Reply to: Problems with Freeview installation

Re: WE HAVE LIFTOFF!!!!!!!

Good show.

Now all you have to do is find something to watch...

WE HAVE LIFTOFF!!!!!!!

(apart from the occasional loss of sound - I'll investigate and report back)

New decent cabling (almost) did the trick...

It's gone from 64QAM to 16QAM on most channels (I think).

I thought it (ditigal terrestrial reception) either worked or didn't - ie you can't get a degraded picture (except complete breakups).

If only that were true. You can get both degraded pictures (digitally garbled) & sound, and an incomplete service (missing channels) on DTT.

And weather conditions can affect the range - so on day one you lose, say, 6 channels, on day two you have them again.

DTT can be a nightmare if you don't get a good quality signal. Nothing worse than watching your favourite programme only to have it turn to mush half way through.

Since the death of ITV Digital, the BBC have changed the way DTT is transmitted (but retained compatibility with old ITV Digital boxes). This is better, but in my experience not enough.

Thankfully, I'm on cable at the moment.

Thank you kindly, sir.

possibly the most sensible post in this thread

The other option is to pay an aerial man to put the aerial up.

It's safer.

I'm puzzled by the "snowy" comment - snow is just noise on the signal. I don't have digital but I thought it either worked or didn't - ie you can't get a degraded picture (except complete breakups).

I guess you were referring to the analogue picture. I think that needs to be pretty much perfect or digital is a no-go.

It's always best to replace the coax - water gets in it and makes it lossy. Cheap coax is usually pretty crud but in good signal areas is often good enough - to guess the quality look at the braid - if you can see the core insulator through it it's cheap (regardless of what it cost). Top notch cables are usually semi-airspaced (not a foam insulator but polythene - either extruded with triagular air spaces or with a big gap and a spiral of polythene running up inside.

The other thing is the aerial - again I don't know but I imagine it has to be very broadband given the number of channels on digital. Normal TV aerials come in groups A B C and C/D depending on which transmitter you are receiving - I'd imagine an aerial for digital may have to cover the whole UHF TV band which from my experience means a log periodic design would be best (you could use google to see what that is).

Sorry - after typing all this tosh I realise it's probably of limited use to you.

He's just spent 2 hours up there and got worse reception on the the roof than in the loft (v 'snowy'). He fitted a 6ft extension too...

Bizarre...

He thinks the cable he used might be crap (and too long), but when do you stop throwing good money after bad?

It's all very disheartening...

One other thing to bear in mind - you can lose 10db or more by having the aerial in a loft as opposed to on the chimney - how's hubby on the roof.

Just after I left school BBC2 came out and I used to do UHF aerial installations with a mate at weekends - we both made more in a weekend than we did during the week working - if we could have got enough work and had the bottle we would have set up our own business. I never had a problem with doing it then but I wouldn't do it now.

ta fiddle, this may be the next step...

Best place for an aerial amp is right up near the aerial. It's all a question of signal to noise ratio.

Can you put a booster on a booster?

Latest update...

Bought an 18 element aerial from Maplins.

Hubby's banging, drilling and thudding around in the loft and has set up said aerial to 4 degrees.

Most channels now available but one or two suffering from
' time delayed blockiness'...

hhmmm... does this mean I have to go out and buy a booster? Again?

Watch this space...

Re: re

But it's only discovery, history, scifi and Angel/Enterprise that make digital tv worth while.... though £20/month is quite a lot really.

What makes it particularly good value is not having to watch the output of the local yokels when they commandeer BBC2 to put on endless rugby/soccer/darts/bowling matches.

The audience watching nowheresville south wales playing nowheresville north wales must be astronomic.

And it pisses off the Trekkies.

Like me.