Bubba po

The aerial we have up at the moment has been up there since before we moved into our current house ten years ago. Since we bought a more modern telly with freeview a few years ago, we've been occasionally plagued with picture breakup, sound dropout and total signal loss, usually in periods of bad weather. My questions are:

1. Will a new aerial installation cure these problems?


2. As all broadcasts are going to become digital, is there a different type of aerial which will be better to receive digital signals?

3. What should I expect to be the going rate to fit a decent aerial to the chimney stack on a two-storey house with excellent access and in a good state of repair? Two television points, one upstairs and one down on the same elevation of the house.

4. What type of aerial would you recommend for best reception, robustness etc?

5. Finally, would a local installer be best value, and are there any in the Wakefield/Leeds area of West Yorkshire who are members of SN?

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

No such thing as a "Digital Aerial" all they are is a high gain terrestrial aerial.

If the digital switchover is happening in your area soon then i'd personally wait before paying out for a new aerial. In our area (Anglia) the local transmitter currently puts out 8.5kw, after the switchover it will be over 100kw and should sort out the problems we have with signal break up.

Lee247

I get the same problem. Sometimes sounds like Norman Collier on Speed
And, it's a new aerial. Bloody annoying. It's terrible at the mo' as it's really, really windy tonight.

Will

I don't get any problems with my aerials as they are in the loft. Can you put it there?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Probably. I would imagine you have the most basic aerial for the area and that is working on the fringes of its abilities. It is also old and may well be less efficient than it once was. You probably want to spend a little bit extra and get a better aerial more suited to your exact location.

However before doing that there is also a possibility that your current aerial is not aligned quite correctly (they can move slightly over time) and simply realigning it may cure your issues.

As above no such thing as a digital aerial so no worries there.

My guess is you will be looking at something like £100 - £150.

The best person to answer question 4 would be a local installer who knows the area really well. They will be able to give you pretty much spot on information as to what aerial will work best in your exact location. My advice is to pick up the Yellow Pages or the local paper and ring round asking the above questions and see who you feel makes the right noises.

Also look at your neighbour's installations and see if any have bigger or more elaborate looking aerials. If not the chances are you won't need anything too grand to get sorted out.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

You should also look at the co axal cable from the ariel as this has seen a fair bit of weathering and that in itself can cause some of the deterioration to the picture quality (especially if water gets into the coax connection box )

As above, your local installer can examine all the above, go for one who is highly recommended though

Tony

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

When we moved into our new house I posted on the local Scoob website (Cumbrianscoobs), a couple of members mentioned the same outfit Gave them a call, a guy came round, sorted out the ariel in the loft, freeview stuff and cabling, cheap as chips as the kit wasn't that expensive.

Job done....

The power of t'internet

Shaun

bigtel

Only real reason they call them digital is because they cover the whole frequency range, with anologue you could have bought a more tuned aerial for some transmitters. Some only broadcast anologue on channels 21-45 for example so a wideband aerial covering 21-68 was just soaking up interference that it didn't need too. Digital uses the whole range so if you don't change you would have trouble with about a 5th of the channels.

mrmadcap

I think this digital tosh is poorer quality picture than analogue, it just an excuse to scrap the licence fee, get everyone on pay for view at greater expense and the government coining in more in tax than they would have done through the licence fee.

bigtel

I'm on the Anglia (Sudbury) transmitter at mine with 2 year old Samsung TV and I think the quality is not good at all! I've just got Parents a new Samsung TV tuned to London and the Picture is great,as good as Sky HD!

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

Wait till July Tel. 10 times the power from the transmitter m8. Should clear things up

Bubba po

Cheers for all that info. As far as being "forewarned is forearmed", I heartily agree. There's nothing quite like a roof installation (where you can't examine the work up close yourself) for the possibility of getting your pants pulled down by an unscrupulous workman.

And I don't like heights.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Not exactly true. There's no real reason they call them digital, other than as a sales pitch. To be clearer, even for freeview channels, the actual UHF range used to broadcast from any given transmitter is usually pretty small - Crystal Palace for example has all the main channels from 22 to 34, Midhurst is just 56 to 64, and it's much the same story everywhere else - although in most cases it will be a slightly different range from the analog channels on that same transmitter. So, you could easily install a tuned-range aerial and still pick up all the freeview channels, provided you chose the right one for your transmitter. On the other hand, if you already had a tuned-range aerial fitted for analog, there's a chance your freeview reception might be below par if the ranges don't quite overlap.

