News tagged 'digital tv switchover'

In April 2012, the Crystal Palace transmitter switched to digital and many Londoners came along to advice points to get some friendly support from staff and volunteers.

Digital Outreach and lead organisations Age Concern Slough and Berkshire East, Surrey Community Action, Voluntary Action Within Kent, COVER, East London CVS, Ealing CVS, and South London CVS ran 29 advice points during the switchover.

Advice point staff met with a total of 3,454 visitors, many of whom returned to thank them for the advice and let them know that they were sorted.

A big thank you to all our partners for the fantastic support provided to help make sure the switchover was a success for everyone.

Here are some stories from the day.

Michael

Michael, a gentleman in his late 50s / early 60s came in with his son for some advice about how to connect up his equipment and re-tune. The staff went through this with him, and he went away to try. 

However he returned later in his car, bringing with him 2 digiboxes, a digital recorder, the remotes and about 20 Scart leads and cables. He had struggled to connect things up at home and had thought the cables might be faulty so kept replacing them. The staff showed him how to connect all of the equipment up to the TV at the advice point, and the man had a practice and also practised re-tuning. He went away knowing exactly what to do with his equipment and
confident he could manage.

Language no barrier to advice point team!

One of the advice point staff who is from Columbia gave advice and a demonstration in Spanish to an Argentinian lady who was on her way to a French lesson!

The lady spoke four languages, but little English. However, she and Diessy, a volunteer from Columbia, both spoke Spanish.

The lady returned after DSO1 to say she was delighted with the advice she had
been given - she thought she would never be able to re-tune, but she did.

Martha

Martha, an 84-year-old Irish lady, came into the advice point in Acton Library (run by Ealing CVS) about re-tuning her TV. The advice point staff talked Martha through the general re-tuning process and told her to come back with her remote and instructions for more detailed information if she struggled – Martha had no phone so she wasn’t able to ring any of the helplines. 

Martha returned the next day with her remote and instructions in hand, and Alison at the advice point went through them all in great detail, making sure she knew what the menus looked like and how to use the arrow keys. Alison wrote down each step on Martha's instructions so she would be able to remember when she got home.

Martha felt confident that she would be able to re-tune and was happy to stay and talk to the advice point team, telling them about her early life in Ireland.

In March, three more transmitter groups in the Meridian TV region switched to digital – Midhurst, Whitehawk Hill and Rowridge.

Lead organisations Action in Rural Sussex, Community Action Hampshire and Age Concern Isle of Wight ran 12 advice points over 4 days during the two stages of switchover. Friendly, knowledgeable staff and volunteers, together with colleagues from Digital Outreach and Carillion, helped over 1,500 people with enquiries, giving them reassurance and practical support.

A big thank you to all the staff and volunteers who helped support so many people, and congratulations to the lead organisations on organising such a fantastic set of advice points.

The photo above shows Mrs Ayles practising re-tuning with volunteer Rowena Tyler at the Chichester advice point.

Here are a couple of stories from the advice points.

‘B’ is thrilled with support received

'B' was having problems with her TV, and her friend recommended that she pop down to the advice point, as she had been in herself the day before and said the team had been very helpful.

Hollie Watson (Community Action Hampshire) sat with B while she explained what her problem was. She had brought her remote control with her to show what buttons she had been pressing and talked Hollie and the volunteer through
what she thought she had to do, but she said nothing was working. She had mentioned that as she was on the verge of paying someone to come and do it for her as she was convinced she was doing something wrong!

One of the volunteers supporting the Romsey Advice Point, Roger, is also an Age Concern volunteer and had been conducting home visits to help people with re-tuning and other things around the home. He could see that B was quite distressed and offered to go home with her to do the re-tune. The volunteer wrote down very clear instructions for B, and when the second stage of switchover came, she was able to re-tune by herself.

B was thrilled. She had worked as a volunteer herself in the past and appreciated the support she had been given so much that after the switchover, she sent a letter to of thanks to Hollie to thank Roger, saying “I cannot tell you how much I appreciated his help and time, given so generously”.

