reception problems

just spoken to the aerial shop, says i've got old basic aerial, and needs one for correct group? i've bitten the bullet and booked him in to come to replace the aerial, but he cant do it for two weeks on my days off of tuesday or saturday. suspect he'll bottle it when he sees the drop off our gable end! its standard terrace from the front, but drops four full stories from the chimney stack, all the cabling goes down that face of the house too. i reckon he'll want scaffolding.
 
bixieupnorth said:
just spoken to the aerial shop, says i've got old basic aerial, and needs one for correct group? i've bitten the bullet and booked him in to come to replace the aerial, but he cant do it for two weeks on my days off of tuesday or saturday. suspect he'll bottle it when he sees the drop off our gable end! its standard terrace from the front, but drops four full stories from the chimney stack, all the cabling goes down that face of the house too. i reckon he'll want scaffolding.
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Someone I know used a ladder to the roof and then climbed across the roof to the aerial! He is an electrician. You could give him a ring and see what he can do and ask for a price. You need a log periodic aerial, vertical alignment, to replace the existing one. Nice guy, he did some rewiring for us and also the burglar alarm, RCD unit, etc, and has worked for others along the road.

Richard Saxton
Tel: (0114) 230 1468 - Text Number
6/1 Ranmoor Pk Rd, Sheffield, S10 3GX
 
it frightens me just looking up there!!

thanks for the offer but i've booked this bloke in, 9am two weeks tomor, £120 for aerial, cabling and fitting, said about 75 mins, is that a decent price, seemed ok to me
 
bixieupnorth said:
it frightens me just looking up there!!

thanks for the offer but i've booked this bloke in, 9am two weeks tomor, £120 for aerial, cabling and fitting, said about 75 mins, is that a decent price, seemed ok to me
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You must be joking! I wouldn't do it for ten times that much! :eek:

Yes, sounds OK if he is replacing all the cabling too. Hope it cures the problem. I still think you should buy the cheap indoor directional aerial and make sure, though...
 
i'm off tomor, i'll try bringing the upstairs indoor aerial down and tune the tv in using it, thats never been tuned in as always use the hummy, never watch live tv, or if we do its thru that
 
I've been away for a couple of weeks and so not been able to add to this conversation.

Mike001's suggestion is very good, given what you have said about reception using an indoor antenna (aerial) with your upstairs TV.

Did your TV aerial installer say what group antenna he was going to supply and to which transmitter he was going to align the antenna?

Using the Coverage Checker at http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/ with Detailed View shows different groups for the Emley Moor and Sheffield transmitters; to be expected. In addition, Sheffield is due to receive local TV on Ch55 in 2014 so your new antenna must be capable of receiving that frequency. [I will have to rotate my antenna and re-tune if the new TV channel actually occurs.]

On a warning note, having too strong a signal is as bad as having too weak a signal, so I recommend you check the signal strengths on all the MUXs after the antenna is installed and Humax re-tuned. Anything above 90% is likely to be a problem, based on reported experiences on this and other forums. It can be corrected using an attenuator (which reduces the signal strength).

Martin
 
I recently stuck a half size log periodic aerial in our loft, to feed a bedroom TV. Very impressive. I get 90--95% signal strength now across all the channels.
 
reception has been fine recently, and tomorrow 9am is d-day as far as the new aerial is concerned. i'll be sure to ask him all the relevant questions before he begins

thanks for advice
 
hes just left, nothing needed doing, he said the aerial and cabling are old, but its pointing at emley moor, with horizontal fins and the signal thru the aerial is spot on when he plugged it into his testing box, no water ingress, no degradation.
hes put it down to atmospherics and some fannying around recently with broadcasts. hes removed my booster and put an old standard splitter (that i already had) in, given me custom made cables from socket and from splitter to both boxes and the £45 call out fee.
job done!

watch this space!
 
So potentially he was trying to find a fault that wasn't present. Sounds like he succeed. I assume that he deemed the signal strength to be strong enough for him to remove your booster. An incoming signal that is too strong can cause you issues as well as a weak one.
 
since hes gone i've replaced the cable from socket to splitter and then checked all the signal qualities, the ones on muxes 51 and 52 are down to 10%, so i've put my powered booster/splitter back in and they're up to 100% again, also can now get 32HD, but only with the powered booster

also the new cables hes given me are male ended, both the splitters i have have male connections too

happy with what i've been told but a bit disappointed that i've had to put the powered booster in
 
Bixieupnorth, thanks for letting us know the outcome.

