• The forum software that supports hummy.tv has been upgraded to XenForo 2.3!

    Please bear with us as we continue to tweak things, and feel free to post any questions, issues or suggestions in the upgrade thread.

Picture Break Up - Sutton Coldfield Transmitter

The problem with forums is that almost invariably there will be people with differing opinions of what's best. There is also a wide variety of equipment available these days, of varying quality and price, and price isn't always an indicator of quality according to where it is supplied from.

In my opinion, convenience of installation and subsequent access overrides everything else. Yes, a cheap indoor mains-powered aerial amplifier may be "crap" compared with professional kit, but as long as it is installed somewhere easy to get to that's not a problem - if it dies after 10 years service, all you have to do is swap it out. If it dies after a few months service you swap it out under guarantee, and if it runs for a year without problems it will probably run for 10 (bathtub curve). Fit a masthead amp, and if that dies for any reason or however long in the future it requires an aerial fitter call-out (unless you are prepared to go up ladders yourself). Fit a masthead (weatherproof) amplifier in the loft and you are paying for weatherproofing you don't need.

If it's convenient to get a power point fitted in the loft, in my opinion that's better than running phantom-powered. There are more amps to choose from mains-powered than phantom-powered, and only one unit to deal with. There is a slight fire risk from running a mains PSU in the loft, but that can be minimised by keeping the amp away from combustible materials and ensuring adequate ventilation. There is already mains in the loft - the lighting circuit - so don't tell me there is additional risk from the 13A socket per se.

Yes, by all means test a passive splitter before committing to an amplifier. What I think worries us is that the signal will be just enough at the time, but prove inadequate in the long term.

I don't agree with prpr on the splitter following the amp - far better to use an amp with multiple outputs that may well be actively split rather than confining yourself to an amp with a single output and following that by a passive splitter. It's not like future options are reduced by having an amp with more than one output.

But, like I said, that's my opinion. Others might disagree. It is for the reader to consider the options and weigh up the arguments.
 
My phylosophy is to 'Suck it and see'. If your signal is strong enough introducing a low-loss splitter will do the job.
Just before Christmas my distribution amp in the loft died. I sent for another. Meanwhile I had to make sure that the Wife's recorder took the single feed (my main TV also has a satellite tuner) to record her soaps.
I had several splitters so first I tried one. Good signal to two TVs. This still left the TV in the kitchen so I daisy chained another into the first splitter giving me three feeds, all good. It worked for me.
My new 4-way amp has since arrived so I am using that because it has a 4G filter (should the need arise) and passes a feed to the radio.
 
Leonthefixer said:
3. Can I ask why it is better to not have the power supply in the loft space?
Click to expand...
Some might think it's an unnecessary fire risk (however small that risk may be).
For goodness sake, just stick the splitter back in connected to two TVS and see what happens. That will save an awful lot of toing and froing if it works OK. The signal levels that you have reported seem to be good enough to do that? If I then starts playing up, then think about which amp to use. You would only need a low gain one because you seem to have enough signal already to run your TV OK.
 
The gain is adjusted with a screw.

Fitting in the loft is perfectly acceptable, most of the noise picked up on a coax cable is from your home cabling, most of which is below the loft. Just mount it as close as practically possible to the aerial itself.

Any power supply left on 24/7 in a loft poses a small but significant fire risk. Not many of us have smoke alarms in a loft so any fire could be well established before knowing about it. The very low power current limited 12V supply provided by a remote power supply poses no risk at all.

I would use the vision amp (the same as I have), however the Blake is most likely equally as good.
 
A CE-marked unit (if not counterfeit) will have been tested against such risks, or be following a proven design.
 
One aspect of the splitter/multi-output amplifier choice is purely convenience.
As said above the amplifier ideally needs to be near the aerial. Assume done.

The next question is where the users of the signal are.
If there is already a down-lead to a TV location and the second user is at the same location, then running a second lead is a bit daft and a splitter at the end location would make sense.
If the other user is somewhere else and another down-lead is needed, then a multi-output amplifier near the aerial feeding two down-leads would make more sense.