Roger gets advice so he can help re-tune friends' TVs

Roger visited the Lymington Advice Point to enquire about the help he had given to a friend in adjusting and re-tuning her televisions. He had managed the main TV, but was baffled by the second. A different brand of television make and range of cables had confused him; he eventually found the re-tuning menu but was unable to complete the process even though he had tried several times.

Asking Roger a few questions, the advice point staff found that his friend had a main TV aerial and a separate Sky dish which was acting as an aerial for the second TV. The team suggested that Roger could look to see if it was possible to connect the TV using a normal aerial cable and connectors and then convert it with a digibox. They reassured Roger that he could also phone Digital UK if he needed further advice. Roger was very enthused and said he wanted to try and do it himself and would come back and let the team know.

Roger returned at the end of the day to share his success – just as the team were helping their last customer of the day, who turned out to be another friend of Roger’s! This lady had been in twice before about re-tuning and had been unsuccessful – so he offered to help her too.

The Hannington transmitter was the first in the Meridian TV region to switch to digital this year, with many households in Hampshire, Berkshire and Surrey being able to receive digital TV for the first time.

Lead organisation Community Action Hampshire organised advice points in easy to access community venues in Basingstoke, Andover, Newbury and Alton. They were held over four days – two at stage one of the switchover and two a fortnight later at the second stage.

Over the two switchover dates, staff and volunteers gave help and reassurance to over 550 people. Most of the enquiries were about re-tuning, equipment and TV signal, and the advice point staff did a great job of building people’s confidence, with several people coming back to the advice point delighted to report they had managed to re-tune successfully!  

Thanks to everyone who put in so much hard work during the first switchover of the year – here are some of the stories from the four days.

Mrs Pruden – Blue Onion cafe, Andover

Mrs Pruden, a grandmother in the Andover area, visited the advice point at the Blue Onion cafe on the first day of switchover.  The next day, she came back to the cafe and told staff that she had managed to re-tune her TV herself by following the advice they had given.

Later, Mrs Pruden received a call from her son, whose son had said to him: "Dad, I think you should call Granny as she has no idea how to re-tune and we should drop round and do it for her". When Mrs Pruden told her son that she didn't need any help as she had sorted it out herself, he asked how she could possibly have done it. She said "The man at the Blue Onion told me what to do". She returned to the advice point two weeks later to tell the advice point staff of her delight at being able to show to her son and grandson that she was quite competent.

Christine -  Newbury Library

In early January, the Community Council for Berkshire (CCB) visited the Eight Bells for Mental Health Drop In as an end user event. The drop in provides a place for people with mental health issues to meet for lunch and activities.  It was at the end user event that CCB met Christine, who is 58 and mobile but has learning difficulties and mental health issues which cause her to feel anxious about change. She attends the Eight Bells for Mental Health drop in four days a week and finds it provides great support to her. Christine told CCB that she was very worried about the switchover but did not have her Help Scheme letter with her at the time. CCB advised her to come to the advice point, which she did.

Christine has a digital TV in her living room but an analogue one in her bedroom which needs converting. She brought her letter to the advice point and the staff rang the Help Scheme for her as she was nervous of doing so. They arranged for an engineer to visit on 14 February. Christine was delighted and thanked everyone.

‘Sandra’ – Basingstoke Library

One lady visitor, ‘Sandra’, who can hear but cannot speak, saw the advert in the local paper and came in to the advice point with her TV manual and a picture of her remote control. Because of her medical condition, Sandra had not been able to phone the advice lines and she didn’t have a textphone, so she had previously not been able to communicate with anyone about the switchover.  She wrote down her questions to the staff, and they spent as much time as was needed working through her queries. She was very pleased to have been able to get some help at the advice point, and went home to re-tune her TV.

Pat – Alton community centre

Pat, an older lady, came in to the advice point to ask about retuning her telly. She was quite upset and not feeling confident to do it on her own. The Advice Point team gave her demo on the TV and talked her through the re-tuning leaflet. A short while later, Pat returned and was upset because the instructions in the booklet didn’t work for her set-up. The team advised her to either come back to the advice point with the manual for her TV so they could write down the exact instructions, or phone Digital UK so they could talk her through the process while she was in front of her TV.