It would be interesting if you can you tell us what MUXs/RF Channels you are tuned to and the associated signal strengths and signal qualities.

On Emley Moor you should be able to pick up 7 MUXs - the recent one added being Ch32.

As with all fault-finding, only time will tell if a problem has been solved.

Did you try Mikeoo1's suggestion and try your indoor antenna downstairs?

Martin

[EDIT]

My post crossed with your latest.

[/EDIT]
 
bixieupnorth said:
since hes gone i've replaced the cable from socket to splitter and then checked all the signal qualities, the ones on muxes 51 and 52 are down to 10%, so i've put my powered booster/splitter back in and they're up to 100% again, also can now get 32HD, but only with the powered booster

also the new cables hes given me are male ended, both the splitters i have have male connections too

happy with what i've been told but a bit disappointed that i've had to put the powered booster in
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Why did he not re-orientate the aerial to Sheffield Tapton Hill, so you could get a good signal without a booster??? I suppose you may get mux#7 though.

Anyway, do boosters actually work? They boost the signal strength but do nothing for signal quality, do they? And it's signal quality that is causing you grief, surely?
 
he said that where we are and the aerial we've got we get a belting signal from EM

the booster certainly does work as evidenced by it picking up 51 52 and 32HD with it, but not at all without
 
Mike0001 said:
Why did he not re-orientate the aerial to Sheffield Tapton Hill, so you could get a good signal without a booster??? I suppose you may get mux#7 though.
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maybe he was scared of going on the roof in this weather!! no his box told him that the signal was great without even the booster on
 
right here goes, mux, strength, quality

32 35 100
41 52 100
44 55 100
47 52 100
48 50 100
51 44 100
52 46 100

have rescanned the youview box just now, selecting yorkshire when asked and that also now has bbc4HD

hope this info proves useful
 
Thanks for the information. I think your reported strengths are "average" rather than "belting". Looking at the figures I suspect your antenna installation is geared towards the middle of the TV Band (21-60)

Your comment about reluctance to go up a very tall ladder given this weather is something I thought when I read your first post this morning. The rain was very heavy.

Did you do a Manual-Tune or an Auto-Tune for your Fox box?

Again, for interests sake, and completeness, could you look at the Sheffield signal strengths and qualities using your current antenna. You need to go to Menu -> Settings -> Installation (Enter PIN No.) -> Manual Search -> OK. Select the Sheffield Channel Numbers in turn see what you get. Don't select the Search button and use Exit to return to the TV Programme.

21 (DVB-T2)
24 (DVB-T)
27 (DVB-T)
39 (DVB-T)
42 (DVB-T)
45 (DVB-T)

Finally, and, I promise, for the last time, I recommend you try your indoor antenna (fins vertical for the Sheffield Transmitter) - view the signal strengths (as above) - and then try with the fins horizontal for Emley Moor.

Martin


[Mike0001, boosters can work, particularly with digital signals. Although they add to the noise power they boost both the signal and the noise which can then exceed the minimum detection threshold of the tuner, allowing the signal to be extracted from the noise to give a good digital signal and, if necessary, can be improved through error-correction algorithms. However, when the signal-to-noise is very poor then the cliff-edge response comes into play with blocky and frozen pictures occurring or no pictures at all displayed.]
 
Mike0001 said:
Anyway, do boosters actually work?
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It depends where in the chain it is. It should be at the top, nearest the aerial. The primary function of it is to overcome the cable loss on the downlead downstream to the receiver.
Perhaps the OP would like to tell us where his "booster" is, how much gain it has, how long and what quality the cable is etc.
 
my booster is a cheap one, aerial man said it was crap! cost about £6 off ebay, 4 way splitter, use two outputs, powered. it sits just before the boxes. as far as i can tell the cable from the wall is extremely old and goes into a white box, with another plug in coax leading across the room to the tv, this was here before we moved in ten years ago, that white box and its plugs appear corroded and was a struggle to remove old coax to replace it with the more heavy duty cabling he supplied.

i used to use male to female converters to connect the manufacturer provided cables from my two boxes to the booster/splitter, but the cables he supplied have now eradicated this extra unnecessary connection

i'll try to have a look at the sheffield signals when i get in from work, after 8 tonight

as i've said before, my indoor aerial is a car aerial looking thing, just a straight in the air stick, unpowered, so dont know if i could try it horizontally, except lying it down
 
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