cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
hen
Mentor

Free to air has vanished

Hi

I have lost all my free-to-air channels.

I have unplugged absolutely everything, reset the connection, scanned for channels, reset the factory settings.

I can receive Entertainment and Sky Sports.

My credit card is valid.

 

I know I can use the channels through the various apps but the free-to-air channels are much easier to trawl through.

 

Am I missing something obvious. Any suggestions?

7 REPLIES 7
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @hen 

 

I am assuming you are using the NOW Freeview Smart box with a TV aerial plugged into the back of it ?

 

See if anything in this similar recent thread helps in anyway.

 

https://community.nowtv.com/t5/NOW-TV-Box-black/NOW-box-says-the-channel-map-is-empty-and-won-t-let-... 

hen
Mentor

I have the black square box with blue NOW TV logo on the top.

 

I have tried the aerial in the back of the TV but there was no picture, it just said 'no signal'.

 

My TV is a Panasonic that I brought back from The Netherlands when I moved back quite a few years ago, could your comment in the thread you flagged up - I know there is a major reshuffle on the over the air Freeview channels via a TV aerial on the 26th of January 2022 - have messed it up (therefore is a new TV on the horizon??). 

 

Why can I get Entertainment and Skysports, do they not necessarily need an aerial through the box, if the aerial is the problem?

 

schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @hen 

 

I don't know if your Panasonic TV purchased from the Netherlands would be compatible or not with Freeview in the UK.

 

Have you tried a retune on the Panasonic TV to see if it can pick up any UK channels after you have plugged the TV aerial into the back of it ?

 

The NOW Entertainment and NOW Sports is delivered over the internet and not via the TV aerial.

 

You need to focus on the TV aerial and the TV aerial wiring (have you double checked if the TV aerial hasn't moved or if it's an outside aerial blown down in the high winds).

hen
Mentor

Well I have had free-to-air up until last weekend.

 

I'll see if I can see the aerial on the roof tomorrow and also have a look at where the aerial comes into the flat. 

 

Fingers crossed. 

RoyB
Legend

@hen 

 

Ah flat - do you have your own aerial, or share a communal one?

 

If the latter, see if your neighbours are similarly affected; and even if not, get on to whoever supports the building to query this.

 

We brought a TV back from Spain a few years ago; because Spain sends HD over DVB-T, it didn’t need, and didn’t have, a DVB-T2 tuner so couldn’t get HD in the UK, but SD was fine.

 

These are the sorts of incompatibilities you may find with TVs brought from another country, even European ones.

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
hen
Mentor

Hi 

 

I solved the problem yesterday, thank you.

 

I do have a communal aerial and nobody else was having a problem. Then my brother reminded me that I had another aerial socket on the opposite side of the room, and to try that one (I could always change my lounge around, he said, typical brother!) 

 

However, in order to get to it I had to move a complete bookcase but it turns out that that aerial socket is the actual one for the flat and someone had run an extension over to the other side of the room where I had my TV plugged in. The cable connecting the two sockets had come out of the metal connector that was in the original socket, rendering the extension socket dead!.  

 

So I'm all up and running again and my bookcase got a clean!!!

 

Thanks for offering some advice.

 

 

 

 

redchiz1
Champion 2

I am brother to a sister like you, she doesn't appreciate my advice either!  Glad you got it sorted. 🙂