Two aerials into one.

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My mother has two aerials and my son tells me there is a mast head amplifier which combines both Winter Hill and Moel-y-parc and then has two outputs one to each down stairs room.

For a while the TV has been requesting retuning and I had thought down to Freeview but this time retuning caused the loss of all channels. Looked at power supply to aerial and still a green light. Looking at aerials no fault seen from ground and seems unlikely both would go faulty together.

So likely the mast head amplifier has failed. Told original came from first line digital Saltley but it would seem from reports they are no longer there.

Looked for somewhere local to buy replacement but can't find anything with twin inputs. Really hard to get ladder there so want it to be one time up replace and down so would seem prudent to get replacement first.

Any ideas of suppliers in Chester, North Wales area? Screw fix does one in and two out but can't find a box to take two in.
 
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are the transmissions digital and your tv has been inadvertantly set to analogue - that's a common cause of total loss of stations
 
The auto re-tune function does both digital and analogue together so that is A1.

I do think it is the mast head amp but still have not found a replacement with two aerial feeds in and two TV's out.
 
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you could get a passive combiner which combines the two aerials and feeds into the amp.

The combiners have two inputs and are specific to the combination of aerial Groups you require.
 
My mother has two aerials and my son tells me there is a mast head amplifier which combines both Winter Hill and Moel-y-parc and then has two outputs one to each down stairs room.

For a while the TV has been requesting retuning and I had thought down to Freeview but this time retuning caused the loss of all channels. Looked at power supply to aerial and still a green light. Looking at aerials no fault seen from ground and seems unlikely both would go faulty together.

So likely the mast head amplifier has failed.

Or the coax lead. Is the plug on the lead where it plugs into the power supply correctly fitted including soldering of the centre pin and the braid brought round over the claws rather than bunched up underneath.

http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html

Masthead amps don't normally have two inputs, and if they did one would be for UHF TV and the other for VHF radio. Certainly none with 2 UHF inputs, so your son must be mistaken.
 
Why do you need to be receiving from two different transmitters in the first place?
 
Why do you need to be receiving from two different transmitters in the first place?

I would guess the OPs mother wants the additional choice of programmes. One has Welsh programmes, the other English.
 
The combiners have two inputs and are specific to the combination of aerial Groups you require.
In this case both TXs are group C/D, and in fact the muxes are interleaved - making it a right PITA trying to tune in only one set.

There isn't any conflict between muxes, so apart from co-channel interference (does that still bother digital ?) there shouldn't be a problem combining the two.
 
The problem with combining two aerial signals without filtering is that, if both aerials are receiving the same signals, there's a good chance that out-of-phase cancellation will occur for at least one mux, resulting in poor or no reception of that mux.
 
Given up. Son went up ladder and said he needs three stage ladders not two to reach the pre-amp.

So talked to guy across the road and told him to fix it however he sees best. He is an aerial fitter.

In the days of analogue and just 5 channels having English as well as Welsh was a good thing. Today just not worth the bother my mother may understand Welsh but I have never seen her watch Welsh TV. In fact it's a real PITA as TV keeps finding new strong channels and wants to one day have Welsh BBC 1 as channel 1 and next day Winter Hill BBC 1 as channel 1 and my mother watches ITV 3 most of the time and for that it does not matter if Welsh or English.

It would seem First Line Digital sold a lot of the combiner pre-amps in the days of analogue don't know were they got them from but it was a common item to be installed pre digital. Today there is a repeater on the Wirral which does both Welsh and English anyway designed to give Flint a signal but still works well in Shotton. But vertical not horizontal so easy at a glance to see who has tuned to it.

I see no point in employing an aerial fitter then telling him what to do. He will be given a free hand and I will do what ever he recommends.

The main problem is alsimizers can't ask mother to learn new tricks. I have to keep to old TV even if there are better programs on sky as she knows how to use old TV. In the same way she has radio times, to me it seems silly half the programs are not listed but I still get her radio times each week.
 
alsimizers can't ask mother to learn new tricks.
Who are alsimizers? Sounds like an indigestion pill.

If mum wants Welsh TV, install a separate aerial and Freeview receiver just for that. A loft aerial feeding the bedroom might do.
 
I assume he means Alzheimers which is no laughing matter. If you've never known someone with dementia who's slowly degenerated to the point where they don't know where they are, who they are, or who you are, then consider yourself lucky.

But back to the OPs problem.
I'd be inclined to bring the downleads from both aerials into the loft - that way it's relatively easy to try different things out. Assuming of course that it's practical to do so.
Try a passive combiner and see what results you get.

Depending on the signal strength you may be able to use a passive splitter, or you may need an amp.

For the aerials, it may be best if not pointed directly at the transmitter ! This may sound crazy, but it may improve reception. It depends on where you are, and the bearings to the transmitters, but pointing the aerial a little off line will reduce the wanted signal, but if it means getting the other transmitter into the null zone (roughly 90˚ to the antenna for most designs) then it may result in a better signal.

As Sam points out, what you don't want is a signal being picked up from both aerials and being mixed out of phase so that it reduces or cancels the signal to the point of not being usable. So accepting less "wanted" signal in exchange for less (or none) of the unwanted signal for each aerial may result in a better result all round.

Looking at the map, and assuming you are in or near Chester, then pointing one aerial a bit to the north of Winter Hill, and the other a bit to the north of Moel-Y-Parc might do this.

This assumes of course that you can't use one aerial for both transmitters. Can you get a decent signal from Storeton (Wirral) ? Unfortunately it looks like it doesn't provide all the muxes at high power (looks a bit like it's a dual function site with high power in band C/D, horizontal; and low power in band A, vertical). The high power muxes aren't a complete set.
But since you can get the missing mux from Moel-Y-Parc, that shouldn't matter. Point the aerial roughly up the Dee estuary and there's a good chance of getting both unless you use a very high gain (and narrow acceptance angle) aerial.
 

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