All posts by Jos
Below are all of Jos's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.Hi,
Just to add a little information, we run a small caravan park (9 letting caravans + 3 TVs in our house) and during last summer had some issues with pixellation and complete loss of signal on some channels throughout the site. It's entirely possible that the problem was due to the weather, exacerbated by a slightly damaged wideband aerial, and/or the old cable from the aerial to the amplifier, both of which we plan to replace now. But having read around the subject to prepare for changing the aerial, I'm wondering if we would have a more reliable signal with the main channels is we used a B group aerial instead of a wideband aerial. The TVs are all Freeview.
Also, how do we know if we would benefit from a high gain aerial? The checker says that our reception is variable, and is predicted to be worse from June 2019, so we are trying to plan ahead and improve the system as much as possible.
Thanks,
Jos
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MikeP and Hardy, thanks very much for your recommendations. I think we will go with a wideband high gain aerial and replace the cables and splitters/taps for this year to see how it goes through the summer, especially after June when the transmitter is changed again. Could we have 2 aerials (an extra one for the West Runton relay) and wire them both into the same cables to the caravans, to improve the reliability of the main TV channels?
If we still have problems we will have to look into Freesat. We currently have NowTV boxes as backup for the main TV channels but WiFi into caravans (metal boxes) is difficult so internet TV is probably not a long term solution, unless we hard wire the caravans.
I know very little about Freesat. Can the same cables and splitters/taps be used? I guess we would have to buy a set-top-box or replace the TVs in each caravan?
Sorry for so many questions!
Thanks,
Jos
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Hi Hardy,
Have just seen your new post. I'll look into grid aerials.
Thanks,
Jos
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Just a quick update. We installed a wideband tri-boom aerial, replaced any poor quality or old cable, and all of the splitters/taps. We also replaced the masthead amplifier, but re-used the Fringe distribution amp with 4G filter. As a result the signal strength went from 47dB to 80dB+ in the caravan at the end of the line. The TVs also report that the channel signals are 95-100% strength and 100% quality (except for 45 at 83-95% and 42 at 95%).
So now we will see how it goes through the summer before deciding if we need to switch to Freesat.
Thanks again for your advice - I've saved the Freesat info. in case we need it!
Jos
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Saturday 9 March 2019 10:57PM
Norwich
Hi,
Our postcode is NR12 0HS. According to the Digital TV coverage checker, most of our channels seem to be in group B, with just COM7 HD and COM8 HD in group T. I am thinking that we need a wideband aerial to received all channels, but wondered if we would suffer from less interference (from Dutch transmitters?) and a stronger signal if we give up on the COM channels and use a B aerial?
Thanks for any thoughts on this issue!