Aerial home distribution unit

[Murph7355]

After 15yrs of great service in an unfriendly environment, my Labgear 608G 8-way aerial home distribution unit looks to have failed.

I'm looking for suppliers of the same unit, but does anyone have recommendations for alternatives should I draw blanks? ("Get with the streaming programme, grandad" is fair enough but not required ).

[Mr Pointy]

What inputs do you want to distribute? Sky/Terrestrial TV/FM radio?

[Murph7355]

Mr Pointy said:

What inputs do you want to distribute? Sky/Terrestrial TV/FM radio?

Just terrestrial TV.

[FlossyThePig]

Murph7355 said:

...my Labgear 608G 8-way aerial home distribution unit looks to have failed...

Have you looked at the Phylex website to see what alternatives they have?

https://www.philex.com/product/ldu608g/

[Mr Pointy]

The 608 seems to have gone EoL but if you just need 1 in & 8 out then Labgear have this:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-lda2081k-8-way-...

Alternatively this site has some good information:

https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product/mains-amplifi...
https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product-category/spli...

[Murph7355]

Thanks all.

Labgear ordered. Will see how it goes...

[megaphone]

That Labgear has 'F' connectors, does your existing set-up use the same F cons? If not you'll need to change them all.

[Murph7355]

It does

One of the reasons I was looking for the same model (and failing) was to keep it a direct swap.

I think I should be OK, but can reterminate coax if necessary.

Presentation of outlets and the size of the unit are different unfortunately, which is likely to cause a headache I'm sure.

[phil4]

Depending how you use it (eg. 9 TV's all going with seperate channels at the same time, or 9 TVs only one on at a time) Silicon Dust do a range of tuners that broadcast the TV over wireless and wifi network, with apps for TVs, firesticks and the like: https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/

We took our aerial down a few years back having stopped using it.

[Murph7355]

phil4 said:

Depending how you use it (eg. 9 TV's all going with seperate channels at the same time, or 9 TVs only one on at a time) Silicon Dust do a range of tuners that broadcast the TV over wireless and wifi network, with apps for TVs, firesticks and the like: https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/

We took our aerial down a few years back having stopped using it.

I actually use an HD Homerun unit too for parts of the house whose coax connection is iffy...

I'd need a bigger unit/couple of them to cover the house, so would still need a splitter and amplifier I think. (Have mulled this over before and dropped it in the "not yet" bucket).

I also capitulated at Christmas and we got Sky Stream.... I could get a few more pucks, but that just adds to the monthly cost, which I'm trying to avoid getting sucked into.

[shtu]

Mr Pointy said:

Alternatively this site has some good information:

https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product/mains-amplifi...
https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product-category/spli...

It does have good information. Unfortunately the lack of structure and layout and the endless over-description of why everything they sell is the very best there's ever been, is, or will ever be, makes it an absolute headache to work with.

I mean, on just one of the pages about bulk aerial cable there are almost 1700 words, to tell you, roughly, that the cable they sell is really good and comes in a range of colours. The page above that (also about cable) is almost 5000 words.

I'd happily buy from them if I could figure out what I need without visiting 15-20 pages full of links to every other page, and reading a truly ludicrous amout of hype about what they sell.

[Mr Pointy]

shtu said:

Mr Pointy said:

Alternatively this site has some good information:

https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product/mains-amplifi...
https://www.aerialsandtv.com/product-category/spli...

It does have good information. Unfortunately the lack of structure and layout and the endless over-description of why everything they sell is the very best there's ever been, is, or will ever be, makes it an absolute headache to work with.

I mean, on just one of the pages about bulk aerial cable there are almost 1700 words, to tell you, roughly, that the cable they sell is really good and comes in a range of colours. The page above that (also about cable) is almost 5000 words.

I'd happily buy from them if I could figure out what I need without visiting 15-20 pages full of links to every other page, and reading a truly ludicrous amout of hype about what they sell.

Did you look at the shop or the Knowledgebase? Unfortunately imparting practical knowledge requires a bit more than a doomscrolling set of influencer pictures.

The shop cable page is quite succinct.

[shtu]

Mr Pointy said:

Did you look at the shop or the Knowledgebase?

shtu said:

It does have good information. Unfortunately the lack of structure and layout...

What do you think?

The site is often more concerned about telling you how awesome their stock is than anything else, though it does seem that late-90s design is a feature of all these sorts of sites.

Personally I prefer the wolfbane stuff, eg, http://213.123.190.40/cgi-bin/tvd.exe?DX=L&HT=... is a pretty useful tool, without shilling. Though their site is migrane-inducing too.

Mr Pointy said:

Unfortunately imparting practical knowledge requires a bit more than a doomscrolling set of influencer pictures.

Not quite sure that dig was warranted, but hey ho.

And yet, they're quite fond of a bit of that themselves, providing it's rubbishing everyone else, eg, https://www.aerialsandtv.com/knowledge/cowboys-loc...

