Need advice in routing tv aerial to multiple rooms

Nigeljt74

Hi hope you can help a longtime lurker

My partner and I have decided that it would be a good idea to install freeview boxes in the kids rooms and I'm trying to find the best way of going about it. We have an upgraded aerial as we already have freeview in the lounge but I'd like some advice in the best way to split and route the aerial from the loft to their rooms.

I have no qualms about getting up in the loft and drilling holes in the ceilings or anything like that and am reasonably proficient in DIY, it's more help in the technical side of things that I'm looking for.

So, any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

superscaper

Shouldn't be too difficult from a technical point of view, easy to get coaxial y-type splitters. May be worth buying a mains powered signal booster as well though to plug inbetween aerial and splitters. Also get higher quality double shielded coax if possible.

robnye

i have done this - changing it before/during/after a loft conversion

you will need a signal splitter
do you have electric power in the loft?

basically the roof aerial runs into the loft and plugs into the signal splitter, then from the signal splitter you will have 2/4/6/8 cables, to run to whereever you want.

in my house it is slightly different in that that tha tv aerial runs down the front of the house to the lounge on the ground floor, throught 2 videos and the cable box, then through a booster, out the house and back up into the loft, then through a signal splitter, then to each of 4 bedrooms, a little complicated, but it worked,

each bedroom could watch 4 channels, plus cable box, plus 2 video machines.........

now in the advent of freeview/digital it will become much simpler, as 3 rooms now have dvd player - videos going out of fashion.........so i will have to get freeview boxes, except we cant receive the signals where i live yet....!

robnye

oops double reply

Little_John

Depending on how good the signal is to your house it may be adviseable to fit a 2nd aerial, each break off has an effect on the signal strength I have been told it splits the signal per connection so 4 connections would give 1/4 signal to each device and you could run in to problems. I dont know if its true but it was a sky installer that told me?

Try a signal boosted portable aerial it works on the kids tv's in our house without any pixleation on the tv's.

espresso

Little_John wrote:

Depending on how good the signal is to your house it may be adviseable to fit a 2nd aerial, each break off has an effect on the signal strength I have been told it splits the signal per connection so 4 connections would give 1/4 signal to each device and you could run in to problems. I dont know if its true but it was a sky installer that told me?

Try a signal boosted portable aerial it works on the kids tv's in our house without any pixleation on the tv's.

A second aerial is not necessary if a proper distribution amplifier is used as stated in previous posts. These have a gain of 12db to each output, so as long as there is sufficient signal for one TV, this will distribute the signal to other rooms around the house.

OK_Sauce

You need a masthead amp which amplifies the signal evenly to all outlets at source. Something like this...
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=19953&doy=8m2

Nigeljt74

Thanks for the replies so far.

We have a good signal from our existing aerial so splitting it in the loft is an option. At the moment there isn't a electrical socket up there but as brother in law is a bit of a genius when it comes to electrics I expect that he can fit one for me (and a light for that matter whilst he is up there!) so a booster would work.

Looks like I could be costing it up this weekend then :-)