The team noticed that Pat had only gone as far as the bustling community centre café, where she stopped to talk to another visitor, the mother of Miranda who was the lady on reception. One of team spoke to Miranda about their concerns for Pat as they were unsure she could confidently manage on her own and to find out if there were any local volunteers who could help her. It turned out that Miranda’s mum is a friend of Pat’s and is always helping her out, and the team could hear her in the café telling Pat that it wasn’t that complicated and not to worry.

We are very pleased to be working with a fantastic set of well known and trusted organisations in the Tyne Tees TV region to make sure everyone gets the support they need to prepare for the digital TV switchover, which takes place in the region this September.

North Tyneside VODA, Wansbeck CVS, Age UK County Durham (pictured below), Tees Valley Rural Community Council and North Yorkshire and York Forum will be engaging local groups to support them to provide information and advice to end users. They will offer free training, access to a small grants scheme and free materials to local groups, enabling them to give advice to their end users at existing events and activities in the community about how to switch to digital TV and what help is available.

To reach people who don’t have contact with community groups and who are eligible for the Switchover Help Scheme, volunteers from Tees Valley RCC and Circles Network will work with trusted individuals in local communities, such as local shopkeepers and mobile hairdressers, who are aware of the people in their community who might need some extra support to access the Help Scheme.

The organisations have had extensive training from Digital Outreach, Digital UK and the Switchover Help Scheme, and are ready to start spreading the word!

If you are supporting people in the Tyne Tees region, please get in touch with the organisation covering your area.

Contact details

North Tyneside VODA - covering Tyne and Wear
Lynne Craggs
lynne.craggs@voda.org.uk
0191 643 2633

Tees Valley Rural Community Council – covering Teesside and Darlington
Andrew Samuel
asamuel@teesvalleyrcc.org.uk
01642 201 096

Wansbeck CVS – covering Northumberland
Anne Kidd
anne.kidd@wansbeckcvs.org.uk
01670 856 587

North Yorkshire and York Forum – covering North Yorkshire
Claire Petty
claire.petty@nyyforum.org.uk
01347 825710 

Age Concern County Durham – covering County Durham
Mark Dunne-Willows
mark.dunne-willows@ageukcountydurham.org.uk
0191 374 6363



2011 was a very busy year for everyone working on the digital TV switchover. Transmitters covering 10.5 million homes across the Anglia, Central, STV, and Yorkshire TV regions switched to digital, and preparations began in the London and Meridian TV regions too.

Our partners on the ground did a brilliant job of engaging their local networks of community groups and volunteers, making sure that people who might struggle with the switchover were given the support and information they needed to cope. It’s thanks to them that we managed to reach so many people and achieve such great results.

We commissioned and trained well-known, trusted local voluntary and community sector organisations in each TV region who:

• briefed over 2,000 organisations about switchover and how they could help the people they support
• trained nearly 4,000 individuals so they could cascade the information and advice within their organisations, networks, volunteers and service users gave talks about switchover at over 4,500 community events and activities, reaching nearly 300,000 people
• ran advice points in 81 locations at the point of switchover, providing help and reassurance to over 10,000 people  
• gave one-to-one, face-to-face support to over 100,000 people.

To reach those who do not attend events and activities in their community and are more isolated, volunteers managed to engage an amazing 57,000 trusted individuals who knew their local communities extremely well and could identify and support those who needed some help to access the Switchover Help Scheme.

In postcode areas where responses to the Help Scheme were lower than expected, volunteers raised awareness at a really local level in nearly 5,000 community venues - such as GP surgeries, Post Offices and local businesses – having a friendly chat with staff and leaving behind leaflets and posters. Volunteers also went out to speak to almost 200 small, informal groups to talk to them in person about the Switchover Help Scheme.

A really big thank you to all of our partners who put in so much effort to support their local communities during 2011. Despite it being the busiest year yet for digital switchover, we met or overachieved on all our targets, supporting hundreds of thousands of people to prepare for the switchover. The hard work and commitment of our lead and second tier organisations, and the thousands of very local voluntary and community sector organisations and volunteers, ensured we reached the people who needed help and advice the most and supported them through the process.