TV Aerials

[Ray Singh]

I have recently moved to a new house. It is rendered and I do not want to place anything on the outside walls like satellite dishes or aerials as these have a tendency to rust and stain the walls.

I placed a standard aerial within the loft as I literally live a few hundred meters from the repeater mast at Marlborough. I bought a Humax HD box as the Marlborough Tx supported HD TV. I read that the aerial needed to be placed vertically.

Without any sophisticated equipment, my wife and I managed to re-tune the box and receive most of the channels including HD.

Earlier this week, we noticed that the BBC channels had disappeared together with the HD selection. I tried to re-tune but nothing. I suspected that my aerial n the loft was not good enough.
Tonight, i came home and the BBC channels are perfect, but no HD at all. These used to start at 0050, but there is nothing there now.

Any ideas please?
Will the aerial in the loft be good enough as i live so close to the repeater?

Thanks.

[Ray Singh]

Any ideas please?
My children have told me that the BBC terestrial channels have disapeared again today.

[motco]

In the menus on the TV or digibox there will be a signal strength function. See what you can do to shift the aerial around while watching that.

[megaphone]

When you say you mounted the aerial vertically, you have not got it pointing vertically to the sky have you?

[Le TVR]

As you are so close to the transmitter the aerial being indoors shouldnt be an issue.
Not a broken cable or plug?
The repeater is vertically polarised so the aerial elements are vertical.

[Ray Singh]

megaphone said:

When you say you mounted the aerial vertically, you have not got it pointing vertically to the sky have you?

LOL - I did check that. No as the poster above has said, the elements are vertical.

[VEX]

How big is your aerial?

Being that close and the BBC Channels only it could well be to much signal causing the Humax box to overload.

Especially as the BBC Channels will be one of the strongest MUX's in the group.

A quick and dirty solution would be to swing the aerial away from the repeater position, to see if it improves the signal (weird, but ture)

V.

[Ray Singh]

Good idea, I can try this.

Would this be a similar reason to why the HD channels have disapeared?

[megaphone]

Ray Singh said:

LOL - I did check that. No as the poster above has said, the elements are vertical.

Good, I have seen this before, that's why I asked. As said it could be too much gain, a cheat is to take a braid or two from the cable screen and short to the middle pin, you'll need to do this in a plug or the back of the wall plate. One shorted braid can drop the signal by about 10dB.

[telecat]

I'd try re tuning. The BBC HD channels are moving up the EPG to 100 and 101. Supposedly this is to happen on the 17th October with ITV and C4 moving to 103 and 104. BUT they do tend to do things without telling you. I'd also check http://www.ukfree.tv/transmitters.php?xxx=WILTSHIR... and put in your Post code to see which Frequency number the HD channels are on. You could be getting a lower power signal from another transmitter.

Edited by telecat on Tuesday 16th October 12:21