I am writing to congratulate Geoff Price, of Exeter Aerial Installers, on his excellent service to us and lots of his other customers in the Littleham and Budleigh Salterton area when there were television transmitter problems on Sunday, November 17, through to Monday the 18th, which were not initially picked up by those who monitor transmitter faults.

The problem started on the Sunday when we found that, while we could pick up the shopping channels, there was no signal from the main BBC and ITV ‘terrestrial’ stations. We decided it must be a problem with our aerial and phoned Geoff, who we had used before and had always given excellent service, and arranged for him to come on Tuesday.

He phoned us back on Monday lunchtime and said that he had had tens of calls about loss of BBC/ITV channels and it was clear to him that there definitely was a transmitter fault. He suggested we contact the relevant web sites on transmitters to report it. We had two telephone conversations with the transmitter reporting people. They were very reluctant to accept it was a fault and wanted us to retune our television.

Geoff, meanwhile, had talked to the engineers in Huddersfield who control the entire country’s transmission network and asked us if one of them could contact us to provide feedback to them to see if they had corrected the fault, which turned out to be a timing issue between the ITV and BBC signals from Beacon Hill to the Budleigh Salterton transmitter that was not identifiable from their equipment, but which they were subsequently able to cure.

Geoff had recorded a message on his phone, saying that it was a transmitter problem and not one he could rectify, but he had so many customers contacting him that his phone battery had died and needed recharging.

Consequently, it was not until 9.30 that evening that we had a further call from Geoff to check if all was well. He still had 40 customers to ring after us. Geoff received no payment from us or his other customers, although the cost to him in time and money was large.

In this age, when so many large companies seem to see customers just as people to be milked, it is heart warming to find a small, local service that is so skilled and also so determined to provide such excellent customer service.

Mike Hinds

Cranford Avenue,

Exmouth.