One of the first things many people try to do when they have a poor picture is to fiddle with the TV’s tuning. This should be the last thing attempted as the most common cause of poor picture are caused by your antenna. A quick visual check will tell you if parts of it or the cable has broken off or if its blown around the wrong way. If the problem is there when you are watching via your VCR’s tuner then it wont be the TV at fault, in fact it is extremely rare for the channels to drift off frequency.

In case you move town, buy a new video recorder or a new channel starts broadcasting you may need to adjust your tuning. Every country has a different range of TV bands and channels for example the UK only use the UHF band while Australia and New Zealand use VLF, VHF and UHF. Tuning the channels in should be similar across all countries. Bearing this in mind we are trying to present this info to suit all audiences and can only give a general overview of how to tune in your set. We hope the info is of help and for this example we are going to tune in the UHF channel 31 but the same principals can be applied to any channel.

Push Button Tuning

If your TV set has ‘push buttons’ and is about 20 or so years old you will find a group of wheels and selectors under the tuning door and you will need to follow these instructions:

Switch off the AFT (Automatic Fine Tuner). Sometimes this is done automatically when the tuning door is opened.
Push the button on which you want channel 31 to appear. (don’t use a button you currently use for another channel or your video) Open your TV tuning door. This will reveal a series of selectors and tuning wheels. Each selector and its adjacent tuning wheel is associated with a tuning button on the front of the TV. For example, the third tuning button is connected to the third selector switch and the third tuning wheel.

As channel 31 is on the UHF Band you will need to set the selector switch to UHF if your set is capable of tuning multiple bands (ie: you may not have this selector in the UK). Labelling of these channel ranges varies from brand to brand, but UHF is usually U, UHF, C, or 3. the other 2 spots will be VL and VH or A and B etc.

Turn the corresponding tuning wheel slowly clockwise until the channel 31 appears on the TV screen or until the little pointer indicates you have reached the end of the tuning range. If channel 31 does not appear, then begin turning the tuning wheel anti-clockwise until Channel 31 is found. Perhaps there are other channels in your area on the UHF band (lets say channel 28) if you find this one you are getting close so keep trying either side. It generally takes about twenty turns of the tuning wheel to cover the range of band selected. When the desired channel appears on the TV screen, adjust the tuning wheel for the best picture and sound. Turn on the AFT and close the tuning drawer (or door).

More Modern Sets

Every set built in the past 15 or so years seems to have a different way of tuning in the channels with the tuning via an on screen display, if you can find your TV instruction manual try and follow it carefully most have an automatic tuning mode which it will want to default to when first entering the tuning mode. Automatic tuning is good if you cant figure out your tuning but the problem is it will not put the channels under their desired channels numbers. Some set are terrible to tune even stumping the most experienced TV technician, while others are simple. TV sets don’t detune themselves so if it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it, your fuzzy picture may be due to another reason, like your VCR, cables or antenna.

Still got problems

Ask your neighbors, perhaps you are not in the optimum area for the channel you are tuning, ask a neighbor with a similar looking antenna what his picture is like.

Do you have the correct antenna? In Australia Several older homes do not have UHF antennas as there was not UHF transmissions prior to the 70s, if so you will need to get your antenna checked as you wont be able to receive UHF channels.

Does your TV only have one rotary control with no U position? Your TV is probably unable to receive UHF as several older Australian sets were not built for UHF, If you have a VCR you should be able to tune this into receive UHF channels.