Need help with aerial

[Bower123]

Hi,

Sorry if it’s the wrong place to post here! But I’ve recently moved in to a rented flat and I’m struggling to connect the tv aerial to my freebies type box.

There are 2 wires coming out of the wall, one is black and has 2 ends coming out of it with thin wires at the end (pic 1) the other is white with a thin wire and looks like it should be connected to another longer white wire but isn’t - and the 2 parts don’t seem to join up (pic 2). My tv box (pic 3) doesn’t seem to fit these thinner connectors and will only accept the other end of the longer white wire - but I can’t connect the part coming out the wall to this?

Does anyone have any idea if there is anything I can try to get this set up? And why the wires are different sizes in the first place?

Many thanks

 

[ericmark]

The twin plugs likely satellite. Single plug not a clue.
So what is there outside, is there a dish, is there an aerial?

 

[Bower123]

There is a dish outside, I can’t see an aerial. Hopefully I don’t need to get one fitted.

In the 3rd pic, it’s a long wire going along the skirting and there are 2 identical ends like the left hand side, I plugged one in to the tv and thought that would be fine, but then nothing happened so I followed the wire along and found the 2 parts that are in the photo so it’s not really even connected to anything.

 

[ericmark]

My TV has both freeview (aerial) and free to air (satellite dish) so for me either would work. But most TV's need an set top (really set bottom) box, it seems there are a number of types, free to air often you only get now and next on the guide (EPG) where freesat tends to get full 7 days and uses fixed numbers, free to air you can often set program order, then there is the pay for system like Sky.

Freeview is restricted in some areas, this house we only get some channels, so never bothered with aerial, satellite is far better.

 

[Lucid]

Whether you go for Freesat from the dish or Freeview from your aerial depends very much on your needs.

IMO, Freesat offers marginally better picture quality because it's a little less compressed. Set against this though is the cost and complexity of adding Freesat receiver/recorder boxes to all the TVs in the house, and the hassle and cost of running the cable. You see, unlike Freeview signals, satellite signals can't be sent in to a simple multi-way splitter to feed several boxes. Each box requires its own feed (or two) from the dish.

Freeview is far easier to deal with. Every TV can receive and display Freeview without any additional gear. One single cable in to a room can feed a 2-tuner recorder and loop-through to the TV so it can work independently too. To do the same with Freesat would require 3 cables.


If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.

 

[Bower123]

Hi,

Thanks very much for your replies.

I current have a talk talk tv box but I can’t m get it connected due to this white aerial. I have attached another picture. There are 2 white ends which don’t connect to anything, I thought one would connect to kinda small white thing coming out the wall with the thinner wire but they don’t fit together (you can probably see that from looking at the photo). Do you know if there’s some kind of middle part this is missing so they attach together? Then I can attach the other end to my talk talk box?

Thanks!

 

[Lucid]

Thanks very much for your replies...

...Thanks!

Very nice, but much better if you just click the thanks button.

If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you. It costs you nothing. Do it on each of the posts you found helpful. Much appreciated.

I current have a talk talk tv box but I can’t m get it connected due to this white aerial. I have attached another picture. There are 2 white ends which don’t connect to anything, I thought one would connect to kinda small white thing coming out the wall with the thinner wire but they don’t fit together (you can probably see that from looking at the photo). Do you know if there’s some kind of middle part this is missing so they attach together? Then I can attach the other end to my talk talk box?

It's an educated guess, but a good one based on installing aerials and distribution systems for more than a decade; I would say I'm 95% sure that the two new-looking white coax cables are going off to TV points in the house. It looks to me very much like the previous occupant had a Sky box, and used the two aerial outputs on the back to send the box signal to two other rooms for remote viewing.

I can't be certain if they bothered or not hooking up the outside coax cable. It would depend whether there's a functioning aerial on the other end of it. Certainly for Sky box users it's not essential unless they want a Freeview signal as well as seeing whichever Sky channel the Sky HD box is currently tuned to watch. You see, a Sky HD box (and previous generations) has an RF modulator built in. That means the box generates a signal that the analogue TV tuner can be set to receive.

RF modulators in gear used to be common. All VCRs had them, and DVD recorders often did. Gradually though as we switched away from using RF and SCART to HDMI for the local TV hook-up the RF modulator has been replaced by a simple RF pass-through connection. This is now the case if you buy a Freeview or Freesat recorder. The only way to see what the box has recorded or is currently tuned to is to use a HDMI out or SCART if still fitted. These boxes no longer make an aerial signal version of their output.

Back to your situation:

We don't know what bits of gear such as splitters and power supplies might also have been attached to the cables at this TV point. However, I can definitely tell you that the short wire coming out under the windowsill is missing part of the plug end. It needs a new coax plug fitting. This means carefully removing the remnants of the old plug end, and then fitting a new one. This will give you a functioning plug end to which you can attach an extension to go to the TV or a Freeview recorder.

