The Sagem STB was easy to install and was very small in size. However, it wasn’t as solidly built as the Thomson DTI 2300 and the rear panel Scart connectors were not screw anchored for additional protection against possible damage.

The ITD 64 had good sensitivity but failed to pick up the very weakest Freeview signals during our tests (signals that produced a watchable picture on the Humax F2FoxT). Under these extreme reception conditions, the Telecam 10dB signal amplifier did help and many more stations were then received. The threshold for DVB-T reception was in the order of 37dBuV without the amplifier.

Guide Price: £50.00

The Humax PVR-9200T supersedes the popular PVR-8000T model and significantly improves on it. The 160GB hard disk gives around 100 hours of video recording. The second tuner to allow two programmes to be recorded simultaneously.

Ease of Installation
Whilst the 9200T is easy to install, in some cases the high-sensitivity tuner can cause a few installation problems where DVB-T signals from more than one transmitter are received and stored into the PVR-9200T’s channel list. Where such installation problems occur, it is wise to carry out a manual channel installation.
To accomplish this, each DVB-T multiplex channel appropriate to your local transmitter needs to be manually searched and the channel bouquets stored. Six DVB-T multiplexes are currently broadcast in the UK and each has a set UHF channel number. DVB-T multiplex information for all UK regions is available at www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/transmitters.html.

Guide Price: £199.00

The build quality of the Thomson DTI 2300 stands out from the crowd. It is presented in a smart silver box with gold plated rear panel phono sockets and is solidly constructed. Installation was a breeze and the Thomson worked fairly well in poor signal areas.

In use the DTI 2300 produced excellent picture quality and whilst the tuner wasn’t quite as sensitive as the Humax F2FoxT, it managed to receive some channels with a very poor 38dbuV DVB-T Freeview aerial signal. Access to radio channels was more difficult with the Thomson receiver as there wasn’t a separate radio station button on the handset. However, the Thomson did receive all the digital radio channels and these could always be added to user programmable Favourite lists if required.

Guide Price:  £30

The Goodmans GDB3 is a budget set-top box. It is extremely basic in design with average build quality and unsecured Scart connectors on the rear panel. The product is supplied with a very poor quality unscreened Scart cable which causes noticeable picture interference (visible as moving lines) caused by in-cable crosstalk. To add to this, there’s a single screened coaxial interconnect cable to connect the STB to the TV antenna socket. This also picks up significant interference from the GDB3 electronics causing patterning on terrestrial TV channels.

It seems easy to find dissatisfied GDB3 owners on the web, many of whom complain about the GDB3 losing stored Freeview channels. The same owner reviews also complain bitterly about lack of software updates to fix problems and poor after sales support from Goodmans.

Guide Price: £40.00

The Telecam TV antenna is a high gain Log Periodic style antenna covering all UHF TV channels. It’s compatible with all UK analogue and Freeview digital TV services. Installation was simple, with around 10dB of signal amplification available from the supplied low-noise amplifier. The amplifier is conveniently housed in a separate box which can easily be hidden behind the TV. The build quality of both the aerial and the amplifier is very good.

Sensibly, the Telecam antenna can be used with or without the signal amplifier, so the design suits both strong reception areas and locations where reception is more difficult. A comparison of the aerial with and without the amplifier inline clearly shows the benefits of using the amplifier in reducing picture grain on analogue TV and improving Freeview reception in fringe locations. In fact,

Guide Price: £19.99
Supplier: Argos

The One For All SV9310 is similar in appearance to an on-glass car phone antenna. It’s a simple unobtrusive design which takes up little space and looks tidy in appearance. In practice the SV9310 works well as a Freeview DVB-T and analogue TV antenna, but with a few limitations.

Firstly, it isn’t a directional beam antenna, so it works better in locations where ghosting and multipath reception are not significant issues. Secondly, the 18dB amplifier overloads easily so viewers who live close to a TV transmitter may suffer patterning of analogue TV pictures and Freeview picture breakup.

Guide Price: £19.95
Suppliers: Maplins

The One For All SV9340 is an indoor antenna with the appearance of a quality picture frame. The antenna incorporates a low noise 18dB signal amplifier and comes supplied with 2m of coaxial cable. The picture frame antenna is powered by a small, low voltage external mains power supply.

The antenna looks good and has significant visual appeal over conventional set-top antennas. Unfortunately we had some problems with the antenna, possibly due to us receiving a faulty test sample.

During testing, the signal amplifier in our particular Picture Frame antenna became unstable, wiping out any form of TV reception. Occasionally the stability problem with the amplifier cleared sufficiently to reveal reasonably good analogue reception, but the self generated interference caused by the fault was sufficient to prevent reliable Freeview DVB-T and DAB radio reception.

Guide Price: £19.99
Suppliers: John Lewis