Arial upgrade for freeview

richcook

i live in very weak signal area had to tune to transmitter out of my region therefore wrong local news ect anyway bought digital ariel from wilkos £25
plus mast head amplifierfrom ? £30 fitted myself great reception plus tuned to regional transmittor

hunnybugs1

penrhyn wrote:

Someone else wanted to do this the other day, you can get a cheap TV-Link from Tesco's or similar that is wired from the RF2 output on your Sky box to the TV in the bedroom, it has a magic eye that then allows you to change the Sky channels remotely.

http://www.tvlink.co.uk/

Thanks anyway, but I have one of these and find it useless. I already have the Freeview box, I just cant use it because of no signal.

Doonhamer

Ask some of your neighbours if they have Freeview. Look at their roofs and see what aerials they have and where they are pointing. Get a high gain one from Homebase\ Maplin\B&Q etc. You lose about 30% of the signal strength in the loft, so mount it outside and high up. If you still get no signal try a masthead amplifier as a last resort.

hunnybugs1

Weymouth_Man wrote:

Providing your area will support freeveiw have you tried just to boost the existing signal?



I know of someone who had a similar problem, was quoted £150 for a different Arial, only to find when they fitted a booster Arial amplifier this did the job, around £40 not sure of exact price.:beer:

Thank you, that sounds exactly like what I am wanting. Can you tell me where or how to get one?

T4i

Boosting a poor signal will just result in spending money and not getting a result.

£30 got me a box standard outdoor aerial from Maplins. Got a ally pole (1 meter long) and some brackets, put it up in the loft, pointed towards the mast (look at other peoples aerials) and away you go.

Before that I must have spent over £60 on these booster indoor aerials, aerials specially designed for freeview......yeh right! what a con!

Doonhamer

I agree, start off with a good quality well positioned aerial. If you have a poor picture with this then consider a booster, but boosting a signal from a poor aerial can just boost ghosting and noise and this will not get you a good digital signal. If your aerial is good but too small, ie too low a gain, it may help slightly with a booster but even in this case a bigger aerial, roof mounted, is still the best way to go.

I'm surprised you get no digital channels though. Usually if you're borderline you can get one or two multiplexer groups as different mux's are often broadcast at different powers.

penrhyn

hunnybugs1 wrote:

Thanks anyway, but I have one of these and find it useless. I already have the Freeview box, I just cant use it because of no signal.

What was the problem with the TV-link?

mike_paterson

T4i wrote:

Boosting a poor signal will just result in spending money and not getting a result.

£30 got me a box standard outdoor aerial from Maplins. Got a ally pole (1 meter long) and some brackets, put it up in the loft, pointed towards the mast (look at other peoples aerials) and away you go.

Before that I must have spent over £60 on these booster indoor aerials, aerials specially designed for freeview......yeh right! what a con!

That is not entirely true - maybe so for booster indoor aerials but definately not so for a decent booster on an external aerial. I just did a test - I am in an area that is not a Freeview reception area. On a standard aerial mounted about 20 feet above the ground without booster I get multiplexes 1 B and D. When I apply the booster (fairly cheap one) I can then get multiplex 2 as well - though it does drop about a bit (due to the weather today perhaps).
I then tested against my main aerial - professionaly fitted around 30 foot above ground with a more expensive booster (though it is supplying 3 TV's from the loft!) This gives me multiplexes 1,2,B and D perfectly.

My summary - a decent aerial is most important, but a booster will also probably work. This is backed up by information at http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeview.html which seems quite good.

I reckon I'll be up the ladder soon to tweak the aerial positioning to see if I can get the other multiplexes too.

mike_paterson

Just played around and turned the modulator off (in the freeview box setup) and on the cheap aerial at lower hight boosted, Multiplex 2 is now perfect - I guess the booster is affecting its ability to work properly !

T4i

....and that is what I said :rolleyes:

Using a booster on a poor reception ie indoor aerial made things twice as bad for me. Using a outdoor aerial indoors without a booster gave me a signal strenngth of 97%.

Its the aerial that picks up the transmission and if thats not upto the job then any kind of booster will result in ghosting, static, poor picture....and with freeview blocky, freezing pictures every 5mins.