… you’re absolutely sure you need to.

Argyll and Bute Council is advising residents not to throw out their analogue televisions without first checking whether or not they can be converted easily to digital. In fact, the vast majority of existing televisions can be converted to digital easily and at very little expense.

There is some evidence from recycling points that people may be getting rid of their analogue TV sets unnecessarily.

The Council is aware  that there has been a substantial increase lately in the number of electrical items being taken for recycling. A lot of these are thought to be analogue TVs.

Last year (2008/09) 840 tonnes of electrical goods were recycled from Argyll and Bute. In the current year, that figure is estimated to rise by some 12% to about 940 tonnes.

Councillor Donald Macdonald, Chair of the Council’s Environment Policy and Performance Group, sees the digital switchover as an issue which seems to cause some confusion. He says: ‘There are many people out there who believe that they have to replace their analogue TVs with new digital models in order to be able to receive digital transmissions.

‘This is not true. With very rare exceptions, all TVs can be converted to digital with a digital box – even black and white models.

‘So there is no need to buy a new TV unless you actually want one. That’s the message that we need to get out, as there seem to be people who are forking out quite unnecessarily for new television sets’.

The digital set-top boxes Councillor MacDonald is talking about – that will convert many analogue sets to digital – are available from about £20.

Most of these boxes connect to a TV using a SCART cable (which will give the best-quality connection). If your television was manufactured after 1996, it will have a SCART socket.

If you don’t have a SCART socket on the back of your TV but only a small round aerial socket, you can still adapt it for digital.

All you need is to make sure you ask for a digital box with a ‘built in RF modulator’. This can be plugged into the TV’s aerial socket. The signal will not be as good as it would have been through a SCART socket but you won’t have had to pay for a new television set.

If your TV set doesn’t have either a SCART socket or an aerial socket you will need to change it to a digital model.

If this is what you have to do, make sure whatever set you buy carries the ‘digital tick’. The ‘digital tick’ means that it is designed to continue working after the switchover.

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