Sparkies and aerials.... not a good mix

I was driving past this house today and just had to stop. When I asked the sparky if this was his place, he said 'yes'.

The aerial on the left-hand house is screwed to the bargeboard instead of to the wall AND with a too-small bracket. Aaagh!

I can't see how the aerial by the ladder is fixed but it's adjacent to the gutter (wind is going to hammer it) and it's too low (could be pointing through the neighbouring houses) and it's what I'd call an "eye candy" loft aerial - too flimsy to be outdoors.

The ladder is unsecured. I can't see the ladder footings - hopefully on concrete.
I can't see the rope for the safety harness (not that it would help if the ladder is unsecured).

OK for starters?

He needs this: http://www.satcure.co.uk/course.htm

I do see the errors but if it works what's the problem?

While on the Falklands I tried to put up a 12 element yagi beam only to have it ripped to bits by local bird live the Caracara or Johnny Rook as it was called ripped the elements off one by one and instead I made my own 8 element using 1/2" stainless pipe and wooden supports.

Often there is no need for the massive aerials erected but they are all one can buy in the local store. I use a simple loop aerial on my window sill which works far better than any roof mounted aerial simply as it can't see Winter Hill.

Look up and down my street and most sky dishes and aerials are mounted very high in the wall or on eves and there is just no need. 10 foot high is enough the deeds do not allow hedges over 10 foot and Moel-y-Parc is direct line of sight for most house in the street from their garage which sticks out from bulk of house.

90% fitted by so called professorial aerial fitters.

Local aerial fitter was chatting to me saying how he gets daft requests like one lady wanted him to fit three aerials stacked to get a better signal. My son and I managed to keep a straight face we had just come from our friend who had 9 x 18 element yagi beams with rotation and azimuth control so he could bounce his signal off the moon and talk to USA on VHF.

We came to conclusion his only qualification was not being scared of climbing ladders.

But down to basics if it works what is the problem? First Sky dish I had fitted the fitter complained he needed special brackets to get further from the house so I said why not fit it to mast already there. Which he did. Above the rotator Oh dear the dish has moved I wonder why? Clearly he did not have much training.

Some aerial fitters are very skilled don't get me wrong but there are good and bad in every trade and with the distance to Moel-y-parc from my house I am sure I could use wet string.

ericmark said:

I do see the errors but if it works what's the problem?

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1. Reception will be compromised.
2. Wind and birds will wreck the aerial.
3. It could fall on someone.

ericmark said:

I do see the errors but if it works what's the problem?

Click to expand...

This install is less than half a mile from my place. It has good line of sight to Winter Hill so the signal is very strong. I know folk who have aerials missing their deflectors and they still get a signal. So, yes, it will work here. So long as the aerial is pointing vaguely in the correct direction it's pretty difficult (but not impossible) to pick up something.

Did you notice that this was an electrician's install?

Electricians have to pass certain qualifications to do domestic electrical work, and that's no bad thing in my book. The problem I have is when they feel that being an electrician also makes them a competent aerial installer; and from the pictures it's clear that this one is not.

It wasn't something I mentioned in the opening post, but chatting with the spark it was revealed that he'd done a few other aerial installations. They'd all worked too. Sure, but for how long?

I may be wrong here, but I think the public perception is that sparks are a trusted trade because of the training requirements. So on that basis if the aerial install fails at some point is the householder likely to blame the spark or something/someone else? What do you think?

Aerials isn't the main part of my business. But when I do them, I like to think they're done right and to a standard that means the install will give the householder years of excellent service. I would agree that there's quite a few installers with a different ethos. I'm not the cheapest, nor the dearest, but I stand behind my installs and I'm confident that the householder won't have to spend money again with another aerial installer in two or three years to re-do the work. That's value, right there.

Our electrician friend can't make the same claim. Sam Ganges is right. The aerial isn't a strong enough design for outdoor use. There's no vertical supports on the deflector for a start. The aerial construction itself is "tin foil" thin aluminium, so a cheap "looks impressive" aerial that will fall to bits in a matter of months.

Apart from anything else, it's the wrong type of aerial for this area too. Some of Winter Hill's HD transmissions are at C31 and C37. This is where a Wideband Hi-Gain actually has very poor sensitivity. Boosting the signal for those HD channels with a standard wideband gain amp will be likely to over-amplify the stronger PSB and Commercial muxes where transmitter power is much greater and the aerial is working closer to peak efficiency.

Sam Ganges has alluded to some of the other physical problems.

