these masts gets upgraded to 4G it's only certain households that are affected. Although possible I've still not seen anyone who's had reception issues regarding 4G when they have a simple TV aerial system, in other words a TV Aerial connected directly to a TV.

Add a booster some where in line between the Aerial and TV and the possibility of interference increases greatly, especially if that booster is the one that normally sits at the bottom of the TV Aerial mast, often known as a MHA or Mast Head Amplifier.

Also you would normally need to be within one kilometre radius or so from the mast to receive any interference, your TV Aerial would also need to point North towards the Sutton Coldfield or Bromsgrove transmitters. It is unlikely any TV Aerials which point South towards the Malvern or Ledbury/Ridgehill transmitters will be affected from this particular mobile phone mast.

I've been using the word "interference" but this may give the wrong impression as the first thing anyone will see is a blank TV screen and no TV picture at all, sometimes accompanied with an on screen message which would suggest that there is no TV Aerial signal.

It's interesting in that every time I diagnose a 4G interference problem and despite of the message that's displayed on a TV screen the TV signal is in fact still very much there it's just that the 4G signal is stronger which in turn overloads the amplifier with too much signal knocking out the TV signal.

Sometimes I've been able to simply reduce the gain on the amplifier via the adjustable gain control (if available) or even remove the amplifier altogether, this is perhaps the best solution just so long as there is sufficient TV signal to allow you to do this. There are other methods such as using a filter and or changing the amplifier to a new modern one marked "LTE" which has built in filtering, with every diagnosis I will always try to find the cheapest and easiest solution to the problem first. If after reading this you believe you may have 4G interference then by far the easiest and cheapest solution would be to call At 800 on the number below where the problem should be fixed free of charge.



At 800 - 0808 1313 800​

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For further advice or if for any reason the people on the number above are unable to help then please don't hesitate to contact me on my usual mobile number,
which is - 07850 969 307 during the day or my home number - 01905 799152 between 7pm and 8pm in the evening.​