Digital signal through old aerial..??

mikey72

A "digital" aerial is wideband, and will receive all the muxs that digital signals are transmitted on.
An "analogue" aerial was usually tuned to a particular narrow band, and only picks up some of the muxs, so channels are missing.
Old cable can work, but it attenuates the high frequencies, and again can drop off the high frequency muxs.
I fit a few, my customers do need to upgrade to a "digital" aerial, and usually I can fit a decent aerial and get away with the old cable, rather than rip up half the house.
If I need to change the cable, I use satellite cable.
If your aerial has the elements spaced equally, it's a narrow band, and changing it will normally get the rest of the channels. If they change spacing fron end to end, it's wideband already.

Im_just_careful

The absolute answer to the "digital aerials" question is as follow:-

In some places, at various times during the period that Digital Switch Over takes place, the channels in the UHF spectrum used for digital TV are outside the band previously used in that area for analogue TV. In these areas there is (or can be) merit in buying a wideband (typically log periodic) aerial. These wideband aerials are sometimes misnamed "digital aerials".

In other places (often those served by transmitters with very large coverage areas) an existing aerial which produces reasonable analogue pictures will be fine for digital TV.

Sadly there is no "one size fits all" answer !

mikey72

Im_just_careful wrote: »

The absolute answer to the "digital aerials" question is as follow:-

In some places, at various times during the period that Digital Switch Over takes place, the channels in the UHF spectrum used for digital TV are outside the band previously used in that area for analogue TV. In these areas there is (or can be) merit in buying a wideband (typically log periodic) aerial. These wideband aerials are sometimes misnamed "digital aerials".

In other places (often those served by transmitters with very large coverage areas) an existing aerial which produces reasonable analogue pictures will be fine for digital TV.

Sadly there is no "one size fits all" answer !

I haven't seen a log periodic aerial for years.
Highgain yagi usually.

spud17

Is the 600mm of old copper speaker cable which supplies my kitchen tv with around 100 channels, wideband or what?

No answer necessary. Guess who lives close to a transmitter?

Hammyman

yorksguy11 wrote: »

By screened i meant foil screened as well as braided.
Old coax does not have the foil screen which does help with digital

No it doesn't. It makes absolutely zero difference whatsoever. What it does do is lower the signal loss over a set distance of cable so you get more of the signal that the antenna picks up getting to the receiver.

hotpot1000

when I got freeview a few yrs ago it wasnt too good, pic was very pixelated.
an aerial specialist came out and did tests -my old aerial was fine, he replaced my aerial cable inside the house to a very thick one and it's been fine both on digital and non digital channels.

mikey72

Hammyman wrote: »

No it doesn't. It makes absolutely zero difference whatsoever. What it does do is lower the signal loss over a set distance of cable so you get more of the signal that the antenna picks up getting to the receiver.

Not quite nonsense, but close enough.
Single screened cable picks up interference, double screened foil type satellite doesnt, the dielectric and construction of old coax attenuates the high frequencies the satellite cable doesn't as well.

It's well worth using it if you have a problem, or are just running a new cable.

mongoose2009

we live in a analogue world

TV is transmitted with a analogue radio wave that uses digitally modulated signal

so there are no such things as "digital" aerials

as long as you have a decent signal with a aerial that covers the correct channel range it will work

so really if you have a decent analogue picture then digital will probably be ok