The aerial is indeed touching the barge board, so a stiff breeze will have it hammering on the house and accelerate its early demise (every cloud has a silver lining ). It's perhaps hard to see in the pictures, but the cradle is attached side-on rather than from below. This will knock a couple of dB off the aerial's reception strength and so make the weaker muxes far harder or even impossible to receive. The aerial is indeed pointing at (and so shadowed by) the house next door. Again this doesn't help reception, and particularly the weaker muxes.

I can't say for certain, but based on previous experiences of electrician's installing aerials then my best guess is that he'll have used the cheapest cable too. 100m of RG6 - CCS - copper coated steel - for £25, rather than WF100. There's another couple of dB off the signal strength at the TV aerial socket.

There may be other issues as well. But the final two for me are aesthetic. For a start, this new install just looks awful; a real bodge. The aerial itself looks enormous against the roof line. Second, it's what it's going to look like as the thing disintegrates over the coming months.

How would you feel spending £100~£150~£200+ for an aerial install that doesn't deliver 90-100% signal quality in a strong TV reception area and having the aerial itself fall to bits within a year. Would you be happy if the spark turned round and said "It works. What's the problem?"

Any one can it seems set them selves up as an electrician or aerial fitter. There are no required qualifications for either although normally an electrician has to pass an exam to show he can read a book.

The C&G 2382 is an open book exam on nothing but what is in that book. OK the time limits mean you need to know some of the answers without looking it up to finish the exam on time, but in real terms it’s harder for an experienced electrician to pass than a new comer as the experienced guy will also know old rules and it’s easy to miss a change.

Before Part P it was even worse at least now to be a scheme member he does need the books and at least has to show he’s read the main one.

But in some ways it has made it worse as once he is accepted as a scheme member people assume he’s highly trained so we get the 6 month wonders who really have no idea what they are doing but the Part P rubber stamp means they can still get work.

When Sky had it’s boom many people “trained” to fit Sky dishes and set up Sky boxes normally one days training and when the Sky boom went they then set up on their own as aerial fitters buying a set of ladders and two testers one for satellite and one for terrestrial. Some of course studied and learnt more but many have really no training so anything out of the ordinary and they are stumped.

I am sure like me you had to learn about transmission lines and leaky feeders and many other types of aerials but sorry to say many just continue to muddle on without a clue of why anything works.

We have all seen the half truths told to drum up business like the digital aerial I suppose that’s an aerial with a lose connection which keeps turning its self on and off? We all know the aerial does not care if the signal is analogue or digital it’s just the frequency that matters.

My dad went to Tandy and came back with a huge aerial with exactly the same gain as the simple Yagi I had but was convinced it was better because it was bigger. What happened was it had more wind resistance so was turned in high winds it was also a magnet to electrical storms being fitted on a soot lined chimney and earthed.

Aerials have moved one mainly because of the frequency span required but with the frequency sell off clearly we will be able soon to return to simple light aerials with low wind resistance.

But go to my local aerial fitter and talk about a HB9CV and his eyes glaze over. Go to the old TV repair man and talk about the HB9CV and you can’t stop him singing the praises of the aerial with two active elements. As to getting local aerial man to trim in a HB9CV you must be kidding.

He fits a crossed Yagi where the transmitter is horizontal why there is no point. OK I fitted one on a rotator and would in the old days of analogue turn into Central, Winter Hill, and Moel-y-parc but without a rotator why does anyone need a crossed Yagi?

Today there is no point in Winter Hill most programs are the same as Moel-y-Parc but still see nearly every aerial pointing at Winter Hill. Would be better pointing to Wirral transmitter as that has both Welsh and English but not seen any vertical aerials.

So forgive me if I have little faith in local aerial fitters.

I have a few issues with what you've written...

"Any one can it seems set them selves up as an electrician or aerial fitter. There are no required qualifications for either..." Aerial fitter, maybe, but electrician? Certainly not. Well, not without breaking the law.

You then go on to contradict yourself by saying that they do have to pass an exam.



The gist of this thread though is how electricains often wrongly assume that they can install aerials. I wish that this trade had training standards that excluded the idiots (some electricians included), but it doesn't as far as domestic installs go. I won't go in to the legion of problems it causes with people being sold inappropriate hardware and receiving shoddy work. The saving grace is that it's possible to fudge an install and still get a working result, but that's hardly a glowing endorsement.


As far as your ramble about HB9CV aerials, I'm hardly surprised you get the glossy-eyed look. These skills are no longer appropriate for the world of UHF DVB-T/DVB-T2. It's similar to the skills required to converge a CRT based projection display. These are niche skills maintained by specialist installers with specialist installer pricing too.


"Today there is no point in Winter Hill"......... Err... I'm pretty sure the 6+ million people it serves would have a different view. Ditto those who can only receive from Moel-y-Parc.