Aerial wall socket outlet identification needed

[romic]

A friend has had poor TV reception and on checking, I found that the Aerial wall socket was giving a poor connection. The outlet needs to be replaced and I'm assuming that it was the original outlet.

The outlet fits a standard pattress box and has a single socket. The plate on the back of the outlet has two isolated connections and a coaxial cable going to each of them. I can't remember exactly what was on the plate, but there appeared ot be one or more capacitors.

The outlet is on a community aerial in a block of 26 flats.

I'm not sure what the cables are:

1) the outlet is in series with other flats an (I assume this to be unlikely)

2) the incoming cables are one for TV and one for FM and the outlet is actually a splitter.

He has always had the TV aerial lead connected direct to the outlet socket and has generally had a reasonable picture, even getting freeview OK most of the time.

The only information I can find is YOD I/II printed on the plate, which leads me to assume that this is indeed a diplexer (In which case the socket is a combined outlet and he should have also been using an external diplexer to split the signal back to TV and FM outputs.

Can anybody confirm what the outlet is and what a suitable replacement would be?

Thanks

Roger

[Andy Burns]

some are wired like that, if it is you've saved the other 25 residents the from the Queen's speech!

Probably more likely, though if it were using a diplexer/triplexer it could combine satellite/uhf tv/vhf fm/dab on one cable

[Owain]

It used to be quite common to wire communal aerial systems on a tap or tee system, whereby the signal starts at the top of the cable and loops through the tap outlets. Each outlet taps off a portion of the signal for that flat's use, and passes the rest on to subsequent flats. The taps have different attentuation values depending on where they are in the chain. The system has to be designed and matched as a whole. Bill Wright on uk.tech.digital-tv is your man for this and there are some nice stories on his website (wrightsaerials.tv IIRC)

Owain

[romic]

Thanks

it looks like I'm going to have to take the outlet off and take it to one of those firms that do contract installations to see if they can identify it / supply a replacement..

I've looked in the TLC etc catalogues, but I can't see anything like it.

Roger

[Rob Morley]

Why not attach a length of coax to the back of the socket and run that to a new outlet? Or you could just leave it dangling with an in-line socket on the end.

[romic]

That is one option which I might look at. I need to have another look at the outlet. However, I remember seeing at least one capacitor there (and possibly other components) which may mean that there is a special coupling / isolation between the two incoming cables and the solitary socket. I need to have another look at the outlet and see what the circuit on the PCB consists of.

Roger