TV Aerial

ThemeOne

It's Rowridge. I haven't checked as to be honest it wouldn't mean much to me!

stator

Take a look at this page:
https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Rowridge#
Scroll down to the "Which Freeview channels does the Rowridge transmitter broadcast?" and you will see the various channel groups.
You can see the first three groups are all broadcasting at 200,000 Watts, so you should get all of them OK:
BBC One South, 2 BBC Two England, 9 BBC Four, 201 CBBC, 202 CBeebies, 231 BBC News, 232 BBC Parliament

3 ITV (Meridian (South Coast micro region)), 4 Channel 4 South ads, 5 Channel 5, 6 ITV 2, 13 Channel 4 +1 South ads, 14 More4, 15 Film4, 24 ITV4, 24 ITV4 +1, 28 E4, 33 ITV +1 (Meridian south coast),

45 Film4 +1, 101 BBC One HD (England no regional news), 102 BBC Two HD (England), 103 ITV HD (ITV Meridian Southampton), 104 Channel 4 HD South ads, 105 Channel 5 HD, 204 CBBC HD,

The other groups you cans see are broadcasting at 50,000 Watts. So quite a lot less powerful. So if you only get dropout on those channels, you might consider an aerial upgrade. Generally the higher the better and the longer the better.
If your cable is long you could consider a mast head amplifier. This is where you mount a small amplifier on the pole and just connect it to the aerial cable. The end of the cable that goes indoors you then connect to the amp power supply, which also gives you the output for the TV Signal.

Or you could always just try a TV booster, but it's probably money wasted. TV Boosters only work in a specific situation where your TV wants a stronger signal but the weak signal is still good quality.

stator

I've just discovered something very interesting for you. The Rowridge transmitter transmits in both Horizontal and Vertical polarization and the Vertical polarization is higher power on the commercial channels!

So you should try adjusting your aerial so it is Vertical instead:


The bracket that holds the aerial to the pole can be adjusted for vertical mount, you just need to take it off, pull the pole out of the bracket and insert it again at a 90 angle to the old way. Of course you should be very careful if attempting this at height

ThemeOne

Yes it looks like all the channels I've had dropouts with are broadcasting at lower power of 50,000W or less. I will look into an aerial upgrade, but will first look at adjusting to vertical mounted if I can!

Many thanks, very useful.

firefox1956

I would ask a neighbour ( if you have one ) if they have the same problem before expending any cash.........
I & my neighbours have the same problem with channel break up & as far as I know it is down to 'atmospherics'
HTH

System

Despite beliefs to the contrary the lifespan of coax is only around 5-7 years. It also wicks up water like a sponge so any leak at the antenna connection end and the coax ends up getting filled with water. That causes internal corrosion which significantly reduces received signal strength.

The next issue is the frequencies TV uses. VHF and UHF is line of sight and signals can be blocked easily by things like buildings or even trees when they're wet. Imagine where the TV transmitter is and looking at it from the height of the antenna. Are there lots of buildings or a hill blocking the view?

Finally there is a thing called propogation which affects radio signals, specifically tropospheric ducting. This allows signals on VHF/UHF which normally are fairly local to travel several hundreds of miles. It typically happens at times when there is a high pressure system over the UK and signals from the continent can actually end up overpowering those of a local TV transmitter.

keith969

I would agree, coax can suffer from moisture ingress and it's worth replacing it and the antenna together.

Robisere

I am no expert, but is it true that the black, shielded coax is better than the previous brown cable?

stator

All coax is shielded in one way or another, but there are very different levels of shielding.
Yes, if you are replacing the aerial it's worth replacing the cable too.
If you want loads of information on cables look on here:
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/cableandleads.html#H106CT100

System

Robisere wrote: »

I am no expert, but is it true that the black, shielded coax is better than the previous brown cable?

Tends to be. Most installers now use RG6 that they mainly used for Sky TV installs for everything. The benefit of that is that the braid screening has a higher percentage of coverage which means lower cable loss per metre. The stuff from years ago had braid coverage with large holes in which was very lossy.

Stuff typically used today: