TV Aerial splitting problem

[Simon]

Hi Guys,

I have come across a problem today splitting a TV Aerial, I have split many TV Ariels in the past without a problem until today. I took the fitting from the back of the TV and put it into a 2 way Y splitter and then added another Aerial to the splitter also but then I had no signal at all so I thought maybe the splitter is duff so I simply joined the wires instead as I have done many times previously with no problems and still no signal at all which has intrigued me somewhat. The only way I can get the TV to work is by fitting the Aerial directly into the back of the TV, if I try joining the wires or using a splitter I get no signal at all. I have also tried one of those in line joiner pieces and no signal there still. Why havent I got a signal if I simply join the wires as I have with my own tv's in the loft where I have 4 tv's working without a problem?

Cheers.

[dave]

All I can say is you are very lucky to have enough signal to join 4 seperate Tvs to one aerial feed and have them working without some sort of matching device or an amplifier. When you put a signal into a Y splitter you loose

50% of it in voltage terms, even more in terms of power. If you just join 2 aerial feed wires together without some sort of matching device you loose 50% in terms of voltage and you can loose much more by reflected signals, depending on the lengths of the cables. Is the TV signal you are trying to use for digital TV? Is the location of your poor signal the same as your home location? I don't understand your total lack of signal when you connect splitters or aerial unless you are viewing digital TV. I suggest you try a multiway amplifier as close to the aerial as possible.

Dave

[Palindrome]

Do you have a masthead amplifier, with power fed up the coax?

[Squibbly]

quite simply if you want more than two tvs to share the same aerial, an amp/aerial splitter is most reccomended, especially since digital tv is on the march to take over from analogue

[Simon]

Hi,

The signal to the main tv is for digital and I'm trying to get a signal for the analogue one but when I split the wire from the aerial I'm not getting a signal at all not even on the analogue one. If I split the wire of the main tv and don't connect the other tv to it at all and simply put an in line connector as if to join 2 halves of the cable together I still can't get a signal, I have to have the connector directly on the end of the cable with no breaks for a decent picture.

[dave]

I would have thought that a masthead amp with coax fed power supply would isolate the dc side from the downlead to the TV so there should be no interaction though I suppose the PSU could have a fault and be putting its dc onto the downlead.

I would like to know what you mean by no signal, do you get a faint noisy picture on analogue and a blue screen on digital, or are you measuring the signal strength? Does the loft you talk about use the same aerial as the one you are trying to fix?

Are you sure that when you join the coax that there isn't the odd strand of wire shorting the connection. Similarly are you sure your splitter and connections to your last coax plug are OK?