Good engineering always balances 'technically perfect' with affordable/useable/convenient. We don't know all the details of your house, etc, so you have to make the final engineering decision to suit your circumstances.
 
Many thanks again for the replies and sorry for not replying sooner due to time constraints. Also I appreciate I am 'faffing' around with all this and not just cracking on but I like to get a good understanding of things before doing anything and I have gained a huge amount of knowledge from the replies people have give. My understanding has improved hugely and I now feel as though I understand my situation much better but also know a lot more about the whole subject, so thanks.

I am have still mainly been experiencing uninterrupted TV but I have noticed that on a few rare occasions I am seeing some very minor picture break up or sound issues. But these are very minor. This is still with the cable splitter removed and with the cable joined by an in line joiner as previously mentioned.

I think from what knowledge I have gathered that it is going to be pointless trying the passive splitter without introducing an amplifier as if I am seeing picture/sound issues, despite only being very minor, with no splitter, the problem is only going to get worse with the splitter in the system. So I have decided to get the amplifier when I get chance. The reason I am reluctant to just try the splitter is that it may mess up recordings which when watching series which months down the line you come to watch only to find bits missing can be very frustrating. For example, I have been watching Season 4 of Homeland this week and had several episodes severely effected by picture breakup meaning I missed key parts and it is no longer available on catch up, so I have been left in the dark as to what happened.

I get the reason for not having the power adapter situated in the loft due to potential fire issues (granted very minor). I think for that reason I may as well get one that powers in the lounge and sends power back up through the aerial cable. I am still going to get some sockets fitted in the loft when the electrician comes as there have been times I have needed power up there - such as hoovering it out, and this will allow me to opt for a mains powered amplifier if needs be in the future. We have smoke and heat detectors in the loft already which are all interlinked through the house.

I have decided to situate the amplifier in the loft rather than up on the aerial pole. This is due to access, I am happy to go up on the roof if needs be but it is a real hassle getting all the safety equipment out and set up e,g, anchor ropes, fall arrest harness, ladders, ladder matrix etc. and if the weather is foul when it goes wrong it will mean having to put up with issues until I can get up - in the loft there are no such issues. From what I have gathered although not ideal I don't see the extra 3 metres or so of Webro WF 100 cable that goes from the aerial pole (where the amplifier could be fitted) into the loft causing too much noise/interference being introduced.

So thanks very much everyone and I will update once the amplifier has been bought and introduced into the system.
 
Leonthefixer said:
I am happy to go up on the roof if needs be but it is a real hassle getting all the safety equipment out and set up e,g, anchor ropes, fall arrest harness, ladders, ladder matrix etc.
Click to expand...
Are you a H&S inspector or something:D. Just be careful with someone footing the ladder;)
 
Leonthefixer said:
I am have still mainly been experiencing uninterrupted TV but I have noticed that on a few rare occasions I am seeing some very minor picture break up or sound issues. But these are very minor. This is still with the cable splitter removed and with the cable joined by an in line joiner as previously mentioned.
Click to expand...
We have around 80 thingummies signal and still get the odd breakup or pixellation (even on an HD channel a week or two ago), so it might not be your signal that is the problem.

Leonthefixer said:
I have been watching Season 4 of Homeland this week and ... have been left in the dark as to what happened.
Click to expand...
It thought that was just Homeland :)
 
Trev said:
Are you a H&S inspector or something:D. Just be careful with someone footing the ladder;)
Click to expand...

Hahaha - nope not a H&S inspector but having seen someone fall from a ladder I prefer not to take chance now ;) as for getting someone to foot the ladder, I used to get someone to do that but got fed up with them not paying attention or just resting one foot on the ladder while chatting to a passer by so now I use a Ladder Matrix which you place on the floor and it does a much better job and pays attention all the time, unless someone nicks it while you are up on the roof! Plus I use a couple of ratchet straps to hold the ladder in place whenever possible. Bit of a faff setting it all up but beats falling off and having a knackered back for life like the person I saw fall - could have been much worse though! (And no I wasn't supposed to be footing the ladder ;) )

MikeSh said:
We have around 80 thingummies signal and still get the odd breakup or pixellation (even on an HD channel a week or two ago), so it might not be your signal that is the problem.
Click to expand...
That is interesting to hear. Perhaps it is just say when a big vehicle goes past or something as I have seen reports that can cause issues. When you say 'even on a HD channel' is that because you would expect a HD channel to have less issues than a SD one?

