Digital aerial advice please.
 

We're just about to buy our first digital tv :D This one SAMSUNG LE37M86BD 37" HD Ready 1080p digital LCD TV - Cheap SAMSUNG LCD TVs, Plasma TVs, HD Ready TVs
We currently have a crt television a freeview box, and a roof aerial. Sometimes the freeview box turns itself off, stops responding to the remote and is generally inconsistent to use so we stick to the 5 basic channels. We may get Sky in the future but not for a few months.
So, is out main hurdle the old aerial we have on the roof? Is there a 'best' digital aerial to buy or are they all of a muchness?
I've seen models like this Wolsey QR 18 - 18 Element High Gain Wideband TV Digital Aerial and also this Maplin > Outdoor Digital Aerial
Both very different in style and price but besides aesthetics is either better?
Any help gratefully recieved.

Thanks.

I just got a digital aerial from screwfix, cant remeber the type will have a look, but it didnt cost must and does the job well

It is hard to say without knowing whether your area is on the fringes for receiving the digital signals and how well you aerial is lined up with the local aerial.

My friend had similar troubles with his desktop digital box and it turned out to be a badly installed plug on the coax giving a weak signal. It is certainly worthwhile installing a dedicated digital aerial and lining it up correctly for your new TV. If you get Sky eventually you dont need to worry about it any more anyway All the terrestrial channels are on the satellite as well as all the sky channels etc. Outdoor aerials always work best too.

Les

My mate has the Mapilin "one 4 All" jobby. It does work. But does require a power supply (yet another plug taken up by a wall-wart transformer).

One issue is the coaxial cable that is supplied with it is very thin, and I assume has poor quality sheilding as a result. It is, thus far his best solution for his bad signal issues, but its still very iffy.


Put it this way, he has a PACE twin tuner freeview recorder, and since moving into his new place its been trouble since day one. The main problem is the box has a weak tuner, and his roof aerial points the wrong way, so no signal. A high gain loft aerial was installed (similar to the wolsey one in your link, fitted in loft as we could not get acess to the roof) and re-routed the existing coax. Performance was marginal at best. Even with an amplfier.

I suspect the reason for the poor performance of both aerials is more to do with the poor sheilding of the coax cable more than anything. As in both cases the picture is upset when say, a the fridge turns on, or the boiler fires up (when the spark fires to light the burner).

He has still yet to take my advice and get some CT125 / WF125 or RG7 coax cable. Although RG6 or CT100 / WF100 would easily suffice, as both have massively superior sheilding to normal analogue TV coax.

Good quality coax which is undamaged is vital, any coax which has had water in it due to poor installation of an outside aerial should be replaced by new immediately.

Les

Yes. Many installers negate to tape up the connectors at the aerial end. Thus water gets in and goes through the whole cable length through capillary action, ruining the complete lenth of the cable.

...all for not bothering to wrap a bit of self-amalgamating tape round the end :cuckoo:

Absolutely right.

Les

if your in a weak signal area, then you can get an amplifier for a few quid from asda that does a cracking job. I have one for my pc

Thanks for the very informative replies chaps, they're a big help.
I've looked around the internet for RG7 cable but can't find any in small 20mtr ish quantities. WF100 isn't a problem though and is cheap enough. The tip regarding tape on the connectors will be remembered and done when I do the install. I think I'm going to buy this aerial Televes 1597 - DAT 75/DAT75 - 75 Element High Gain Wideband Television TV Digital Freeview Aerial as it seems the best for not very much money.
I guess I may need to buy something to help locate the strongest signal.
Thanks,
Andy.

WF125 or RG7 will be overkill, unless its a very weak signal and its a very long cable run or it runs where it maybe prone to interferance.

I only mentioned it as it does exist and many people think the best performing cable is WF100/RG6. Technically the best is WF165 but its very thick and hard to work with.

If you buy RG spec cable, just make sure its 75ohm.

To locate the strongest signal requires some beers and a mate with good hearing and a loud voice. Sit him infront of TV and twiddle aerial until to you get signal (work off the direction of neigbours aerial as a guide). Also ensure the aerial is polarised correctly (rotating the array 90degrees and see if signal imporves or deteriorates). Then go through a series of tweeking tests with said mate shouting "better" or "worse" on the weaker channels. Obviously need to weigh up the costs of your mate drinking the beer vs. the cost of a proper tester :D ;)

My favourite aerial manufacturer is Antiference. Their site has plenty of good links and interesting reading.

More from the BBC. You can find whether your transmitter transmits vertically or horizontally on the BBC site somewhere.

e.g. Winter Hill Transmitter

i got one from maplins last week cost £24 just after fitting it i had 100% signal and 94% signal quality :thumb:

mark

It sounds more like you have a faulty freeview box to me. If the signal was weak you would get picture break-up and pixellation but the remote should still work and it shouldn't turn itself off.

Its done the same with 3 freeview boxes. Its an odd one but whatever it is I don't think the fault is with the box.

Weak signals can indeed cause boxes to crash.

Also I have seen a Freeview TV turn itself off if because it can't pick up a good digital signal....even when your watching a DVD!! :cuckoo:

:D

Brilliant - I was just going to post a query about "what new aerial?" and Search is my friend. :D

Speedking, that Winter Hill link takes you to a world of aerial info - cheers. :thumb:

Also, go look over on 'avforums'. Very knowledgeable chaps!

Dave