See here for a simple fitting guide: https://www.aerialsandtv.com/wiringup.html

As an alternative, you could fit a "satellite-type" F-plug screw-on connector instead. This doesn't make the signal in to a satellite signal. It's simply a different style of connection that is also commonly used now for aerial connections.

Where you're in rented accommodation, even furnished, it's not the landlord's responsibility to provide a working aerial, but have a chat with them anyway to see if he/she knows if the aerial works.

[Edited to update Landlord's responsibilities re TV aerials.]


If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you. It costs you nothing. Do it on each of the posts you found helpful. Much appreciated.

 

[ericmark]

As @Lucid says likely the pair of cables were for a Sky + or HD box, until Sky Q every Sky box that could record used twin cables one for live viewing and one for recording, and had a coax output that could work a remote TV with a eye so the sky remote would also work in other rooms. With a 14" TV the analogue signal was ample, but as we went up in TV sizes the picture was not good enough to use on 32" TV's. I bought cheap free to air (not freesat) boxes and the dish had 4 outputs, two when to Sky box, and one to each bedroom, but to get more than 3 TV's to work was a problem.

When I moved we transferred Sky and we got a upgrade to Sky Q, the LNB on the dish has 6 outputs, 2 special for Sky Q and 4 for the cheap freesat boxes, we got three boxes with Sky Q so all three use the same twin special connection to the LNB and the two satellite boxes wireless connect to main box, I don't know the limit, but know can watch three programs and record one all at the same time.

Main reason for Sky was in mothers old house we had Sky and when she died the contract was auto finished and what ever the probate people did it seems there was a problem with the telephone line and numbers, thinking we could get cheaper we went for talk talk, that resulted in no telephone for 3 weeks while we were trying to sort it out, we then tried the post office, and telephone connected, however when we moved out again problems with charges for a phone we did not have, and the broad band was rubbish, however Sky broadband in same house had been excellent, so fed up with fighting to get good broadband this house with transferred Sky from last house, and they arrived and set up everything, phones, broadband and TV no hassle. Including a hybrid LNB so free to air boxes also work.

In my case the house is mine not rented, but it seems the Landlord does not need to provide aerials or dishes, clearly as in some areas there is no terrestrial TV reception then it can hardly be made law for Landlord to provide an aerial, although many do, you however would need to ask, the landlord may provide one, but it also may be that there is no signal or poor signal or like in my case the local repeater does not transmit all freeview channels so everyone uses satellite.

@Lucid has also helped me find a way to listen to radio without any good radio reception using satellite, I would have preferred to have used FM but signal is just not good enough, LW clearly works as my weather station has auto corrected time to Europe time from a time signal from Germany, yet can't get Radio 4 FM.

You have not said were you live, you will note both myself and @Lucid show our location. We all tend to think everyone lives where we do, and has the same facilities, but that is clearly not true, because I have a local train station does not mean everyone has one, although in my town trains don't run in winter except for Santa Specials. But if you are paying talk talk then talk talk should sort it out, Sky does, so would assume others would do the same, but my experience with talk talk was if not easy, then they simply say sorry contract cancelled. I note there Utube guide says their box will not work with satellite dishes, My IceCrypt STC3250CCIHD box, and my TV will both work with both terrestrial and satellite together, I don't know when selecting program or watching if using satellite or terrestrial without special search, it puts satellite channels on higher numbers to terrestrial as standard, but I can arrange channels so I have for example ITV1, ITV1+1, ITV2 etc and so ITV 3 may be terrestrial but ITV3 +1 is satellite (mainly as terrestrial close down half way through a program).

So you have a few options.
1) Ask landlord.
2) Ask talk talk.
3) Find if terrestrial is available, if so get aerial repaired or replaced.
4) Buy a satellite box.
If you opt for latter, unless paying for Sky, be aware many cheap boxes the electronic program guide is useless or poor, the more expensive freesat has a proper 7 day guide, but also programs are fixed, I find the IceCrypt has better picture as HDMI not SCART but the very old Sky box without a card still works with a very good 7 day guide, better than the more updated Sky+ box as it can be set to auto change to pre-selected program when it starts. I have got use to poor Freeview and new TV's have satellite input on the TV. To be frank a box is better, don't know why, but the TV seems to be missing some programs which are found with the free to air box.

 

[Lucid]

@ericmark raises some good points. There's just one thing I think I'd like to mention. It's not Talk Talk's responsibility to sort out an aerial connection.

Talk Talk's Youview box uses a mix of Freeview plus internet for content provision. The Freeview portion is the same as any consumer TV can pick up. Aside from the requirement for a TV licence, there's no part of the Talk Talk TV subscription that charges for Freeview/Freeview HD reception. Any service costs relate to the provision of streamed premium subscription channels and the ability to use their TV streaming app for mobile and tablet devices.

Sky is somewhat different in that the service is only available when the right type of dish is installed. The hardware cost is covered in the minimum contract term. Outside of that term, ownership of the dish and cables transfers to the subscriber. Sky will support their own installations after the minimum contract period has elapsed, but at what they consider to be a commercial rate regardless of the amount of the monthly ongoing service subscription.