Status 530-5 Aerial

[JohnnyV]

Hi,

My new van has a Status 530-5 Aerial fitted - so far results have been less than spectacular (maybe just poor reception areas).

Questions (if anyone can help please):

Should the Aerial be Horizontal or Vertical for reception?

Should the two extendable chrome 'aerials' at the end be in our out (I have seen both)?

As you will gather TV reception isn't my area of expertise - I have a signal strength meter and rotate round, and from Horizontal to Vertical until I get the best signal but I don't really understand if I am receiving Analogue or Digital - I do have the booster switched on but someone told me that if the signal is too strong with Digital you will get no picture at all !

Also when I was in the Peak District I did get the 4 main channels but noticed my aerial was pointing in the exact opposite direction to another vans so presumably I was getting signal from a different transmitter.

Any advise from any TV experts out there would be welcome.

Thanks

Jon

 

[trucker]

Jon, as a rule of thumb I check where other aerials are pointing and give it a try, depending what area your in it can be either horizontal or vertical or a bit in between, using Digital it shows the signal as it is tuning green bar on mine. try booster on then off and see whats better.

as for the chrome aerials they can be left in as they are for fm transmition and if you get digital you will have radio stations through that anyway.

Not much help I know but as you keep using the equipment it will get easyer and you will know just what to do.

As said best rule of thumb chek what others have done first.

Kevin

 

[trucker]

Forgot to say, if you cant get a good reception at all check the wire through to see if it is kinked or broken, also re do the conections as they sometimes are suspect on the fitting you have one on the booster box and behind the tv socket and up the pole of the aerial. Lots of places to loose reception

Kevin

 

[joeby]

some areas are horozontal or vertical signals its to prevent crossover of signals , the best to do before you go away is to go on this web site www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tva.exe and type in the post code of your destination , and you will come up with a list of transmitters in that area , it will also give compass bearings , distance from site ,horozontal or vertical signals , and type of aerial needed

 

[bigbilly]

Jon

The two chrome extendable rods are for VHF television reception use mainly in France.

Bill

 

[JohnnyV]

Many thanks all - I feel much better informed - will check out that web site as well.

Cheers

Jon

 

[JohnM20]

Hi JohnnyV

As I understand it, but I may have been misled, if the TV signal is coming direct from a main transmitter then the caravan aerial needs to be horizontal but if it is coming from a smaller booster aerial, perhaps serving a town in a valley, then the van aerial needs to be vertical. The vast majority of times will require a horizontal setting.

The best idea, as suggested on other posts is to look to see which way others around you have their aerials set.

On a couple of CC sites that I have been to the warden has posted a notice stating whether the aerial should be vertical or horizontal and one of them at least gave a compass bearing which was most useful.

Regards

John

 

[xtrailman]

john

That is what i was told, horizontal for the booster or relay station.

 

[JohnnyV]

Thanks for all the help - knew I could rely on you all to advise.

Am off to N.Wales next weekend so will see if it works better this time.

Cheers

Jon

 

[Woody3]

There is no hard and fast rule regarding signal polarity. It is generally true that main stations use horizontal polarisation but it is by no means gospel, by the same token relays are not all vertical - some are both!

As others have said, look what is in use in the area (houses preferably) and point yours the same way and polarity.

If you want more details have a browse in Mike Brown's excellent site at www.mb21.co.uk

Incidentaly, many TV's these days allow you to input channel information directly, but quite a few show frequency rather than channel numbers. If you know the channel's number in use on any given site (mb21 will show you the analogue channel numbers, www.dtg.org.uk will show you the latest digital channel numbers - they are a bit fluid at present) and you can then work out the frequency.

For analogue, the lowest channel - 21 - is 471.25MHz and they increment in steps of 8. Thus channel 25 will be

25-21=4

4x8=32

25=471.25+32=503.25

Digital is exactly the same except that the channel frequency is based on 474MHz. Thus digital on channel 25 will be

25-21=4

4x8=32

25=474+32=506

 

[RonD]

Good answer Woody. As you rightly say some are both. Birchover in the Peak District is a 12w erp horizontal transmission which is "off air" from the vertically polarised repeater at Stanton Moor, which is itself off air from the horizontally polarised Waltham. No wonder caravanners get confused!

Ron

 

[JohnnyV]

Thank you all - as I suspected it is not as straightforward as it might be!

I will take all of your advice including visiting the websites quoted.

Used to be simple when you turned a tuner on your TV - now it either finds the channels itself or tells you that there are none available.

Cheers

Jon