Best place to fit a TV signal attenuator

JohnB47

Hey folks.

After years of freezes, stops and stutters on my Panasonic TV and Hard Disk Recorder (HDR), I've finally decided to buy an Axing TZU 4-00 Cable TV adjustable Attenuator. Many of the reviews of this relatively inexpensive device suggest that it could solve these very problems - caused by too strong a signal.

The thing is, I don't know whether to insert it between the aerial wall socket and the masthead power supply or between the power supply and the HDR.

Having said that, I haven't looked at the various connections yet, so it might become obvious once I have.

Any thoughts?

Frozen_up_north

"Mast head power supply"... Suggests you are using an aerial amplifier, can you bypass that easily or is it 30 foot up in the air? Amplifying a signal, then attenuating it, is pointless. Amplifiers can cause more problems than they solve, not least of which is picking up unwanted signals from mobile radio transmitters, etc.



What signal strength does the info box on the TV show? Digital TVs don't need much signal to work.


FWIW, I bought a pair of low cost attenuators to help with tuning TVs, sometimes I find too many signals from miles away and the TV stores hundreds of useless channels unless I drop the signal level while tuning. The attenuators were cheap, they are 6dB and 12dB.

JohnB47

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

"Mast head power supply"... Suggests you are using an aerial amplifier, can you bypass that easily or is it 30 foot up in the air? Amplifying a signal, then attenuating it, is pointless. Amplifiers can cause more problems than they solve, not least of which is picking up unwanted signals from mobile radio transmitters, etc.



What signal strength does the info box on the TV show? Digital TVs don't need much signal to work.


FWIW, I bought a pair of low cost attenuators to help with tuning TVs, sometimes I find too many signals from miles away and the TV stores hundreds of useless channels unless I drop the signal level while tuning. The attenuators were cheap, they are 6dB and 12dB.

No I can't bypass it easily - its more than 30 foot up in the air! Signal strength is 10 (max) for most channels.

One reason I think an attenuator might work is because, when I recently did an auto tune, it managed to tune itself to transmissions from two transmitters - most channels were coming from a transmitter in the direction the aerial is pointing but one was coming from a transmitter that is facing the back of the aerial.

I did a manual tune to make sure all transmissions tuned are the ones hitting the front of the aerial.

I've bought the thing now, so I'll fit it and see how it goes.

The question still stands - if connections allow either, where is best to fit it - before or after the masthead poser supply?

Frozen_up_north

Install it on the rear of the recorder/TV, not on the antenna side of the power supply as it will short out the supply voltage going to the mast head amp.

JohnB47

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

Install it on the rear of the recorder/TV, not on the antenna side of the power supply as it will short out the supply voltage going to the mast head amp.

Thanks.

I'll post the results of this, although it may take quite a few weeks to be certain of any improvement.

stator

Have you tried just turning off the masthead amplifier power supply and bypassing it? That should remove the need for the attenuator.


Without the power supply, the masthead amplifier becomes a passive splitter, hopefully

JohnB47

stator wrote: »

Have you tried just turning off the masthead amplifier power supply and bypassing it? That should remove the need for the attenuator.


Without the power supply, the masthead amplifier becomes a passive splitter, hopefully

That's an interesting idea. I haven't tried that, although I did once unplug the amplifier and connect the HDR straight into the wall socket - didn't work. It seemed the power needs to be in the circuit, which seems reasonable.

Before I fit the attenuator, I'll try what you suggest, just to see what happens.

couriervanman

OP have a read of these

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2337627/forces-tv-freeview-96

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/05/have-you-lost-freeview-channels-this-could-be-why/

If you aerial isn't picking up channels you can claim a new one free of charge.....also have you done a full re tune after all the recent channel changes

jamesperrett

stator wrote: »

Without the power supply, the masthead amplifier becomes a passive splitter, hopefully

Not in my experience - the amplifier lets very little signal through if it isn't powered.

JohnB47

couriervanman wrote: »

OP have a read of these

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2337627/forces-tv-freeview-96

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/05/have-you-lost-freeview-channels-this-could-be-why/

If you aerial isn't picking up channels you can claim a new one free of charge.....also have you done a full re tune after all the recent channel changes

Thanks. Yes, as I said earlier I had to do a manual retune recently. I did an auto tune first and it made my system pick up signals from two transmitters.

So I went here and made sure I manually tuned to only my best transmitters signals:

https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Beacon_Hill_A

JohnB47

OK, time for an update.

It is now a month since I fitted the attenuator and adjusted it to bring the strongest received signals down to around 80%.

Since then I have had no problems - zero stops stutters and skips.

So too strong a signal seems to have been the problem all along.

An excellent outcome - I wish I'd discovered this fix years ago.