Q for the Freeview aerial know alls

More like 10 to 15 depending on frequency for tiles. Slates aren't "that" bad. But some roofing felt has a metal foil in it..

The higher frequencies are worse.

Reply to
tony sayer
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There -might- be a reason for that and it concerns the amplifier which if Andy Wade's around he'll tell you much the same.

Sometimes owing to the disparity of transmitted analogue and digital signals the analogue ones are much more powerful and can in some instances overload amplifiers and in doing so can generate spurious signals up and down the TV bands and thus cause interfering signals that can clobber other wanted signals..

If you want tell us appx where you are and the transmitter in use..

Reply to
tony sayer

Yes, theres a few DB loss, but the far worse effect is metal in the near field that starts to behave like its part of the aerial and buggers its response completely.

Yep. we can agree on that.

I am fortunate, its only my tiles and 10 miles between my aerial and the transmitter. Its fine. Mind you after living below sea level for 20 years, and being a tad concerned about global warming, picking the highest point in west suffolk to live on wasn't entirely accidental..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Mmm. I wouldn't have said mine are that bad. anyway masses of signal is far less important than te consistent quality of that signal, with digital.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Just discovered that we're getting a signal of 80-82%, according to the telly which knows more than I do. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that sounds ok to me, and I wonder if an extra 18% will make an awful lot of difference?

Can anyone suggest a 'good' Freeview box? By 'good' I mean one which will do wondrous things with a signal of, oh, around 80%. A decent Sky-like tv planner would be good too.

Si

Reply to
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot

I adore my sony freeview boxes. Streets ahead of what comes in the Sony TV's.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

VTX-D800U? They look a bit saucy.

Si

Reply to
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot

Good luck mate. Most of them are absolute *****. Built to a price. You might have more luck with a recorder.

I've just bought a Philips box (Tesco mail order £29 - or in the shop £39) as someone told me it was Pace (which it is).

That seems to pull in a good signal even though our aerial is in the loft, we're in a valley, and halfway between XP and Hannington. Better than the analogue so far. OTOH it hasn't rained since I bought it.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Hang on I'll have a look see....

... I think so. Its dark and dusty, but that seems to be wots on the back.

I got three off ebay a couple of years back. One is flakey. Two are perfect.

Nice user definable stuff, which is a bit of a chore to set up, but once set, its dead easy to see what's on, and set timers to switch channels etc.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ah! the Sony's are a lot more than that.

I've seen most boxes work well enough, its the menu systems and features that are so bloody useful One touch subtitles for the half deaf missus for example, and loads of auto channel switching if you set it up.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

In message , Tinkerer wrote

Try a decent fully screened cable

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Reply to
Alan

I was considering one of those too but again there's a lot of old crap out there. Humax are supposed to be good but when you start reading reviews there's always dozens of "keeps locking up" type postings. Some technology is a bit poo really.

Si

Reply to
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot

I recently replaced my loft aerial wit an outside one. I had a distribution amp in the loft. This was overloaded by the extra signal from the outside aerial. I ditched the distribution amp and substituted a passive low loss 4 way splitter. Even with that and a 2 way splitter behind the TV I can attenuate the signals by 20dB+ and get a stable picture.

Dump the distribution amp and see how it works with one set. If so it probably doesn't need the distribution amplifier. Try a passive splitter in its place.

Reply to
<me9

It's at least 30dB worse through the weatherboarded part of my gable than through the bricks. It can only be the roofing felt underneath the weather boarding. The sarking felt in the loft hasn't this effect, must be a different type.

Reply to
<me9

Alas its quality that matters as much as quantity. A strong signal with lots of noise and impulse interference is probably less use that a weaker but cleaner one.

I quite like my Topfield PVR - good guide / planner. Stick a copy of MyStuff on it, and it pretty much does everything.

Reply to
John Rumm

That's really odd. I'm timber frame and the bits that really upset thing are foil backed plasterboard, and the chicken wire over the thatch :-)

the tile on te extension do not attenutate that much at all, as I said.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Topfield eh? Not a brand *name* I'd instantly go for but I've heard them recommended before so it will be added to the very short list. Thanks again.

Si

Reply to
Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot

So originally we had occasional momentary but total loss of picture (not just pixellation) and turning the amp down seemed to fix that. Now it's just momentary loss of sound. Signal strength is always reported as very good.

Near Thame, Oxon, not sure which transmitter. Aerial points somewhere South-ish.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

Thus spake "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" ( snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com) unto the assembled multitudes:

I had a Wharfedale freeview box, and that was always suffering sound dropouts even though the picture remained stable. Timers often didn't work either. Glad to see the back of it.

Reply to
A.Clews

The Topfield and the Humax were the first quite sophisticated twin tuner PVRs. They are in a different class to most of them in that they can (with some titting about) be hooked up to a network - and hence allow recordings to be downloaded to a PC etc. They can also do all the usual tricks like record two channels at once (and possibly watch a third), playback before the end of a recording, pause live TV etc.

There are often comparisons between them. The usual suggestion being that the Humax[1] is better "out of the box" in terms of user interface and ease of use, but the topfield is better if you are prepared to augment it. The topfield is designed to allow software additions (called TAPs) to be installed on it. Hence a whole catalogue of useful apps have been developed for it to add new capabilities. MyStuff being one of the most used, that adds a slick user interface and very clever timer and series link recording capabilities. You can get some feel for the sort of stuff that can be done here:

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There is/was an issue with a recent software upgrade on the Humax which has caused stability problems for some users. That's probably not a fair reflection on the overall quality however.

Reply to
John Rumm

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