recognise the tuner - a PCTV 290e dvb-t/t2 usb device - so I'm running an earlier kernel with
You might need to download a dedicated firmware for your dvb device.
You can have a look on the kernel-doc package, there is a perl script for this. (get_dvb_firmware IIRC). Of course having the name of the driver you are using for your device would help (lsmod output).