Question about TV from UK (Please help)

Jack G

Hi everybody, great site, first post as a registered user but have been a frequent viewer for ages and have found this section very useful, so hopefully i will find somebody who may be able to answer a technical question for me.

Background - Searched the country high and low to try to buy the old black style tv's (not a huge fan of those new silver ones although i have one already) to absolutely no avail, really wanted a 29" Sony, anyway, discontinued line and cant be got. So in my wisdom, i sourced a second hand one on E-Bay in the UK, bought it, travelled over in my car on the ferry, drove to London, collected it and drove back to Ireland. (Cost an absolute fortune but i had my black 29" Sony tv at last so was delighted). Model serial number being KV-29X5U.

When i went to tune it in, the only channel i could tune in was E4, the only frequency band being UHF (hence the U i presume in the model number). A friend of mine has the exact same TV, so i went to look at his, saw his model is a KV-29X5L as opposed to my KV-29X5U, so i'm presuming the 'L' in his model number is maybe specific to the Irish frequency band etc and allows him to tune in Irish channels.

Anyway, if your not bored to tears at this point, just wondering is there anybody out there with a technical knowledge that knows how or if i can get my TV to read the VHF and L bands to allow me to tune in Irish channels, at the moment it will only tune UHF which only allows me to see E4, or is my 514 euro gone down the drain (TV 155 euro, ferry 289 euro and petrol 70 euro).

Thanks for taking the time for reading this.

kilasser

You could get a converter unit that converts VHF to UHF. Don’t know ware you would get one. I had a look round on the net but found none. Your local tv dealer might be able to source one for you or keep an eye on ebay. Or you could just watch through an Irish VCR.

Hope this is of help.

10000maniacs

All Irish channels have great UHF coverage these days. Maybe stick up a UHF aerial.

Jack G

kilasser wrote:

You could get a converter unit that converts VHF to UHF. Don’t know ware you would get one. I had a look round on the net but found none. Your local tv dealer might be able to source one for you or keep an eye on ebay. Or you could just watch through an Irish VCR.

Hope this is of help.

Thanks very much for replying Kilasser and taking the effort to have a look on the net for a converter (didnt realise such a thing existed), tried routing it through my video as you suggested and yes, it has worked 'perfectly'.

Its not ideal but has thoroughly relieved me as i was sure my money, time and effort in going to the UK was all in vain, thanks so much again

dbran

I think you can get telly converter in Peats of Parnell street. But I think they are relatively expensive and dont always work as well as expected.

There is of course the ol trick of watching tv through your video tuner (assuming that you have an Irish video)

But if you have a digibox then it dosent matter regarding the tuner as the digibox broadcasts by default to a signal that is picked up by uk tvs.

Hope this helps

DMC

This is a Cable TV issue, so... moved to Cable forum.

The tax man

Yeah as stated above,the best way around this is to use an Irish vcr and watch channels through it.
DON'T WASTE MORE MONEY with a convertor. They never work 100%.

BTW welcome to Boards.ie

secret_squirrel

dbran wrote:

I think you can get telly converter in Peats of Parnell street. But I think they are relatively expensive and dont always work as well as expected.

I was in the same boat as the original poster. I used a televerter from peats - it was both expensive and not great. Plus they seem to self distruct after a year or plainly dont work from the word go.

Best solution is the irish video route.

Another workable solution is get a sky dish and box from ebay and stick a freesat card in.- For an initial outlay of approx €200 you will have a good few channels. Only downside is you wont get the Irish channels - but personally I never watch them anyway.

jimbob

I would recommend changing to Digital. Then you will have no problems.

secret_squirrel

jimbob wrote:

I would recommend changing to Digital. Then you will have no problems.

Apart from a bigger bill perchance?