Anyone recomend a Digital TV aeriel?

Hi-gain,outdoor in the region of £20/25

Yes I know a normal analogue aerial on a freeview box will work when the switchover applies but the sister doesn't want a FV box hooked up to the TV.

Cheers.

Reply to
George
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Excuse me if I'm wrong, but when you say the old aerial will work after the switchover with a freeview box, it won't work with a TV with freeview built in? I thought it would have worked.

SantaUK

Reply to
SantaUK

The reason an analogue one will work is because there is no such thing as a digital aerial, they are all analogue.

You will not get digital TV by just changing the aerial, you /need/ either:-

a satellite box + disk a freeview TV + aerial a freeview set top box + aerial

Reply to
dennis

I bet you I can post a URL to a digital aerial Dennis. ;-)

Reply to
George

You either need a TV with Freeview/Digital built in, or you need a Freeview box. The aerial is either good enough for Freeview or it isn't, it'll make no difference if you have a separate Freeview box or a TV with Freeview built-in.

Reply to
tinnews

Really not enough information. In some areas - like most of London - an existing aerial covers the FreeView frequencies. So in general will work just fine - if it worked ok for analogue. In other parts of the country you may need a wideband one to cover all the analogue and FreeView frequencies.

If you're in a reasonable signal strength area a log periodic takes some beating - smooth response and good directional properties. Like this one:-

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Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Go on then.

Reply to
dennis

Marketing gimmic to sell Joe Public aerials they didn't need.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

In message , George wrote

There is no such thing as a digital aerial. Retailers will often sell you a wideband aerial under the guise of being a digital aerial but it may not be the best type of aerial for your area. A wideband aerial tends to be a compromised design.

From which transmitter does your sister get the signals? Type her postcode into

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Reply to
Alan

Not so - log periodic aerials can be wide band and have a superb DP. For fringe use you may be correct. But most fringe aerials are a bit 'peaky' in response.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Maplins Code: A57CW

Reply to
George

Probably. :-)

Reply to
George
8<

That's an analogue aerial with the words digital added to fool the less knowledgeable. It will probably work with analogue TV but not very well as it doesn't appear to be very directional and you suffer multipath interference (ghosts).

If anything you can use a cheaper poorer quality aerial for digital TV.

Reply to
dennis

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote

I'm aware of that because I have a Blakes' log periodic pointing at a transmitter 18 miles away where both channel 24 and 59 are required for digital reception. It has a similar performance to the very large wideband array it replaced - after 25 years of service bits fell off of the original aerial :(

Most widebands being sold as digital aerials are not a log periodic design.

Reply to
Alan

I have a A22HG wide band, mind you it was not the current price when I brought mine and for an RG postcode works brilliant, and a lot cheaper than the £180 I was quoted to have one fitted and all I did was to point it in the same direction as the other ones nearby no fancy set up tools really needed I did buy strength meter A55HJ but it was next to useless as it to insensitive only having 5 LEDS the difference in degrees between a led going off was about 60 but as others have said you might not need a new aerial to pick up Digital just give it a try then buy one if its really needed

Reply to
Kevin

The freeview channels in many areas will be boosted in power, or moved to the current analogue frequencies for which your aerial was intended, when the analogue signals are turned off.

In the meantime, the digital frequencies are transmitted at lower power or on out-of-group frequencies, to which your aerial is less sensitive.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

If she does not want a box, then she needs a new TV. The aerial (regardless of type) will not magically add digital reception to an analogue TV.

Before you go changing aerials, find out what group[1] aerial you will need, now and after switchover:

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post switchover uses the same grouping as your current setup, you will be better staying with your current aerial or one similar to it rather than going for a "digital"[2]

[1] Aerials were traditionally "grouped" - i.e. that meant they were tuned to work best in a subset of the full range of frequencies used for TV transmission. This gets round the difficulty of making a wideband aerial that attempts to serve the whole range. Group A being the lowest set of frequencies, B the next, up to Group C/D serving the highest. The other letters you see represent wider groups, and the widest is the group K "wideband" that (in theory) works across the full spread of frequencies. Needless to say, the wider the group, the less optimum the performance in general. [2] The ad men seem to have hit upon this meaningless term to mean a "wideband" aerial. These may be required in some places where the channel allocations place the different channel groups in non adjacent areas of the spectrum.
Reply to
John Rumm

on 05/10/2008, Kevin supposed :

Hmmm, I fell for one of those and as you suggest not really that much use for alignment. I keep intending to add a small pot to it, to be able to adjust its sensitivity so at least you can get it to just light a LED at a peak. A cheap small analogue meter would have been much better.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

The only difference being that in some areas you may need a wider band antenna to pick up all of the muxes for your own area, because they are outside the bandwidth of a normal analogue antenna.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

On Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:45:43 GMT someone who may be "George" wrote this:-

Is she in a poor reception area?

Television aerials are, like most things, not something where there is a simple answer. If you want to get the right aerial study the pages from and gain an understanding of what you want.

As someone else has said, the first thing to know is which transmitter the signals come from. From that you can find out which group the transmitter signals were in originally, which groups they are in now (note that analogue Channel 5 is often out of the original group too) and which group(s) they will be in after the switchover. From that and the signal strength you can decide which aerial(s) you want.

Most transmitters will revert to one group at switchover. Thus most people don't need to change aerials. People may want to change aerial if they cannot get all of the digital channels at the moment, but they should be made aware that in a few years they may get them anyway with their current aerial. What follows is aimed at those who will not be in this position after the switchover, about half a dozen of the main transmitters.

In strong and medium signal areas the choice is easy, a log periodic. These were developed by navies specifically to have a wide response and are superb aerials for these circumstances. They don't have a downside, except that they don't look like the sort of aerial many expect. The fact that so few are seen shows the triumph of something over substance.

In poor signal areas the choice is more difficult. An enormous wideband aerial may work, at least until the wind attacks it. However, there is a lot to be said for a more subtle approach. If the signals are/will be in two groups then a more subtle approach is to use two aerials, each of a different group, which are combined into one lead. These can be pointed at the same or different transmitters, depending on location .

Reply to
David Hansen

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