Digital TV aerial installation etc etc

[Zambezi]

Can I ask why some are suggesting Cat 6 or 7? Most of the fancy systems on the market run off Cat 5.

 

[ericmark]

I did some experiments using a halo and 7/8th whip mounted on my car.
Using SSB and other station was using a 8 element yagi beam horizontal.
At first for the 50 miles from Sizewell Suffolk to Cambridge the halo was slightly better but at Cambridge I lost contact but as I went further I regained contact before I joined M6 and now the 7/8 whip was better and I have talked about this with others and it does seem as distance increases the loses between horizontal and vertical become less than the gain between a 7/8 whip and loss of halo.

But are you sure the transmitter is horizontal anyway if you look here most are mixed or vertical so a halo would be useless anyway.

 

[ColJack]

future proofing..

 

[ElectricDunc]

It's never an easy one knowing what the best option is for tv aerials. Usually i would put 3 satellite grade coax cables to the lounge tv position. That will atleast cover you for Sky+/Freesat as well as your regular digital tv and DAB/FM. Generally most people just want a regular tv point in the other rooms but it would be worth checking what your customer wants first. I know some companies do do systems that allow you to send TV, Sat, DAB and telephone down a piece of Cat5 but they're expensive and i'm unsure if they support HD signals. The only thing i would never do is install the aerial myself, best to outsource that to an aerial installer as they'll know exactly what you need. I usually just take all my cables to the loft space and connect them to a SLX TV amplifier. They're inexpensive and allow digital signals to pass back and forth if you have a Sky Magic Eye installed on your system which some amplifiers will block.

 

[electronicsuk]

I was looking to see if three or four cables were required. I did have one of the Labgear distribution boxes which combines the UHF and microwave in loft and splits it again at the face plate. But that was before HD came along and with HD you need two feeds from the LNB to the sky box.

So the main problem is once a room is decorated to add extra cables. I have four cables two microwave from LNB, One feed from aerial and one return to splitter in loft which then feeds all bed rooms with Sky, Free to Sky, DVD, and standard TV signals.

People might have noticed that I bang on about them a lot, but the way forward really is to install a multiswitch. I can understand why people use LoftBoxes for simplicity and ease of installation, but for not a lot more money you can get a far more flexible solution.

As you say, the downfall of the LoftBox is that it can only carry satellite signals to a single tuner. However, a multiswitch uses a Quattro LNB on the dish which downconverts all incoming signals and splits them across four coaxes. These then feed into the multiswitch, which can then have as many outputs as you like to feed as many receivers as you want. The multiswitch mimicks a standard LNB by connecting each receiver through the switch to one of the four wavebands from the Quattro LNB, depending on which one the receiver is requesting.

A bonus is that most also have inputs for the UHF and VHF bands, meaning that one cable can carry satellite, TV and FM. For Sky+ receivers, you only need two cables to each outlet point and a quadplexed outlet plate. As I mentioned before, one of the cables carries satellite only with these plates, and the other is triplexed sat + TV + FM.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

future proofing..

Yo.

Again I've not checked, but my assumption is that by now Cat6 or better still Cat6a cable isn't hugely more expensive than Cat5e, so why not use it, particularly in a house where the actual cable cost is a small % of the overall cost of installing it.

I'm less inclined to make that same assumption about Cat7, simply because it's newer and better.

BTW - never listen to any of the b******s from the vendors of Cat7a or Cat8 cable about how you need that much bandwidth - it simply isn't true. Look at the data rates along HDMI cables, or off a Blu-ray DVD if you don't believe me.

I don't actually think that anyone would ever need Cat7, but if it isn't much of a premium then why not...

 

[electronicsuk]

Again I've not checked, but my assumption is that by now Cat6 or better still Cat6a cable isn't hugely more expensive than Cat5e, so why not use it, particularly in a house where the actual cable cost is a small % of the overall cost of installing it.

It's about £60 vs £35 for 1000ft cat5e/cat6, so as you say, there's certainly no excuse not to use it.

I don't actually think that anyone would ever need Cat7, but if it isn't much of a premium then why not...

And "640k of RAM 'ought to be enough for anybody"

 

[ban-all-sheds]

There is that.

Along with "Don't be ridiculous, who would ever want a computer in their home" (Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation)

 

[cyndi]

just read post

i would use only ct100 wf100 type cable for all conections

i would only use a normal straight not bent round dipole for FM

if your using crystal palace transmitter then use a group "a " aerial not wideband,there will be more gain at the right freqencys.

try to use "F" connector type amps ,and this should be a sheilded type but most are these days.

very hard to set up a digital signal with out the proper test gear ,as you will need to check signal to noise ratio (more important than signal gain )with say a promax meter to be spot on