I had a conversation with my 93 year old Aunt at the weekend, she told me that ‘someone’ had said to her that she needed a new television by the end of the summer as her current one would not work after the Analogue/Digital TV change over!
I do wonder whether the government really cares about its citizens anymore, clearly there is not enough information flowing out of government channels to make sure that people (particularly the elderly) fully understand what the change over is about, what it means to them and how they will be affected. I think I’ve seen some of the TV adverts on the BBC about it, but even for my quick eyes it all seems to pass me by with out conveying any real information.
Of course there is a lot to find out on the BBC web site, but unfortunately my Aunt, like many 90+ year olds are not using the web, she also does not take the Radio or any other TV times, relying instead on her daily newspaper for TV channel information.
So how do you find out the required information, maybe the government hope that anyone over a certain age will not be here to need to help! Perhaps they have created, published, printed and distributed already the piles of information about this and my Aunt missed it!
My look around the web found…
- A web page from UKFreeTV.TV with a lot of information about various aspects of the change over.
- A full list of analogue transmitter shutdown dates divided up into to regions, my Aunt lives in Derbyshire, so she has till 2011 before she will loose the analogue signal.
- A map that also show you how this change over will progress over the UK, but of course only available to Web users.
- The BBC information page for Digital TV and Radio with a Postcode search facility to se if you can receive the digital signal.
- Ricability – an independent consumer research organisation (commissioned by the Department for Trade and Industry – DTI) with a number of pages that discuss and recommend various products such as Digital Set-Top boxes, Aerial and Digital TV’s. Interesting that Which was not commissioned as I have never heard of Ricability, however it looks like they have a great deal of good info.
I am sure that there are many other sites that offer information, but again my 94 year old Aunt has no Internet access so how does she and I am sure many thousands of other similar people find about what they need and prevent themselves from being the target of unscrupulous TV related experts.
Beasley's Place 