MikeSh said:
It thought that was just Homeland :)
Click to expand...
:) Finished watching the series last night - enjoyed it overall but a bit disappointed with the week final episode given the previous two episodes but good to see it will be back for more soon...
 
Yup, I know somebody in a wheel chair because of a window cleaning accident. Ballroom dancer too (or was...).
 
Leonthefixer said:
I prefer not to take chance now
Click to expand...
My house has rings in the walls at strategic places, so I can lash the ladder to them. I also sometimes use a rope to lash myself to the ladder - not ideal, but I reckon a minor 'rope' injury is better than hitting concrete from 15 ft.
More recently I've invested in a scaffold tower. Obviously takes time to assemble, etc, but it really has made life much easier - partly because I'm getting to an age where manhandling a 20 ft ladder is quite scary at times.

Leonthefixer said:
That is interesting to hear. Perhaps it is just say when a big vehicle goes past or something as I have seen reports that can cause issues. When you say 'even on a HD channel' is that because you would expect a HD channel to have less issues than a SD one?
Click to expand...
Given our location and the aerial 'sight-line' it is nothing on the ground. Quite often the glitch can be seen as being where a rapidly changing and heavily detailed scene has simply overwhelmed the bandwidth available; panning is often involved. But on other occasions it just seems to happen. Could be aircraft, there are quite a few around.
It's only happened once, maybe twice, on HD, so I noticed it more than with SD. It's not often even on SD - once a week or so I'd say when watching a couple of hours a day on average. Not worth chasing down.
 
With rare events like that, it's hard to know whether any "improvements" made actually made a difference.
 
I have just jumped on this thread with interest.

I am also on Sutton Coldfield but I also sit within Fenton, Winter Hill and The Wrekin.

Recently my wife said that the picture has been all messed up a bit when watching TV and on recordings it been skipping. I said that's weird because we have always enjoyed a good picture at least after I learned how to manually tune to Sutton since the box was picking up different channel from the various transmitters which was leading to issues with recordings not recording but that has all been fixed since the custom firmware 3, or so I thought.

After having a look through the channels it would appear the box has completed an automatic retune at some point over the last few weeks which resulted in a number of channel in the 800+ range.

A simple manual return using the Sutton Coldfield transmitter channels has now fixed the issue.

Its something you have probably already checked and ticked off the list as not being an issue but do you have any channels above 800+?
 
Yeah, thanks for the link Black Hole.

I did check the forums when it happened to me last week to see if there were anymore reports of random retunes but I didn't see any posts about it. Was there a re-tune from Sutton in the last few weeks? I put it down to either the wife messing or the kids :)
 
There has been a DSO (what we call them) recently, yes. You can defend against them with custom firmware.
 
Slade2 said:
I am also on Sutton Coldfield but I also sit within Fenton, Winter Hill and The Wrekin.
...
After having a look through the channels it would appear the box has completed an automatic retune at some point over the last few weeks which resulted in a number of channel in the 800+ range.

A simple manual return using the Sutton Coldfield transmitter channels has now fixed the issue.

Its something you have probably already checked and ticked off the list as not being an issue but do you have any channels above 800+?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input Slade2 - I did notice the retune, mainly because all my scheduled recordings vanished, so I did retune my box to just Sutton Coldfield as we also pick up some weaker signals from Waltham but the issues had begun prior to this and I had hoped this might have fixed it but it didn't.

Black Hole said:
You can defend against them with custom firmware.
Click to expand...

I have a 5 year warranty on my box so wouldn't using the custom firmware cause that to be invalid? I have thought about changing to the custom firmware in the past but haven't done so for fear of invalidating my warranty.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top