This is a detailed account of what happened when we asked Sat-Insta (who as far as I can make out consists essentially of Paul Kemeni ) to fix a fault with our TV signal reception. Read it and draw your own conclusions.
Thur 24th Jul
Before anyone came to look at the aerial, our set up was:
The aerial fed into a digital recorder
The output from the digital recorder fed into the TV.
There was no problem at all with BBC1 or BBC2. On ITV1, Channel 4 & Channel 5 the picture and audio 'froze' every few seconds and then restarted, with a sort of squeaky/grinding noise on the audio. Some of the other channels were as per BBC1/BBC2, some were as per ITV1.
Fri 25th Jul
Paul came to do what repair work was necessary and said (as we expected) that we would need a new aerial. He fitted one. After that, the digital recorder no longer showed any picture. He scanned for channels and it found none. He said that we would need to download any saved programs, if possible, then reset to factory default and scan again. He unplugged the line from the digital recorder and plugged it in to the TV. This worked. He said that the picture was OK, but that we would get a better one with a signal booster. We found this surprising as, when we originally had the aerial installed, the technician at that time put in something to physically raise the aerial and threw to one side the booster we had been using, saying "You won't need that any more"; and he was correct, we didn't.
Paul asked for payment by direct transfer, which I did. A short while afterwards, a woman (who, from my later reading of reviews on a website, I am guessing was his wife and business partner) rang to ask for our email address, so that she could send an invoice. This never appeared.
Sat 26th Jul
The TV worked fine.
Sun 27th Jul
I switched the TV on and it simply displayed the message 'Poor signal' on all channels.
Mon 28th Jul
I phoned Paul. He again said we would need a booster, but after some discussion he agreed to come round again "between 3 and 5 tomorrow".
Later I realised that we already had a booster for the small TV we have upstairs, with an indoor aerial. This TV shows nothing without the booster, and a good signal on most channels with it. I tried this on the main TV. The result was still the same - "Poor signal" on all channels.
I realised that, even if Paul managed to get the picture on the TV again, we would still not be able to use the digital recorder, and I had lost whatever faith I had previously had in his advice to reset it to factory default and start again: so we looked elsewhere. I found that the Oldham Trading Standards website has a feature which aims to list only reliable businesses ( http://www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk/Search/BWCPages/FindABusiness.aspx) so I rang one of the installers listed there and left a message.
Tue 29th Jul
I phoned Paul and said that I did not want him to come round as I had added the signal booster and still the TV was saying "Poor signal"; therefore I had lost whatever faith I had in his competence.
Someone from the other installers agreed to come round. He had a look at the installation, and asked if Paul had replaced the cable; I said no. He pointed out that the cable (which was fixed to the side of the house, low down) had come loose and in places was lying on the ground.
He went up the ladder to the aerial. When he came down he said that the signal at the head of the aerial was 45db, whereas at the TV end of the cable it was 25db. He recommended replacing both the cable and Paul's aerial; he charged the same price as Paul, and was considerably cheaper than prices I had seen quoted on the Internet. He did the work, and plugged the cable into the TV; it was necessary to re-scan for signals, but once this was done it was fine. He then unplugged the cable from the TV and plugged it into the digital recorder: it worked straight away. So much for Paul's suggestion to reset it to factory defaults and re-scan. Nor do we need a booster - the audio and vision are both fine now. read more
