Roof aerial outlet?

[Lucid]

Thanks for posting the picture. That's always helpful.

To keep things simple, Yes, wire the same way. TBH though, it makes no difference. Beneath the black plastic cover the two screw attachments connect to either end of a loop of metal. It's a folded dipole, and being a loop of metal means that you can attach the wires either way round and it'll make no difference.

Looking at that aerial, there's no little circuit board where the wires attach. That makes it out as a pre-digital era aerial. There's nothing wrong with using an older aerial to pick up Freeview. If it works, it works. Just be aware though that if you get odd or intermittent results then don't spend a lot of time trying to diagnose. Just swap out the aerial for one of the later generation models and save yourself a lot of grief.

 

[tryme]

I have chased the aerial and it seems to me that it splices off in two places. I have found one, in the second bedroom. I plugged it in and received about 30 freeview channels. Mostly the bbc channels, Dave and a few others.

Oddly no itv channels.

Do I need a new aerial?

I was thinking of something like this:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-tv-aerial-high-gain-digital/60215

 

[Lucid]

There's not really enough info in your posts to make an absolute recommendation on an aerial, but that one wouldn't be on my shortlist. It's a typical "blunderbuss" purchase made by folk who aren't sure what to buy, so they buy the biggest thing they can in the assumption that bigger is better.

When they're installed outside they catch the wind and put a lot of pressure on the bracket and brickwork unless used with a substantial bracket. You won't have that problem though because your aerial isn't exposed to the elements being in the loft.

The bigger issue with Tri-Booms (the type of aerial design) is that they promise a lot of signal gain (strength) but it's not proportional to the additional size and weight, but more seriously, any additional gain happens in quite a narrow range of frequencies, most of which are now vacant because that part of the TV spectrum was sold off to 4G mobile phone use.

Your aerial choices depend largely on your local transmitter (see this link https://ukfree.tv/maps/freeview and try to narrow it down if possible) and the frequencies it uses. If your channels are all bunched in the lower- or middle-part of the spectrum then you can buy something called a Grouped Aerial. These are tuned to be most sensitive within certain channel ranges e.g. a Group A aerial is great from ch21 to the mid 30's. See the diagram here LINK: http://aerialsandtv.com/_wp_generated/wp41075ab3_01_1a.jpg

If they're not conveniently bunched then something with a wider range would be more suitable. Strictly speaking they're still classed as Grouped Aerials (Group T), but the DM36 Log- or DM40 Log-Periodic is a good all-round choice IMO. You can always supplement the gain if you really need to by using a masthead amp. This might kill two birds with one stone actually. Where you need signal to several TV points you can buy a 2, 4, 6 or 8 output masthead amp with variable power level that'll do the trick quite nicely. LINK http://antiference.co.uk/product/75-series-masthead-amplifiers/

There's nothing wrong with having passive splitters in the cable to feed a couple of adjacent rooms so long as there's good signal quality and reasonable signal level in the feed coming down from the loft. In fact passive splitters preserve quality (but not level) whereas an active amp behind a TV or between two rooms knocks the quality down. So the rule of thumb is active ampluification near the aerial, passive splitting close to the displays.


Screwfix are okay for bits such as cable, amps, splitters, but they are not a good choice for aerials. Have a chat with AerialsandTV or drop me a line in a private message.



If you imagine the channel spectrum as the sort of linear bar with the needle pointer on an old radio tuner, then the TV channels are getting pushed further and further to the low-frequency end of the scale. Before digital, some transmitters such as Winter Hill (N.W. England) used to have all of their channels at the top end of the spectrum, and that's where Wideband High Gain aerials such as the Tri-Boom worked pretty well. Now though they're spread right from c37

 

[tryme]

I believe mine starts at c22 and goes to c35.

It looks like my aerial group is A and K

 

[Lucid]

Yeah, either will do, but the Group A aerial focusses on ch21-c37 and that covers your spread perfectly. Because the reception is concentrated on this narrow band the Group A aerial should give you more signal that a Group K aerial which covers a larger channel range.