Poor TV reception ? Had/Have cable TV installed.

Hanoijane

Would this work with a broadband connection if I could be bothered unscrewing it?

They never installed cable TV, but the broadband bit is live.

loafer_2

Is this the part you need?

http://maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=1048&TabID=1&source=15&WorldID=&doy=3m11
or
http://!!!!!!.com/actq

mateyboy

Great tip - I have only got the freebie channels on sky - now I can watch 1 channel and record from another -

Didn't get the other channels though only the 5 free ones - must not grumble, saved me £50 I was going to get a freeview box.

dawny10

I discovered this earlier in the year when I moved into my new house to find the previous owners had decided to take the external tv aerial with them! I thought I would try sticking the lead into the old cable box on the wall and found I could get 1-5, plus a few other channels. ;D

The problem I have found is that after a few hours of watching the picture degrades until it is black and white and snowy and totally unwatchable. Sometimes unplugging and plugging in again restores it, sometimes it doesn't work. My best guess is that there could be some sort of static build up on the cable that gets worse over time and that sometimes unplugging it can discharge this.

Has anyone else experinced this, or can anyone with technical leanings think of a solution? Would be extremely grateful for any help!

Lopo

You should be able to do that anyway....

All that is coming down the wire is an RF compressed signal that allows anything with a tuner in it (TV/video/DVD Recorder) to tune into those signals accordingly. With that in mind you should not need a splitter for the wire/signal.

You should have the following in place:

• outside cable line going into the back of the cable box,
• an RF aerial cable from the cable box to the video,
• video has an RF Aerial cable going to the TV.

There should also be SCART cables going from the following:

• Video to Cable
• Cable to TV

Logically, the Video and TV will both need to be tuned into whatever channels are available. With this setup, you can then record on the video, and then watch whatever tv channels you have tuned in on the tv itself.

Hope that helps...!

ajogden

We have a telewest cable service here and broadband too, they seem to have attached a 'digitap' to the main incoming box that looks like it splits the tv/broadband, would this splitter basically allow an extension to be run upstairs using your method if I disconnect the broadband router when not in use ?

Interesting thread this!

Hellion

Digital cable box's only output the channel you have selected on the box, (ie, there is no feedthrough for the other channels, BBC1, BBC2, etc.) If you want to be able to connect another TV to watch these channels then you will need to split the feed before it enters the cable box.

culpepper

we had our cable tv disconnected and returned the box but kept the telephone/internet broadband,when he disconected the tv he unscrewed a splitter and screwed in a single connector instead,he threw the splitter in our bin along with the cable that had gone to the cable telly box so I have them stashed away. Shall keep in mind all that is written here and see how our freeview box fares.I wonder if I could plug that in to the splitter as the signal is sometimes rubbish.

mm66

bump

Uncle_Cuddles

If your tv has "cable" tuning (vhf?) it has a much greater bandwidth and you should be able to pick up even more channels.

It should be pointed out that these are analogue channels, not digital (otherwise the tv would not be able to view them without a decoder) and I don't think they are nicam stereo either, just plain old mono. Funnily enough, I get the basic Telewest package but by plugging the cable straight into the back of the tv I get a couple that I don't get on the basic package, for example cartoon network.