Do the simple stuff first. Try manual tuning.
Finding your local transmitter and the channel frequencies it uses.
You'll need to know which transmitter serves your area. Go to this page:
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/operations/about_the_coverage_checker and input your postcode and house number. Make sure to tick the
Detailed View box.
The list that comes up will detail the most likely Freeview transmitters for your area. Top of the list is the strongest.
Scroll down the page to see a breakdown of the transmitters and the channels they use. Most of the main ITV channels are on the
D3&4 frequency/channel number for your area; that's the number in the '
N' column. There are also some ITV stations in the
SDN column and the HD ones come under
BBC B.
The list is useful too because it shows when the next planned retune event is for your area.
Where you might be looking for specific ITV channels, you can cross reference the channel with the mux group (D3&4 / SDN / BBC B) from this table:
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/channels/channel_listings
Manual tuning your TV.
Once armed with the frequency channel numbers, you'll then need to go to your TVs setup menus and navigate through the Freeview tuning section until you find manual tuning. This is where you use the numbers you found.
Manual tuning methods vary depending on make and model of TV, but in general you'll put in the frequency channel number - say 41 for D3&4 Sudbury - then press the appropriate button to make the TV scan just that frequency. If the onscreen display doesn't make it clear what to do then refer back to your TV manual.
Is my aerial still good for my local transmitter?
The Government is selling off chunks of the frequency range that was once allocated for TV use. The result is that the frequencies being used are getting squashed up in to a lower part of the channel band. We used to have from ch 21-68. When the first tranche of frequencies were cleared for 3G mobile use we lost 60 to 68.
We're currently going through the phase for 4G. This means any areas using channels 50-59 will see some changes. Sudbury changed in August of 2018. The result was that some of the ITV channels now use channel frequency 29 (SDN). Depending on the aerial type, it's quality and its age, and how strong the transmissions are in your area, some aerials will cope with this whilst others struggle.
There's an added complication that digital TV reception has a very fine line between working and failing. We call this
the digital cliff. It means that only a small degradation somewhere in the path from the aerial to the TV can be enough to tip the balance between everything working okay and something falling over.
It's impossible to make an absolutely certain diagnosis from the small bit of info in your OP, but one possible scenario is that the aerial you have is not so well suited to transmissions at the lower-end of the channel range, and that combined with a bit of wear and tear could be enough to have tipped the balance as far as SDN reception is concerned.
A quick test would be to see what happens if the passive splitter is removed. This will restore the signal power from 45% per TV to 100%. If that's enough to regain the lost channels then it might be time to call the local aerial man and have a chat about a
Log Periodic aerial. These are good for medium to strong signal level areas because they work well across all frequencies.
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. Anyway.....
