Freeview Problems

seth

alexjohnson wrote:

I've been told the design life of an aerial is only ten years. Thinking about it, my parents, grandmother, and one of my friends all complain about Freeview reception, while noting that they really ought to get around to fixing their aerials... I guess with analogue you could just persevere with snow and shadows on channel 5 or whatnot, but with digital it's all or nothing. Ironically it will probably get better once analogue has been switched off and they can up the signal strength, but that doesn't help people right now!

The cable (Coax) used for ariels has a finite life, water, UV and time take their toll on the plastic insulation and effect performance of the cable. Also connectors splitter etc all age and need to be replace along with the ariel.

People will spend lots of money on TVs and tuners but skimp on ariels.

Remember if you are setting one up yourself be careful about fixings and mount kits you don't want a metal object falling down in a storm!

Mount kits are around £4 to £9 depeding on what you need, plus a pole. The longer the pole the harder is is to fix.

If signals are low consider a Gridmax type ariel about £25. 90% of the UK will be fine with a stock 16 or 21 element antenna around £8 to £12.

A setup should last 10 to 20 years without problem.

IF YOU ARE FIXING THIS YOURSELF USE WATERPROOF UNSULATION TAPE around the fixings and gease them after you are happy with the setup. This will help keep water out and allow years of faul free service.

If you want to split the signal to several rooms get a mains power distribution block, I got one with 8 feeds for about £16.

Finally if you want to use the SAME cables for TV and FM ensure you have a filter to keep the signals seperate. These are usually built into the face plates £2. An FM aerial looks like this one for aroudn £10:


It is usually fitted to the same pole as the TV aerial. There is a seperate cable from each aerial, these can be joined (via a mix unit) but you have filter out the signal at the face plate. IYSWIM

The best places to buy are specialist TV shops and electric outlets. 100m of Coax is about £10 or you can use Satellie cable for TV same price. TV cable is no good for SAT don't try it it can damage your SAT box!

Screwfix are a good price check to see if you are being overcharged

Check the sites you use there are some real cons around IMHO, digital cable indeed: The 50m "Digital" cable these guys sell for £35 is made to the SAME specification as the £10 a 100m reel SAT cable!! Yes they do throw in £2 worth of connectors!

The BBC have a nice PDF factsheet.

Screwfix have a good basic range including this £8.49 inc VAT


Hope this helps.

coolagarry

I find that switching the freeview box off and back on again sometimes does the trick and Re-loading the whole system, like you did when you first got it, can often help

richcook

I live in poor reception area freeview not supposed to be available, got digi ariel for weak signals from wilkos £25 and from currys masthead amplyfier £25 now get all channels great and now receiving signal from correct transmitter up until recently had to tune to out of area transmitter so no local news or programmes

evertheoptimist_3

Ive just bought a posh new digital area from wilkos , i put it up in my loft and pointed it in the same direction as all the roof aerials were pointing. ive dropped the cable down to my new freeview box and cannot get any picture it says no signal on the screen. when i plug it directly into tv i can get all channels except channel 4 , channel 5 is weak bbc 1, 2 and itv are ok. I would have expected to get some sort of signal for the digital freeview box. Also i checked on a website and it says good digital signal area . Anyone got any ideas. Thanks in advance.

fwor

It's surprising how much a roof attenuates the signal - particularly if it's wet. I moved my (recent, high gain wideband) aerial from inside the loft to outside, and the difference was very noticeable.

Also, make sure that you are pointing at your local main transmitter and not a repeater. Most of the repeaters do not (yet) broadcast freeview. Typically if the other aerials in your area are using vertical polarisation (i.e. the side bars point up and down) then it's ~probably~ a repeater that they are pointing at.