Help Receiving TV and Radio

This website has been designed to assist you with any problems you may have receiving BBC Television and Radio services. This information will help you determine if your own equipment or aerial is the cause.

Sometimes it's difficult to know whether the problem is due to interference or poor reception, but it's important to try to find out, as the causes and solutions are quite different.

Reception problems are normally the responsibility of either the householder or the broadcaster to overcome, depending on where the problem lies. Common causes of reception problems include:

• Equipment or installation faults
• Trees or buildings blocking reception
• Signals being reflected from buildings, structures or hills
• Weather-related problems
• Transmitter work or faults

If you’ve had the problem continuously for some time, and especially if it is not affecting neighbours using their own aerials, it is likely to be a reception problem, not interference.

If the problem occurs intermittently but reception is otherwise good, and it affects your neighbours’ reception at the same time in the same way, it’s more likely to be interference.