To the OP, if you do end up getting any work done on your aerial, make sure the fitter uses double-shielded cable, with a foil layer under the PVC jacket as well as the usual braided outer. It's well worth the investment to cut down on interference (although it won't help a great deal with weather-related signal degradation).

bigtel

Some of the channels are going to be 80 times better!! Should be able to lose the aerial!

Ant

Ant

i love threads like these

F1_fan has gave good advice

Ant

Leeds and Wakefield are generally good reception areas, believe it or not there could be a possibility of the signal overloading.

Ignore the internet readers on here

Ant

no need to it's been explained above.

alot of company's have had bollocking's by advertising digital aerials.

also my internet reader comments wasn't aimed towards you specifically

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

As above there is no such thing as a "digital aerial" BUT

There are lots of different types of aerial suited to give the best gain on certain frequency groups. You need to get the aerial that is designed to give the best gain for the frequency band used in your area for digital TV.

Many "fitters" fit widebands aerials combined with a electronic booster, as a "one size fits all", solution. These are only any good if you live in a good signal area, as they have inferior gain capability (regardless of what the manufacturer says in its specs ). Wideband aerials are usaually the worst type of aerial for gain. So are best to be avoided if it can be helped (although in some areas there is no choice).

Also common place these days is the quality of many aerials are best decribed as "indoor attic aerials", as the elements are too thin and fragile for outdoor use (wind and fat wood pigeons etc). I've noted many new aerials installed by me have lost a few elements as the plastic element holders can't take the weight/abuse of birds perching upon them or just go brittle from the sunlight.

This website should aid to tell you what frequency bands you will probably need. http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=SE222128

At a guess you are on the Emley moor transmitter which by the looks of it will require a "Band E " aerial to get good reception on the higher frequencies after the switchover.

Currently, if you are on Emley Moor, you should have a Band B type aerial, and the majority of the digital channels are on band B anyway, which is the same frequency range as used by the analogue signals. Both use horizontal polorization, so the elements on the aerial should be horizontal. If the elements are vertical, then it won't work very well at all.

Finally the cable should be satellite grade WF100, CT100 or RG6 (or better). The old brown stuff if its pre-1990, is ok if the connections are good, water proofed and there are no kinks, however if its split, kinked or water has got at the conductor, it needs replacing. Post 1990 brown stuff has far too little sheilding to be of any use so should be replaced anyway.


This is very good website for noting what you do not want: http://www.aerialsandtv.com/cowboyslocker.html

Info on aerial types here: http://www.aerialsandtv.com/aerials.html (of which is amusingly scathing of gold plated and "bacofoil" thin aerials )

Ant

Possibility I maybe working in your area today so I'll let you know and I can give it a look over for you.

Ant

the irony of them links, Slagging off other aerials but then sells cheap nasty ones themselves

Leslie

If you get a weak signal in your area than all you can do is to get a high gain aerial and find out the accurate direction on the net. You can point it with a compass easily enough. A signal amplifier in the aerial line may help too.

Les

Ant

A compass would be no good, a inch or two off line can see a drop of signal of 2dB - 5dB which for digital can be the difference between getting a good signal and sound to noise ratio.

You ideally need a digital meter to get it perfect. Unless you can see the transmitter

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Is it just me or is the marjority of modern aerials a load of rubbish in terms of durability anyway.

Seems the first time a crow or wood pigeon perches on one it bends the elements.

Ant

Not all are bad, it's down to little things like what clamps and if they use bolts or
Wingnuts.

Also the grade of plastic.

Each aerials has a cai benchmark level. Which allows the cheap nasty aerials through the net just passing minimal requirements.

The 52 element aerials are the worse for bending because of the design of the elements. 14 or 18 elements are a lot better for lastabilty.

Leslie

What is the 3Db beamwidth for the average high gain tv aerial then?

Les

Ant

A 52 element aerial is +/- 13 degrees

mart360

Be aware that changing to a new high gain antenna, may not give any improvement at all.

When we changed to a freeview tv, the best we could get was a signal strength of 1 on the freeview installation system.

One superduper (Maplins special offer) trilobal digital (lol) ariel saw the signal jump to 4

The reason being that whewre we are, we are serviced by two FTA transmitters. the closest, is in midhurst, we cant recieve due to being on the other side of the south downs, (go figure ), and the second being Rowridge on the Isle of Wight.!!!

So i invested in a booster, these do carry risks, in that if you receive a very poor input signal, it will output a very amplified poor signal.

As it was it took the signal to 10 and its a very good picture.

You can get masthead amplifiers, which run of a 12v fed in the loft, (mine is in the loft, but not masthead)

Mart