New Rooftop Aerial Needed

there is a man who installs aerials and Sky boxes on behalf of Nicholls electrical shop in Ballymena. He works for himself, not the shop, so I think he does independent stuff as well. He covers all round Ballymena, so he probably would go as far as Antrim. I've no idea if he is cheap or not, but he does a fantastic job, you would never know that he had been in the house - he had to drill holes through all our floors to run wires through and they are barely noticeable. He is a real perfectionist too, he took hours working on our aerial until he was pleased that he had the best picture possible. I would really recommend him. I don't have his phone number but if you rang the shop they could give you it. Sorry this is a bit vague!

I used Blackwood Aerials, reasonable price and good customer service

cajef wrote: »

There is no such thing as a digital aerial, all aerials will receive digital and analogue transmissions, if someone tries to sell you what they claim is a digital aerial and they say it is more expensive you are being conned.

Not strictly true, according to the official Digital UK website - see the paragraph containing "wideband" in the troubleshooting pdf:
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/8276/Troubleshooting.pdf
"Alternatively, you may have the wrong aerial – i.e. one that is not designed to pick up the ‘UHF frequency’ used by that TV channel. See the technical aerial factsheet for more information. If you have the wrong type of aerial, you may need to change it to a correct ‘group’ or a high-powered-wideband aerial. Do not do this yourself – a Registered Digital Installer can advise you."

However, I would not expect any differential in cost for one that is "guaranteed" as digital compatible, and the likelihood is that existing aerials will be fine.

Les

cajef wrote: »

There is no such thing as a digital aerial, all aerials will receive digital and analogue transmissions, if someone tries to sell you what they claim is a digital aerial and they say it is more expensive you are being conned.

As post #2 above, phone up and get several quotes.

I'm an ex-aerial installer, there IS most cetrtainly such a thing as a "digital" aerial, or certainly a "digital approved" or "digital suitable" aerial.

You may be getting mixed up with a scam which was running about 15 years ago when installers would offer "nicam" aerials for extra money when in fact there was no such thing because nicam is a subcarrier and would always be recieved along with the analogue TV signal.

When installing an aerial for digital, its all about minimising those annoying moments of interference which would not be noticable (or barely noticeable) on an analogue picture but which cause picture breakup or sound muting on digital.
Firstly, a suitable aerial needs to be used. In most cases, cabling needs to be upgraded to double copper screen (such as CT100), signal levels need to be checked and the signal tested for BER (Bit Error Rate). You should see your installer holding quite an expensive piece of kit to do this. Unfortunately far too many installers still just align the aerial using an analogue meter and hope it works, and some still dont use a meter at all and just line it up "by eye".

If amplification is required, these should be fully screened units designed for digital also. All this does work out more expensive than standard aerials, cables and amplifiers but this is obviously the point of having a "digital upgrade".

There are a limited amount of aerials which have been certified (or "benchmarked") as meeting the DTG's criteria for receiving UK DTT transmissions. You should ensure that the aerial supplied is one of these.
There is a list here: http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/benchmarking.html

Although it's true that any aerial will receive DTT transmissions, so will a wet bootlace if you are in a good reception area, the reason an aerial upgrade is required to ensure reliable reception is for the reasons mentioned above.
I'm getting satisfactory performance (but not without occasional problems) with the old conventional aerial in a moderate reception area and I could really do with an upgrade but it's way down on my list of priorities.
My advice to anyone would be to buy the box first and see what you get. If the reception is not good enough, then arrange an aerial upgrade.

For the moment, DTT transmissions are running at just 10-20% of the power levels which they will run at after switchover and are often on strange parts of the TV band to fit them in. This is why at the moment many may experience poor digital reception at the moment and need an upgrade (either to increase signal clarity or to pull in out of band channels) but after switchover, many old aerial setups which are currently not good enough, will work fine after switchover.

I would certainly advise getting more than one quote but most should be within a small range of each other but beware if one is wildly lower than the rest, he may be using inferior parts, the most common of which is to use single braid, unscreened cable.

Hope this helps.

leskerr wrote: »

Not strictly true,

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/8276/Troubleshooting.pdf
"Alternatively, you may have the wrong aerial – i.e. one that is not designed to pick up the ‘UHF frequency’ used by that TV channel. See the technical aerial factsheet for more information. If you have the wrong type of aerial, you may need to change it to a correct ‘group’ or a high-powered-wideband aerial. "

That is applicable to any aerial whether used to receive analogue or digital transmissions, if the aerial is the incorrect group than reception will be poor, though analogue transmission is less likely to be affected.