D-day

More and more often the local newspaper goes on about D-day, the day that France will go digital. On D-day “someone” will turn a switch somewhere, and from that day on the broadcasting of analogue TV signals will stop and will be replaced by the broadcasting of digital TV signals only. If your TV is older than a couple of years, tough. Most expats here have a satellite dish, so they will not have a problem. However, we, old-fashioned as we are, have an aerial in the attic as old as Methusalem, and an analogue TV. In order not to be deprived of France 1, 2 and 3 in the future, we went to “Boulanger”, asked for information, and went home with a decoding box of € 30 under our arm. At home we installed the box, and yes, as we had feared, no more signal.
Through the grape vine we had heard, that there was a shop in Cluny specialised in digitalisation. The same grape vine had told us, that there were various possibilities : a) our aerial was too old, b) that it was pointed at the wrong transmitter, and c) that there was too much interference of hills or forests to receive a digital signal. We made an appointment in the shop, discussed the possibilities of old or new aerials or a satellite dish, and went home. The engineer of the shop turned up on the day of the appointment, and it turned out that the guy did not even have to see the aerial. He only switched on the TV to see which channels we received, and from that he could deduce that we were pointed at Mont Saint-Vincent. They presently transmit digital and analogue; however, the digital signal is not (yet) transmitted in our direction. His advice was : wait till around D-day; if the box does not work by that time, obviously there is too much interference or too few people this way to start broadcasting in our direction. In that case Sarkozy will most likely take care, that we will get a subsidy either to have a new higher aerial or a satellite dish. So with a bit of luck, the French state might pay (partially) for our satellite dish!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle