The Goverment's desire to close down analogue television may well have to be put on hold.

At least one make of integrated television seems to be an old analogue design with a commercially available decoder card built in. The set lacks many of the

refinements of even low-end analogue televisions, such as fast-text, teletext hold and teletext hide, let alone the facility to download all the sub-pages and cycle through them.

On the digital side, not all decoders can decode digital teletext - the promised upgrade did not materialise in January and no date has been given for its arrival.

The decoder decides which TV transmitter it will receive - one has no control.

Where we live, both Rowridge, Isle of White, and Whitehawk Hill, Brighton, give signals. On analogue, we watch the Rowridge signal because it is the better but, when the French stations break through, we watch the Whitehawk Hill programmes.

Our TV is pre-set to receive both, on different buttons on the controller. We do not have this facility with the digital decoder and the engineering department of the decoder maker saw no likelihood of this happening.

If the Government wants to free the analogue frequencies and if the broadcasters want to cut costs by having fewer transmitters (and aerials), they may have to lean on the set and decoder makers.

-Alan Gordon, Hawkins Crescent, Shoreham