External Aerial fixing query

Hi Folks, I'm planning to move my in-the-loft telly aerial outside of the loft and the present thought is to attach the aerial to the side of a dormer window. The dormer is nothing special, but I am not sure which bits of metal I'll need to do the attaching. Screwfix shows various "cranks" (page 278 of autumn 2005 catalogue 79), but since I've never done this before it's time to engage the good advice of the folks here.

I guess I'll need the "wall fixing kit" (but it will be attached to the wooden side of the dormer) but beyond that would one of the offset cranks be enough to keep the aerial proud of the dormer?

Advice requested; thanks in advance.

Mungo

Reply to
mungoh
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My advice is don't bother. I suspect that a better aerial in the loft will make far more difference than moving the existing aerial outside.

I moved my loft aerial outside a few months ago and the improvement is negligable, I've gone from fairly good digital reception with the occasional droput to fairly good digital reception with the occasional droput. I also couldn't see much difference in the signal level indicated by the STB's signal strength display.

The aerial is now a couple of feet higher than it was when inside and the downlead is no longer. I think rooves attenuate the signal less than the 'rules' suggest, maybe it depends on the roof a bit, ours is just an ordinary tiled roof.

The one thing that improved was the ease of setting up as I didn't have to position the aerial quite so carefully when it was outside, not from the direction point of view, when it was in the loft there were some 'holes' due to reflections/standing waves.

Reply to
usenet

Thanks Chris. I thought that there was a factor of ten between inside the roof and outside the roof? My motive for the move is to do with Digital TV: there's no point in amplifying rubbish (but enough of "Channel Five" :-) so the move outside was my next ploy. Ta again

Mungo

P.S. For "better aerial" what is your suggestion (and source) please?

Reply to
mungoh

maybe with a steel roof.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

If the signal is adequate in the loft, leave it. The aerial is protected from the weather there. Putting a better aerial there is often counter productive, as the surrounding objects are more likely to de-tune it, making it's gain less than optimum.

Depends on roof construction. some red tiles completely obliterate the signal. My gable does in places where it is externally clad in wood.

It's much closer to spec when in 'free space' outside, but will suffer from windage/corrosion more than inside. Being higher outside may clear local obstuctions and is separated by the roof from home generated sources of interference too, which may reduce dropouts on digital reception.

Reply to
<me9

I looked at

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which I saw here, or some digital TV group - there's some good stuff there, for instance:
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There's also
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and so on.

Reply to
Chris Bacon

I'm not really an authority on this, you'd be better off asking in uk.tech.digital-tv.

You may be limited by what will fit, it's not a good thing if the aerial is very close to the roof as you get all sorts of odd effects and it becomes difficult to position it.

Go to uk.tech.digital-tv and describe what you already have and I'm sure you'll get (some) reasonable answers suggesting what may be better.

BTW are you sure your existing aerial covers the right frequencies for the digital MUXes your using? If it was just the existing analogue aerial it might be that simply changing to a similar one that covers the right frequencies will improve things enough.

Reply to
usenet

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My experience in a nutshell.

The only advantage in going outside is greater height and a room for a bigger array. = Bloody Ugly.

Get the biggest loft aerial you can, take a little telly up in the loft and bugger around till you get best analogue reception (fewest ghosts, best signal) and then it its ghost free but weak, get a mast head amp or loftbox. If its ghosty, get a better aerial.

Then go digital and lose all the ghosts.

Of course if your thatch is covered in chicken wire and your gables in rendred metal mesh...you have little choice..unles your extension is tiled PHEW!!

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No. Noth that bad. A wet roof with rain running down it is a bit poor, but so is a rainstorm btetween you and the transmitter. Tiles and slates are not bad at all at 450Mhz or whatever..its a different story at satelliert freqencies tho.

Thats what I had - great 1-4, poorish 5 (low power) so Istuck in te biggest loft array I coudl get in the space and it showe up OKish on C5, brilliant on 1-4..and basically used a distribution amp on the back - didn;t imprive the picture, but allowed me to feed 10TV and radio sockets.

Got a digibox later on, stick it on, and voila. Perfect reception on everything, (as far as digital recpetion is ever 'perfect') including C5..only difference is the noisy thermostats instead of shoving white dots on the screen, pixellate the whole picture...

Still BBC3 and Little Britan soon made me forget that...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Its not so much gain that one wants, as extremely narrow beam width to reject all the multipath from tanks and pipes...and the neigbours tanks and pipes..I used a long multi element Yagi..no neighhbourts hough, but it did help reject some of the continental stuff that sometimes comes in ALMOST from the same direction as Sudbury.

Really? Never had that. Nor wood. Metal lath however...and wall ties..

Provided you have a better than about 15dB signal to ghost/crap ratio, digital is rock solid.

My only problesm are some cheap thermostats that spark when switching..sound orrible on te radio...must replace...

>
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

There's also

That says 'amplified extra high gain' - well I didn't need THAT.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Setting up a digital grade aerial is not a matter of waving a few bits of aluminium in the breeze. All you need is a conformant aerial and cable, installed properly to the spec laid down. Then it will work correctly.

The attenuation is NOT your problem. You have reflections.

Proving the reflections are an issue.

Reply to
Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)

My 25 year experience.

Don't even consider loft aerials.

Reply to
Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)

With good LOS they can be excellent. If so there are no advantages and several disadvantages in going external.

However, this is often not the case. Even in good signal strength areas roof components and walls can B****** up the signal.

I would recommend an outdoor aerial, but certainly not rule out loft aerials. Room aerials are seldom (read never) satisfactory.

I /have/ had successful satellite reception indoors, through a window, Not recommended either, but it can help out an otherwise impossible situation. A

2 foot dish on the lounge windowsill may not be aesthetically pleasing though.
Reply to
<me9

Yes, but having dealt with that issue by positioning the aerial the loft aerial performed just as well as the outdoor aerial. It

*may* be that you can't avoid the issue completely in which case an outdoor aerial may be the answer but just saying 'outdoor is always best and much better than loft' is simply not true. Other people here have said this too.

I think one factor may be that a commercial/professional installer doesn't have the time (or patience) to spend a lot of time crawling around in a loft to install an aerial in the best position there. They are much more set up to quickly gain access to the roof and/or a chimney and can get a reliable installation more easily that way.

A D-I-Y installer on the other hand probably doesn't have the equipment or skills to work up on the roof or by a chimney, but they

*do* have more time (and maybe 'sympathy' with the surroundings) to do a good loft installation.
Reply to
usenet

Oh. So I must take out a perfectly good working setup and ruin my house's appearance becuase your 25 years experience of being unable to rig a loft aerial properly tells me so?

I bet you voted Laber, too...

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Most of the houses I've lived in for the past 40 years have had loft aerials. It's never been a problem for me.

My advice to a DIYer is try the loft first. If it's no good you haven't lost anything and you may save a packet.

MBQ

Reply to
manatbandq

Hear hear.

The requiremenst to get in and out and hacve a satisfactory aerial installed in double quick time with good relaible reception means that about 10-20% of the time a loft won't work. That is enough of a risk for the average pro installer to not do it.

For DIOY, a decent narrow beam wideband aerial often does work.

Aerials are very inexpensive..if it doesn't work inside..put it outside.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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