Aerial Advice

fattakin

fattakin

Member
I currently use a skint indoor aerial.. has been fine as im less than 5 miles form Divis transmitter. But we've re-arranged the living room furniture and it no longer has a line of sight to the window.

I'm definitely missing 1 mux at the minute, no film 4

My cheap otion is to run a 20m extension cable along the room and try and find the sweet spot.

or I can do a loft install of a cheapo loft aerial.

Dont really have the cash for a professional Aerial installed on the Chimney but this might be preferable if i want to also get the SOARVIEW service i mentioned in another thread.

Thoughts on a Loft Aerial, anyone ever used? What's the best way to get a cable down from it with minimal drilling?
 
fattakin said:
Thoughts on a Loft Aerial, anyone ever used? What's the best way to get a cable down from it with minimal drilling?
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I have a TRIAX UNIX 52 loft aerial which was about 20 quid on eBay in 2005... I have a fairly new house with thermal bricks inside and artificial stone outside (made of concrete so fairly dense). I have line of site to Elmley Moor although there are a couple of valleys between us; according to the DTG site it's 22km away. I'm still using the original cheap brown coax that the builders put in (I do keep meaning to replace it!) but I have all muxes nice and clearly. Lots of connectors in the loft too and I MUX FM down the same drop cables to a splitter plate.

So basically I do everything that you shouldn't for a good signal and still have no problems at all!

The easiest way to run a cable depends on the construction of your house. If it's plasterboard dabbed onto thermal blocks like mine then just make a hole and push the cable right up into the loft with a length of flexible plastic (old curtain track or the like). It may be easiest to run the cable up the outside wall, just watch that you put a loop at the bottom end of the cable so that the cable goes up and then into the wall - that stops water running down the cable into the hole. Stud walls are the easiest because they're open to the loft so you just make a hole for the aerial plate then drop the cable straight down.
 
Its a 1920's terrace so the loft is fairly insulation fee. Its just full of junk!

I have an existing cat5e cable running into it from the back bedroom so i could possibly use that existing route and pass it from there into the living room. OK cool i can consider that, just need a really long RF cable. ebay seems to only have 10m lengths (would need white)

I need a wideband one? I can see that model on ebay.
 
If I ever do any aerial wiring in future, I'm going to use satellite stuff. Far lower loss at UHF, less to worry about.
 
Read the advice given by a professional installer, Justin, on the aerialsandtv.com website: It covers the lot: aerial choice, cable choice, loft vs outside vs room aerials ... the lot.
 
I would thoroughly agree with that. I have referred to the aerialsandtv web-site many a time.

BTW, you can pick up multiples of 10m lengths of CAI approved dual copper shielded WF100 Belden Webro coax. cable from eBay, for relatively little money.

Screwfix are doing a good deal on the CAI approved Labgear 48-element aerial.
 
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