carl

If you've got signal degradation because of the splitter you can improve it by putting a signal booster ahead of the splitter. If there's just not enough signal in the first place, you need more 'metal in the sky' (because a booster will amplify signal and noise).

How big is your TV aerial, and is it in the loft or on the roof? (On the roof you'll get a better signal, but in the loft it won't be blown out of alignment by the wind). Have you got the right sort of antenna for your reception area (IIRC there's band A, B and C)? Have you tried moving the antenna half a wavelength?

PS: You'll also get some signal loss if you use 50 ohm co-ax (should be 75 ohm).

[Edited by carl - 11/4/2002 3:43:46 PM]

dsmith

In a normal set up you actually need 3 cables to the lounge.

Mini-Dish to Digibox
Aerial to TV/Digibox etc
TV/Digibox back to distribution Amp.

The loftbox can send the digital sat system down the same cable as the TV - which saves a cable. You do need to use Decent cable though. You don't have to make use of that and whether you do or not depends on the relative placing of AMP, Digibox, Dish etc.

As it happens I installed one in the house I've just moved into and it was conveneint for me to run 1 new (decent) cable from Loft to Lounge in the wall. Then have Sky install the dish and run a short cable from dish into the loft. Engineer took a bit of convincing

This saved Sky running a cable halfway round the house on the outside (low Wife Acceptance Factor & Sky wont run cables in walls)

The benefit of the loftbox is its support for multiple inputs. I have (Dig Sat), UHF, VHF and Output from a Camera on the front door. All can be seen in all rooms.

Deano

[Edited by dsmith - 11/4/2002 3:50:10 PM]

NICKBG

Guys and Gals,

Hopefully some of you can advise me on this one ..... At present I have one of those maxview aerial amplifier/4 way split in the loft, but the pictures that I get on the other tvs are not that great. I am sure someone recommended better ways of doing this, but can't find anything via search.

Who can help

Cheers
Nick

marty_t3

I've never used a maxview but i'd try disconnecting all but 1 or 2 TVs and see if the picture improves.

If the maxview is powered, is it working ok? if it's not powered you could try a signal booster. What about cable lengths.. the longer the cable to poorer the signal will get.

Best picture i've ever had from an 'aerial' was a coax cable with a welding rod jammed in it and stuck down the back of my wardrobe.

dsmith

I have one of these

Get excellent pictures everywhere (except on my WinTV card under windows - its fine under linux )

Deano

barge

I have one of those powered amp things works fine for 4 TV's all at the same time.

carl

Deano -- I don't understand the diagram on their web page

Why do you need the Sky dish input to the loftbox as well as the UHF modulated Sky signal, which is also input to the loftbox?

Do you need two cables into your living room, or wherever the Sky decoder is located (an 'up' and a 'down')?

carl

Right, so what do you have on the wall in the living room? I guess the 'triple plate' (TV/FM/Dig Sat) and another plate for the return UHF feed to the loftbox (pity it's not like GigE with Tx and Rx fibres ). If you have DAB radio, which output on the triple plate would that come from?

dsmith

Yep I have the triplex plate for the "new" cable. I use the previously installed cable for the "return" feed . The Aerial is in the loft so it conveniently went to the right place.

Dont have DAB so don't know what I'd use actually. Never thought to Ask ! - The bloke who runs LetsAutomate is very helpful and usually repsonsive to e-mailed queries. I'll try an dig out the instructions this evening and see what it says.

Deano

mattstant

My father in law is an electrical engineer and told me to solder the coax at each joit to improve the signal i didnt quite believe it would make much difference but when i tried it i was amazed at the improvement.
this is especially relevent if you have a splitter and several tvs as every coax connection is going to half the signal strenght.

carl

I think not. That would be 3dB of insertion loss. You can usually reckon on around 1dB for a pair of connectors.

mattstant

ok carl exageration but with some of those cheap plastic connecters its easy to mak a hash of it and 1db can easily mount up

imlach

I've got one of the Global Comms loftboxes too - and it works a treat.
Like Deano, cable from minidish goes into loft where loftbox is, as does the UHF aerial, and then gets routed round the house from there...

I was having my rewiring done at the same time, so was easy for the sparkies to run coax, cat5, and mains cable to every room in the house...
(always ensure mains is 1-2 ft from the cat5 & coax though).

The bonus is also that the loftbox distributes the "SkyEye" remote signals thoughout the house too, so you can control your digibox from any room in the house....

Very neat.

dsmith

Git - Retrofitting is slow and painful

Deano

carl

Eh? What's the SkyEye remote? I only have an IR one.

S55 HOT

I've got the same loftbox as dsmith - works a treat.

Carl - a SkyEye is a device which sends a sky remote command back up the co-ax to the sky box. So you can install it on another TV if you have the signal distributed through the house.

S55 HOT

Sky Magic Eye

NICKBG

Thanks guys for all your comments - appreciate it - I think I will rerun the cables with a better quality .... and also go for one of those global units (i take it that they are powered ??)

I live about 1 mile as the crow flies from the tv transmitter so get a very strong tv signal, but someone was saying that a very strong tv picture can degrade a satellite pic ?? anyone experienced this kind of thing ?

Cheers
Nick

imlach

Yes - the Global distribution device requires a mains power supply.
It is best to use CT100 cable if you can - cable is cheap, and you don't want low quality cable installed.

dsmith

It also uses Satellite style Screw on "F-Connectors" - not the more usual UHF/VHF aerial style connectors. (Obviously you can use whatever you want at the "other" ends )

Deano