Communal aerial

[Sonnyw]

Hi all,

I've recently moved into a block of flats. The flat has an aerial socket in the living room with four parts - TV, FM, sat and return. The managing agent has told me there is a communal aerial and sky dish.

Firstly, the TV aerial only works intermittently. I have not been able to establish any pattern to this. Anyone any idea why what might be the problem? When it works it works perfectly.

Secondly, I was considering freesat as a potential solution. But when I take the faceplate off I only see two cables coming in. I would have expected to see four, which makes me think something isn't connected. How can I check I'm connected to the sat dish?

Thanks in advance.

 

[OwainDIYer]

Only by plugging in a freesat or sky box. It's usual for the TV, FM and satellite feed to be diplexed on one cable. The second cable is probably the 'return' and runs to a socket in the bedroom for you to extend the TV signal or the TV / RF output from a sky box (newer sky boxes don't have a TV / RF output so you can't do this without extra kit.

Quite possibly almost everyone in the building is now using sky or freesat, and the TV aerial problem goes unnoticed. You could ask your neighbours if they have problems (and possibly borrow a freesat box from them to test).

 

[ericmark]

It is possible to send both polarisations through one cable with satellite, but think it involves a frequency swap to do it. I know in Hong Kong when living in a high rise flat I simply plugged in to get satellite, the advert was it you pay for TV then no adverts so Star TV was advert free, except the advert slots were filled with info about other programs. Unfortunately does not work that way in the UK. Clearly was 8 flats per floor and 32 floors had to be a communal aerial on roof. But in UK flats are often not high rise so just suck it and see. With my mothers house terrestrial TV uses a mast head amp, it does not matter which TV feeds the mast head amp with power, so if power is enabled in living room but not with sitting room TV then sitting room TV will only work when living room one is switched on.

Mothers LG TV's seem to be made to give the power direct to mast head amp, but my Panasonic TV's don't have the option and it needs a separate power supply. But really the person to ask is the building manager. We can only guess.

 

[Sam Gangee]

Hi all,

I've recently moved into a block of flats. The flat has an aerial socket in the living room with four parts - TV, FM, sat and return.

Presumably like this http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/wall_plates.htm#decombiner

 

[Sonnyw]

Hi all,

I've recently moved into a block of flats. The flat has an aerial socket in the living room with four parts - TV, FM, sat and return.

Presumably like this http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/wall_plates.htm#decombiner

Exactly like that. I bought a freesat box and it works perfectly. Thanks everyone.