Picking up Terresterial TV signal without having to plug a cable in?

[PYE P75A]

Hi all.

Sorry if this is a daft question but i need to know if a free-sat box or something similar can pick up TV signal without a composite cable plugged in. I am currently living with my grandparents and they do not have a cable connection socket.

Many Thanks.

PYE P75A.

 

[Lucid]

You're going to need a signal cable of some description if you want to watch live TV.

A Freesat box needs the signal from a satellite dish. A Freeview tuner as fitted to all modern TVs and Freeview recorder boxes needs the signal from a TV aerial. That aerial could be on the roof or in the loft subject to the type of house.

It could be a smaller aerial mounted indoors if the local transmitter gives a strong signal at the house location and the room itself is on a side of the house that faces the local transmitter. The results from indoor aerials are variable and very subject to local conditions. The same aerial that works great for someone else might give no results for you, or vice versa. It's all very dependent on what's happening with the signal in the room it is to be used in.

Internet TV offers a halfway house solution. If your TV is a smart TV, and you can get an internet signal to it, then you might have the option of watching catch-up services. To get an internet signal to the TV where your grandparents aren't online might involve either using your phone as a wireless hotspot, or purchasing a 4G mobile internet puck which does the same thing. (Add a data-only SIM card). Both of these solutions presume that the TV has Wi-Fi. If it doesn't, then I'd recommend buying an Amazon Firestick. They're wireless and have a full complement of the main catch-up TV streaming apps plus the ability to download and run additional apps too.



If this advice or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button; that's thanks, not like, there's an important difference. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. It costs you nothing. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.

 

[ericmark]

Two ways to get audio/visual into the house, wireless (RF) or hard wired, (Telephone cable or the like) however you can swap between them once their in your house, so an aerial or dish invariably swaps to being hard wired, and the telephone often becomes wireless or wifi.

However to convert between the to some thing has to power it, well not quite RF can be received and converted into a very small signal and sent down a cable, but to turn it back into RF it will need amplifying so some how you need power.

The problem is we have larger TV's today, and the picture which we accepted with a 14 inch TV is not good enough for a 32 inch TV, however it does still work, so you can have a satellite dish hard wired to a box, and then the box re-transmits the signal to be received else where in the house, in fact this is what I have, it's called Sky Q, only the main box connects to the dish, all other boxes are connected to it using wifi.

However to do this it uses a different dish to normal freesat, the question is there on the market a box that does same as Sky Q without needing a subscription? The old units that plugged into a SCART socket don't really have the quality, and to be frank Sky Q does loose signal every so often, so not perfect either.

So there will be a way, but job one is list what you have, and then people can see if that can be used. We tend to think everyone has what we have in our own house, however my mother did not have broad band, or a dish, only an aerial, I installed broad band as part of the monitoring mother is OK package, and when we left our old house we got rid of the telephone and only way was a link to a cell phone site, which can work out expensive. So what have you got, and what do you want?

 

[PYE P75A]

Thanks very much folks, given you both a THANKS. I'm not very up to date so think I will go for an indoor arial. Hope to see you around the forum

 

[winston1]

It's aerial and in the majority of cases an indoor one won't work properly.

 

[ericmark]

Yes arial is a type face, but that's being rather pedantic we all know what is being referred to, I must have many indoor aerials, for baby alarms, computer wifi, door bell etc, and they work properly, and I am able to talk with guy down the road with a simple rubber duck aerial on my transceiver, I found aerials don't seem to work as expected, I ran out a long wire to get BBC world services, on the short wave band, no way should it have worked with VHF specially transmitting, but when I found I was locked in, tried it, and it worked fine, although low power.

With a handy one can find moving the radio just one foot makes all the difference, it seems more akin to witch craft than radio, OK I know likely I am either full wave length or part wave length from other person, but far easier to move an aerial in the loft 9 inches to on the roof, a lot of luck is down to if you can or can't pick up the signal, and in my old house where I could see the lights of Moel-y-parc mast from my window, I am sure I could get TV with a length of wet string, here however not so easy, about only radio signal I can pick up is the local heritage railway when its running.