(rightly so tbf, but that's the tone of the whole site - we're awesome, everyone else is st, buy our stuff)

[Murph7355]

Easy up. It's an aerial dist/amp. Keep it friendly

To be fair, the other site was also useful...and having battled with the witchcraft that is radio waves and aerials, and OCD meaning I did not want a massive pole mounted aerial on the side of the house, I am well versed in cutting through the nerddom

All help very welcomed. Was mainly just wanting to know if the world had moved on given the15yr old unit wasn't seeming easy to get.

Should arrive tomorrow which will please the OH - if it's not on terrestrial TV live then it doesn't exist as far as she's concerned.

(Am still thinking a quad HD HomeRun might still be something the techie in me decides is a good idea ).

[shtu]

Murph7355 said:

All help very welcomed. Was mainly just wanting to know if the world had moved on given the15yr old unit wasn't seeming easy to get.

Not really, there's not a lot else to do other than, er, amplify.

Out of interest, was there a reason that the original was used? It had (had) a lot of inputs.

[I am alright Jack]

Murph7355 said:

Easy up. It's an aerial dist/amp. Keep it friendly

To be fair, the other site was also useful...and having battled with the witchcraft that is radio waves and aerials, and OCD meaning I did not want a massive pole mounted aerial on the side of the house, I am well versed in cutting through the nerddom

All help very welcomed. Was mainly just wanting to know if the world had moved on given the15yr old unit wasn't seeming easy to get.

Should arrive tomorrow which will please the OH - if it's not on terrestrial TV live then it doesn't exist as far as she's concerned.

(Am still thinking a quad HD HomeRun might still be something the techie in me decides is a good idea ).

I was just looking at HD Homerun stuff but couldn't quit work out if you need the £35 per year app to use their equipment or just to record.

Admittedly the information wasn't obvious on their site and I did get very bored very quickly so gave up.

[Murph7355]

Labgear sorted it - thanks all. Crisp reception where it's needed, all channels. Happy OH!

phil4 said:

Depending how you use it (eg. 9 TV's all going with seperate channels at the same time, or 9 TVs only one on at a time) Silicon Dust do a range of tuners that broadcast the TV over wireless and wifi network, with apps for TVs, firesticks and the like: https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/

We took our aerial down a few years back having stopped using it.

Idly looking at HD HomeRun Quatros again and I came across using my NAS to use as a DVR...don't really need it, but it works very nicely

Have avoided buying a Quatro again for now, as really don't need it...but it's a gadget!

shtu said:

Not really, there's not a lot else to do other than, er, amplify.

Out of interest, was there a reason that the original was used? It had (had) a lot of inputs.

More the outputs and product availability at the time.

I live in a very old house and the very long pole mounted aerial stuck to the gable end bugged me. So decided to remove it and put it inside...long story short, much faffing with different aerial types, amps, splitters and then the original Labgear and I finally had a top notch set up that worked. Until the other day.

Back then the other inputs might have been handy, but never got round to using them...and things like ccTV and radio I cover with apps now.

It was a very decent unit inputs wise. I guess not many people need that sort of thing now.

I am alright Jack said:

I was just looking at HD Homerun stuff but couldn't quit work out if you need the £35 per year app to use their equipment or just to record.

Admittedly the information wasn't obvious on their site and I did get very bored very quickly so gave up.

You only need the subscription for the guide.

You can even use recording without the subs, but functionality for recording is more limited...though as noted above, the need for recording anything these days is very limited, given the amount of streaming available. (Unless you're like my OH, in which case streaming doesn't count and watching live or recording is where it's at!).

HD HomeRuns work very nicely...though the app is a little clunky. If you have a house with multiple rooms and no coax run, it makes distributing terrestrial TV very easy. And as you can site the device close to the aerial (subject to connectivity to your network), the signal is generally much better/easy to sort out.

You can also then watch broadcast TV on your phone...which is handy at times

[I am alright Jack]

Thank you, I wasn't worried about recording and just wanted to watch stuff. I have unsightly aerial cables running down walls from my loft which I want to remedy without chasing walls at this stage.

[Murph7355]

I am alright Jack said:

Thank you, I wasn't worried about recording and just wanted to watch stuff. I have unsightly aerial cables running down walls from my loft which I want to remedy without chasing walls at this stage.

It's a good option for that...though as noted the app (and especially guide) are a bit clunky. Not unusable so, but clunky nonetheless.

[I am alright Jack]

Murph7355 said:

I am alright Jack said:

Thank you, I wasn't worried about recording and just wanted to watch stuff. I have unsightly aerial cables running down walls from my loft which I want to remedy without chasing walls at this stage.

It's a good option for that...though as noted the app (and especially guide) are a bit clunky. Not unusable so, but clunky nonetheless.

Thanks, I think for the money I'm gonna give it a try. I've found a HDFX-4DT on ebay for about 180 delivered.

Hopefully by the end of the year fibre internet will have arrived in my area which should give me options, so this may only be temporary until then.