Loft Extension Freeview Opportunity

[leevis]

Hi
I am currently building a loft extension. Currently the only television i receive is through my Sky dish in the living room.
I have a TV that can receive Freeview in my Dining Room but i am using a nasty indoor-on-the-top-of-the-telly aerial at the moment and its pretty rubbish.
I am going to install a television in the bedroom which will be able have Freeview on it also and want to be able to make the most of this while i have the chance.
What i was thinking of doing was installing an external aerial onto the chimney stack and then lowering the cable into the loft and then into a aerial socket in the bedroom. I am sure that this will work but i want to use the same aerial to power the signal on the TV in the dining room.
Could i just run the cable from the aerial into the loft space and then put one of those splitters onto it and run one into the loft tv and the other down the side of the house and into the wall of the dining room. Would this work?
Would i need an amplifier? If so, where would i power it? In the loft?
Help

 

[electronicsuk]

A passive splitter will very likely work fine for two sets in a strong signal area as long as you terminate everything properly and don't have stupidly long cable runs. That said, an amp would leave you more room for future expansion.

 

[leevis]

Getting all the electrics put in at the moment. How does this sound?

I get the electrician to put in an extra single socket into an eave cupboard we are building.
Put up an aerial on the chimney and run the cable from the chimney into this cupboard.
Buy an amplifier.
Plug in the amplifier and connect the cable from the aerial to it.
Use amplifier to 'aerialize' the televisions.

If i bought a 'big one' i could theoretically cable all the television i will ever need ie one socket in each room i think

One question though, are the cables ok to be run outside the house ie from the amplifier inside, then outside and down the outside of the house to the sockets?

Any recommendations on a good amp?

Lee

 

[kkynaston]

Have you thought about piping your sky feed around the house?
Using the right distrubution amp it is very easy and more convenient.
You are not tied to 1 room for subscription TV and if you have Sky+ it is excellent being able to finish what you are watching in bed or the kitchen etc.

 

[pompeyal]

Splitting cables is OK but you need to terminate correctly, you can also run two coaxials from the ariel one supplying each set.
When it comes to serving two sets on sky from the same cable, the problem becomes when you want to change channels from the remote position, you can overcome this by purchasing a magic eye, this will sit next to the remote set and be linked to the set top box via the coax. the coax from the set top box would have to be the one that shows a voltage from the box, this voltage works the eye and as far as I can recall its about 7volts. You can then use the remote to control the set top box from your remote TV. Only fault left is you have to watch the same channel on both sets.

 

[plugwash]

BTW amplifiers can actually make things worse in some situations, they do amplify the signal but they also amplify the noise by the same ammount and they add noise of thier own. So the SNR at the output of an amplifier is always worse than at the imput. Sometimes the stronger signal is worth the extra noise (e.g. very long cable runs of lots of splitting), sometimes it isn't.

There is really no substitute for getting an aerial with sufficiant gain to provide a decent signal in your location and then installing/aligning it properly.

 

[Trazor]

This is a very useful site, packed with all the information you need.

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/index.html

As plugwash has said, amplifiers sometimes make matters worse.