no aerial .. can tv work ?

pennymakespounds

new house .

no aerial on roof or wiring .

want to have tv ( 5 year old model) , in bedroom .. ok just with main 4 channels .

Don't want to go to extent of £100+ aerial for roof etc.

What options have I ?

thanks

jayme1

go to the pound shop and get an aerial (one that stands behind or ontop of the TV), depending where you live and where the transmitter is you will be fine, given the fact that there isn't a roof aerial already leads me to suspect you live in a strong signal strength area.
you likely will be able to get freeview and freeview HD through it too.

Kurtis_Blue

Sorry but thats utterly incorrect NO (well none I have seen in last 5 years under £1m) new houses come with aerials these days and signal strength has no relevance to its lack of an aerial.

A pound aerial is VERY unlikely to work even in high signal areas, worth a try though

ilikewatch

Kurtis_Blue wrote: »

Sorry but thats utterly incorrect NO (well none I have seen in last 5 years under £1m) new houses come with aerials these days

O RLY? I've lived in 3 new houses built since 1996, all costing between 100k and 120k, and 2 came with a fully wired in aerial, the other came with all wiring installed ready for me to fit a loft aerial - maybe developers in Lincolnshire are a cut above the rest

penrhyn

The basic four channels won't be around for very much longer, so what ever you do needs to be suitable for digital reception.
Your choices are Freeview, Freesat, Virgin Cable, Sky.

Kurtis_Blue

ilikewatch wrote: »

O RLY? I've lived in 3 new houses built since 1996, all costing between 100k and 120k, and 2 came with a fully wired in aerial, the other came with all wiring installed ready for me to fit a loft aerial - maybe developers in Lincolnshire are a cut above the rest

Seems they are or maybe this is a new thing, but down here they all come wired to loft void and leave final external install to us and the buyers.

macman

I suspect that new house may mean 'OP newly moved in', not 'new build'.
Nothing to lose by trying a cheapo set-top aerial first.
OP doesn't however say if the area has already undergone digital switchover? Are they trying to watch on analogue or digital?

Naf

Well, I used to get reasonable reception (on analogue terrestrial; before digital) using a metal coat hanger on the end of an standard co-ax. lead. I'm serious. No idea how strong the signal in the area was. In theory digital is supposed to both boost signal strength, and make it possible to get reception from less signal so it could work... real MS solution

david39

First of all, check what facilities your neighbours have for reception - that will give you some indication of what you are likely to require, especially if they started off with a coathanger and had to move on to a full installation.

Next - go to
http://www.freeview.co.uk/availability

and check whether Freeview is available in your road. This site will also tell you if the local transmitter has gone fully digital or not - if it has there will be no analogue signal so, unless you have a digibox or a Freeview set, you won't get anything.

If the area has yet to go fully digital, the Freeview signal will be considerably boosted at the time of the changeover so, if that is happening within a short time, you might like to plod on with a portable aerial for the time being until you see what reception is like when that occurs.

Finally, don't fall for the salesman's talk of "I can install this aerial for £x but for the best reception you need a digital aerial at £xxx" - there is no such thing as a digital aerial. It's been a widespread con over the past couple of years.

Moneymaker

jayme1 wrote: »

go to the pound shop and get an aerial (one that stands behind or ontop of the TV)

Televisions radiate a lot of interference* so, for best results, an aerial should be as far away from the TV as possible and connected by double-screened cable. Ideally an aerial indoors should be pointing at the transmitter through a window.

*With Freeview (digital) you obviously won't see any interference on the picture but it can cause the picture to "break up" or be totally unreceivable.

Pincher

You can use an outdoor aerial indoors.

A log periodic aerial can be laid on top of anything, e.g. wardrobe or bookcase.

Avoid Wide Band (Universal) aerial, if you can.
You get more signal from a smaller band specific (A,B,C/D) aerial, than you do from a big wide band aerial.