[terrykc]

Originally Posted by GMB

... I don't recall that all the UHF users had to completely retune their sets on the exact day of the 405-line service being switched off ...

Well, you wouldn't, would you ...?

I gave a talk on DSO recently to a group of mainly 60+ year olds and this was one of two important things I had to stress. The other is that it is not optional ...

Knowing that I would be giving this talk, I carried out a survey (of the same audience) about three months ago to assess their level of understanding. I saw one woman glance at it and say to her friend "This doesn't concern me - I'm perfectly happy with the five channels I've got" before handing the sheet to her, she, in turn, glanced at it, nodded, and passed it on to the next table.

The problem is that, when DTT was launched in 1998 (as OnDigital), it was promoted primarily as a premium subscription service rather than as a way to view more free services. Thus it missed one audience completely and lost out to the other as most people who were interested in premium subscription services already had them from Sky or cable.

Even when finally relaunched as Freeview, it was only ever promoted as an option, and that is the bit that has stuck in most people's minds.

A pamphlet - Senior London - I picked up in the library says that DSO is the biggest change since the introduction of colour - entirely wrong, as DSO is the greatest change ever.

Originally Posted by ppppenguin

but apparently I'll be putting DSO in historical context.

This is the option I adopted - after all, I could hardly stand up for the best part of an hour saying things like 'there is no such thing as digital aerial' over and over again! - so I went back exactly 100 years from Crystal Palace DSO to April 1912, when the wireless was digital ...

From the spark transmitter on the Titanic I went on a whistle stop tour - 2MT - BBC - Baird - Marconi-EMI - Arthur C Clark - VHF/FM - ITV - Telstar - BBC2 - Colour before ending up with DTT and explaining the options available.

I could then point out that, if anybody still had a working radio from the early days of the BBC, it would still receive broadcasts. A TV from 1936 could still have been receiving programmes - albeit only on one channel - for 49 years. That no-one said in 1953 that you had to buy a VHF radio or, in 1955, that you had to be able to receive ITV. Similarly, BBC2 in 1964 or, in 1967 that you had to buy a colour TV. DSO, however, cannot be ignored ...

One aspect of DSO which particularly annoys me is the use of bully boy tactics in the advertising campaign - YOU WILL LOSE YOUR TV CHANNELS IN APRIL - and suchlike, with little or no explanation, scaring some people - particularly the elderly - witless and easily ripped off by the unscrupulous.