Tv aerial prob

[funtimefrankie]

I live in an area where my TV signal is very poor. Channel 5 is unobtainable.This week I replaced the aerial with a 91 element Digital high gain aerial from maplins. On my mast I have a antiferance masthead amp fed from an Antiferance P1200 power supply. I now get more preview channels and channel 5 which is sometmes breaks up. How can I pull in a better signal. I am also going to put in the loft a 4 way powered splitter. Im not sure if i am buying the wrong things and mismatching. Can someone please help.

 

[User]

Well I ain't an expert but the basics I know are -

Use double screened cable (braid and foil) I always use Webro WF100

Keep any joints and connections to an absolute minimum

Keep cable away from any mains cable if necessary cross at 90 degrees

Check out satcure.co.uk it has tons of useful info

 

[electronicsuk]

Firstly, you can check here to get a list of local transmitters, their power, distance from your property, and a suggestion as to what type of antenna to use.

If you have more than one local Tx, it might be that you're simply pointing at the wrong one to receive Freeview channels. For example, you might have a local analogue repeater which would provide you with perfectly acceptable analogue channels, but no digital reception at all.

Assuming you're pointing the right way, another problem could be incorrect polarization. AFAIK most transmitters have their antennas in the horizontal plane, but it may be worth checking up just to be sure that you don't need to have your aerial in the vertical (i.e. spin it round 90 degrees so the elements point up and down instead of left and right).

Also, if you already have a masthead amp and the cable run is short, you might do more harm than good by sticking another amplified splitter on the end of the cable. Too much signal can cause just as many problems as lack of it, so if you need to get a signal to multiple TVs then you may just be better off with a good quality passive splitter at the end of the downlead.

If the cable run is long then fair enough, put an amplified splitter on the end by all means, but I can't imagine any cable run as 'lossy' as that in a domestic situation unless it was faulty or seriously cheap cable.

 

[cyndi]

do you know which transmitter you are pointing at ,nottingham or east wood maybe both are low power especially eastwood.

you could well be overloading the amp now with a high gain amp ,too much signal has the same effect as no signal.

postcode would help find your best tx site

 

[ericmark]

Looking at PDF by Ofcom it shows transmitters and you can then see the frequencies used and if horizontal or vertical I would not say either is more common.

By using banded aerials rather than wide band and using vertical or horizontal rather than cross aerials the size of the aerial is much reduced so without problems with wind blowing and shaking the aerial a larger gain can be used.

The next stage is an aerial array but the length of coax between sets of aerials is critical and with such a wide band even on the banded aerials it is unlikely to work correctly across all channels.

This site may also help but you have mast amp so that would be first stop and you have active splitters which is second point so as long as good quality coax is used. I would use that labelled as for Sky then only real thing left is set.

I have a number of free to air units built into TV, separate boxes and PC card and the built into TV is far better than boxes and boxes are far better than PC card there are huge differences in their ability to receive weak signals. I have to use extra pre-amp on PC card.

There are some internet sites which will compare different makes but if all else fails then try this and watch on internet or use free to sky most of the encrypted channels like Channel 4 have now removed the encryption.