Caravan TV

flicks

Hi all. Probably not caravan specific but here goes. 

We are having a few issues with receiving freeview in our caravan. We have a Teleco Teleplus roof mounted caravan Ariel with amplifier. 

I know this problem is not unusual but the strange thing is we have a TV in the lounge which although perfectly watchable has lots of channels missing and a specific Avtex caravan TV in the bedroom which picks up all channels perfectly. 

They are both running off the same aerial and both sets were fully retuned after positioning the aerial. 

Any thoughts please? 

Thanks everybody in anticipation. 

oh_really

I'm guessing a run of co-ax splits into a "Y". Can you run a temp co-ax in place of the current run to establish any improvement?

matelodave

Most caravans have a multiple outlets on the amplifier between the aerial and the tv outlets, with a seperate coaxial cable run to each outlet. If it hasn't, then there'll be a splitter dangling around somewhere in the cabling to provide the two feeds.

It's worthwhile checking that the cables are properly connected and tight and that there are no stray whiskers of screening on the rear of the sockets.

If you've tried swapping the TV's around (ie tried the non Atex TV in the bedroom and the Avtex one in the lounge) and the non-Avtex TV exhibits the same problem in the bedroom then it's pretty obvious that the Avtex TV is more sensitive than the other
and the solution is to get another TV (although you could try increasing the amplifier gain if there's an adjuster on it)

Rodders53

As well as trying what matelodave has suggested:
Use the TVs' signal strength and quality meters to assess the levels received and compare the two.

Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but consider reducing the gain of the amplifier-2-way-splitter of the Teleplus (38dB of gain is massive) as one set might be suffering from overload and rejecting the over-strong signals due to poor quality as a result of that overload while the Avtex is able to cope?

Spinybif

WE had the same problem at our holiday home when we retuned - Tv had picked up Welsh transmitter when previously tuned into Winter Hill.  Might be worth comparing  MUX channels both TVs are tuned into - in our case retuning manually returned all channels without interference.

Username03725

What's the aeriel extension wire made of? If it's the thin white cable that costs a tenner a mile in cheapo shops, bin it and replace it with proper brown co-ax. The thin white stuff really is next to useless over anything more than a yard or so and loses so much signal you may as well use damp string. Decent co-ax with properly terminated ends and the same for the flylead from wall to tv will probably reinstate your channel choice.

flicks

Thanks everybody for your advice. As Metalodave says the amplifier has 2 separate outlets for the TV and one for the FM radio so there is no splitter involved here. Haven't tried switching the TV's so that'll be on the to do list on our next visit.

Username 03725 both cable runs are made with the proper decent coaxial cable. 

Spinybif, interesting. Strangely enough our local programmes which should be Anglia or BBC east are showing as Yorkshire & Lincolnshire. Sadly there are so many trees on the site that aiming the aerial towards Tacolneston yields very poor results.

Rodders53. Have tried reducing the gain on the amplifier and it works to some degree with some channels showing improvement and some vanishing altogether.

Thanks for all your advice once again. Very gratefully accepted.