One can't assume because you can or can't do some thing where you live, it is the same for everyone. And since @PYE P75A is into radio I expect he knows how to make aerials, I love the HB9CV but I am sure @PYE P75A can confirm an aerial like this

works very well on long and medium wave, but not really up to the job for short wave. It is not only indoors it is inside the radio indoors.

But those radios are now quite rare, and with short wave today we really need a BFO. However the point is how to relay TV signals inside the home, preferable in a legal manor, I remember on the Falklands we were told the military were going to start transmitting TV, I had a TV for my old spectrum computer, so every so often would try to tune in.

One day I got a signal, not very good but clearly a TV signal, I tried playing around with aerials which no real luck, then realised I was watching porn, could not see the military transmitting that so went for a walk, about 100 yards away some one had a video player and a TV and had left the built in aerial connected to the TV and so it was transmitting, also had when using analogue TV when could watch Sky programs on channel 69 where a neighbour had connected the aerial plugs wrong way around and was re-transmitting sky.

This is not permitted, but there are frequencies you can use, the problem is changing channel, SkyQ uses wifi, and works well, but not sure about any others, I am sure @Lucid will tell us if there are non sky boxes which do the same.

 

[Deleted2797112]

Thanks very much folks, given you both a THANKS. I'm not very up to date so think I will go for an indoor arial. Hope to see you around the forum

I've tried a lot of indoor aerials and most of them have been crap. I tried again to get a rather elderly 18" non-smart TV working in a bedroom with no roof-mounted aerial outlet. I read loads of reviews and ended up going for this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SLx-27793RG-Performance-Engineered-Freeview-Black/dp/B00GUNYQ38/

It's bloody brilliant. I get all the same Freeview channels as on the living room uptodate smart TV with a roof mounted aerial. But it will depend, as has been said above, on how good your signal from the transmitter is. Buy from Amazon and send it back if it doesn't give a good enough result.

 

[winston1]

I've tried a lot of indoor aerials and most of them have been crap. I tried again to get a rather elderly 18" non-smart TV working in a bedroom with no roof-mounted aerial outlet. I read loads of reviews and ended up going for this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SLx-27793RG-Performance-Engineered-Freeview-Black/dp/B00GUNYQ38/

It's bloody brilliant. I get all the same Freeview channels as on the living room uptodate smart TV with a roof mounted aerial. But it will depend, as has been said above, on how good your signal from the transmitter is. Buy from Amazon and send it back if it doesn't give a good enough result.

Like all those flat indoor aerials it’s a load of poop. You just happen to be in an area with a strong signal. 15cm of wire would also work there.
Think if indoor aerials were so wonderful the broadcasters would not use those big towers, but just an indoor aerial in their studios.

 

[ericmark]

Like all those flat indoor aerials it’s a load of poop. You just happen to be in an area with a strong signal. 15cm of wire would also work there.
Think if indoor aerials were so wonderful the broadcasters would not use those big towers, but just an indoor aerial in their studios.

But it is not simply an in door aerial, it also has an amplifier built in, I remember using a Mosfet powered amplifier years ago, made by microwave modules on my old FT290R radio, and it had a switch so you could switch it on or off, the difference was massive, a couple of S points, and this was on a radio designed to receive weak signals, to be frank some TV's are rather deaf, and a good pre-amp can really help.

Yes I agree if that unit would work, then some 300Ω ribbon and a balum with a pre-amp would also work, the problem with all pre-amps is the electronics are susceptible from damage from static, so you buy a pre-amp and it works great until next electric storm then it fails but you have no idea it has failed I found a collection of pre-amps in my dads house, most were useless and went in the bin. With an indoor aerial they are not damaged by electrical storms in the same way, so they can use more sensitive components.

I am not saying is will or will not work, but I have found there are some odd things with aerials, they don't always work as expected. Like a dark art, which is why throughout the time there have been radio amateurs there have been new aerials made which preform very different to each other. Many still named after the radio ham who invented them like the Yagi and HB9CV. Some names due to shape J beam and slim Jim.

