Aerial Connections (Bill Wright)

In the past few weeks I have been experiencing very poor Freeview. My Panasonic tells me that New Channels have been found every time I switch on. I do a scan and nothing changes. My other TV is sometimes unwatchable.

However, I have found that tweaking around with the co-ax plugs can make a difference. The plugs are well made up and everthing in the sockets is tight. Could it be that it is just making the very miniscule difference needed to give a better signal?

Transmitter = Waltham. Post Code DE23.

Reply to
DerbyBorn
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DerbyBorn scribbled...

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Waltham transmitter work prompts TV retune alert

Reply to
Artic

Digital TV needs only a small change in signal strength to make a significant difference to reception. Thus a basic problem (faulty aerial, broken cable, whatever) can seem to be affected by things like loose plugs.

Yesterday I had a customer who showed me that his battery drill made his TV picture freeze. That was with the drill 20ft from the TV set and nowhere near the aerial. The radiation from the drill must have been having only a tiny effect on the signal/noise ratio but it was enough to affect reception. Aerial signals were so poor it was surprising it worked at all.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

Do I have to think about Gold Plated connectors? I did used to think such things were like snake oil - but perhaps I need to rethink.

Reply to
DerbyBorn

I do have a splitter in the circuit. It used to be a powered TRIAX one but after the big switch off of the analogue signal I found I could do without it and replaced it with a simple splitter. Should I change this for a "F" type? Anything to consider when buying one? Perhaps the weather and the trees are my enemy!

Reply to
DerbyBorn

Sounds like you need to get a little more signal down the lead in the first place, so that you have some more headroom to play with.

I normally work on the basis that if it still works with a 6dB inline attenuator in the lead before the TV, then that should cover most eventualities.

Reply to
John Rumm

First off, run the system without any splitter in circuit, that is, aerial direct to TV. Splitters cause signal loss, and your signal might be marginal to start with. See what signal strength, signal quality (usually found in 'settings' somewhere), and general picture quality you get.

Put the simple splitter back in and see what changes.

Remove that one and put the powered one in circuit and see what happens.

If you need both powered splitter and simple splitter, make sure the powered one is the first one in the chain from the aerial.

They don't help at times.

Reply to
Terry Fields

No no no! You have to get the signal from the aerial sorted out so it's well above the threshold, then daft little things like loose plugs won't matter.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

That's a good rule of thumb. I tend to say 10dB though.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

Terry Fields wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

My TV is showing a signal stregth of 10 on some frequencies and only 3 on others.

Reply to
DerbyBorn

DerbyBorn scribbled...

Some less popular channels run on reduced power. You should be able to check each signal on the relevant website.

Reply to
Artic

Power level and local reception difficulties won't affect individual programme services in isolation, it will all the services carried by a given multiplex equally.

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Reply to
Graham.

Graham. wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

By frequencies I guess I meant Muxes. The page you sent shows some are at

50,000 watts and some are 25,000 watts.
Reply to
DerbyBorn

A scan gives me the following Channels and Signal Quality readings:

Ch29 = 10 Ch39 = 1 (618MHz) Ch49 = 9 Ch54 = 10 Ch56 = 6 Ch57 = 5 Ch58 = 4 (HD)

Reply to
DerbyBorn

In article , DerbyBorn scribeth thus

Which is only a 3 dB difference i.e. appx half. In a reception environment the received signal level can vary more then that over a range of channels..

Give us all some more info. Post a pix of the aerial somewhere, where is it chimney or wall or loft mount appx postcode area, detail all the gubbins inline with the aerial lead Splitters etc and PVR's and anything else then we can all prolly pin it down a bit better....

Reply to
tony sayer

tony sayer wrote in news:ZAn1+ snipped-for-privacy@bancom.co.uk:

It is on a TK bracket and a 10 foot (I think) pole.It is on the side of the house as I have a double hipped roof and no chimney. Lead goes to a simple splitter in the loft (was once a powered one) from there to the main TV (Panasonic) and the other lead to a Aldi TV in the kitchen.

Reply to
DerbyBorn

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DE23

Reply to
DerbyBorn

Ch 39 is not from Waltham, and your annotation suggests you realise this.

Perhaps it was too weak for the receiver to decode anything, but if it did it might have populated some channels in the channel list with very flaky signals. Some sets will assign high channel numbers (in the

80s) to duplicates if they are encountered later in the scan.

Try re-scanning as if a new install omitting 39.

The technique I would use is simply to unplug the aerial after 29 has been processed and plug it in when 39 has passed.

Reply to
Graham.

39 is a duplicate mux you are picking up off a different transmitter by the looks of it.

And the response is falling off rapidly with rising frequency... this could be an indication that the aerial in use is not of the appropriate group (the channel allocation leaves you no real option other than wideband) - but that seems hard to correlate with the numbers [1] if they are an accurate reflection of the actual signal strength).

However my best guess based on what we can see so far is that there is water in the coax - that will tend to attenuate the top end far more seriously than the lower on.

Do you know what kind of aerial it is? (what group?) What kind of coax does it have.

[1] For example a group B aerial would roll off before the top channels, however you would also expect it to be a bit poor on Ch 29 which is equally as far outside its nominal 35 - 53 channel band, as 58 is.
Reply to
John Rumm

18 element. Wideband. Nothing obviously wrong with it.
Reply to
Graham.

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