@PYE P75A is clearly into radios, or I would not talk about this in the same way, there have been units like this

for years used to locally transmit and receive TV signals, and in the days of analogue TV and 14" sets they worked well, but we have moved on, and many of the old methods are no longer good enough, they may work with security cameras but not really good enough for digital TV, the problem is only way to know is to try one, and at £25 to £70 unless some one says it's worked great for me, one is not inclined to try one.

 

[bernardgreen]

but I have found there are some odd things with aerials

I was recently reminded about a saga of a co-linear on the roof of a tall building next to the sea with 25 watts fed to it.

Intended to cover a large town with paging signals but no, three miles away line of sight and the signal level was way below the expected level and in building coverage was erratic. The service provider assumed the co-linear was defective and a temporary folded dipole was literally hung out of the equipment room window overlooking the town ( access to roof was very restricted ) , there was good coverage of the whole town from the dipole with solid in building coverage through out the town. ( as was expected of the co-linear )

When access to the roof was finally obtained a new co-linear was installed by an electrical fitter ( employed by the building's owner )

Same poor coverage.

It was then that the radio engineers were called in and given access to the roof. They found other co-linears on the roof for other services, All in the same band and neatly spaced in a tidy line......pointing out to sea. A few tests with a signal strength meter and a motor boat found that most to the 25 watts were going out to sea.....

Some pressure was put on the building's owners and the dipole became a permanent fixture.

It was not possible to get any information about the services on the other co-linears. One suspects the four co-linears had created a highly directional array.

As often said, wireless communication can be a black art.

 

[winston1]

But it is not simply an in door aerial, it also has an amplifier built
in

Amplifiers on indoor aerials are a waste of time, money, and electricity. To be effective it needs to improve the signal to noise ratio. It won’t it will just give louder signal and noise. Aerial amps are meant to go at the start of a long run of coax to raise the signal above the noise picked up on the coax and local to the receiver.

 

[bernardgreen]

Amplifiers on indoor aerials are a waste of time,

Amplifiers without band pass filtering might be a waste of time on indoor aerials,

 

[winston1]

Amplifiers without band pass filtering might be a waste of time on indoor aerials,

Indeed, so are are amplifiers with it.

 

[bernardgreen]

Indeed, so are are amplifiers with it

Believe that if you want to.

 

[ericmark]

The DTi before we went digital published a book, in the book it explained how to make a band pass filter, and every radio rally you would see the printed circuits and kits of parts to make them, not a very good band pass filter, but it did stop amateur transmissions upsetting the TV. The filters used in repeaters are rather expensive and very tight to the band they are designed for, and the hams who look after the repeaters are very cleaver chaps.

However I still remember one time the guy looking after it asking if we would all refrain from using it for 5 minutes, seems the transmitter was setting his car alarm and he could not drive away.

There are 100's of stories about aerials doing odd things, and odd effects, some times it is simply suck it and see. And some times a good signal is not what you want, last house was in direct line of sight of Moel-y-Parc handy when working GB3MP but before digital it had all Welsh TV, so we would set up aerials other side of house aimed at Winter Hill and shielded from Moel-y-Parc, when digital came out, TV's became too cleaver, and would demand to be re-tuned as found more programs, the whole system reversed, now aerials set up shielded from Winter Hill aimed at Moel-y-parc as could pick up all channels from Moel-y-parc. My aerial was on corner of garage to ensure it could not pick up Winter Hill.

Things like this are very local, and local aerial fitters know the problems in their area, or at least should, I know my local one was telling my son and I how some one had asked him to stack aerials saying how daft people are, my son and I just shook our heads and said nothing, we had just left a guy who had 9 yagi beams in an array with azimuth as well as direction control who bounced his signals (VHF) off the moon to talk to the USA. Well I say talk it was CW he had dispensation to use a kW but even that is not enough for voice.

Being fair because of the wide band used for TV likely you can't stack aerials for TV unless for just one multiplex, but there was nothing wrong with the question.

It seems the more you know, the more you realise how little you really know, my father-in-law had a plaque on his desk, it read "These people who think they know it all, are especially annoying to those of us that do." And as far as radio goes I am only an amateur, the professionals like @Lucid I have to take my hat off to, she can run rings around me.

But some times indoor aerials work, it is as simple as that.