This may not be about my caravan but ..

[JohnI.Stephen]

A number of you are clearly experienced in the area of Freeview, FreeSat and aerials etc. Where I live we struggle to get a decent terrestrial signal and so, for the past 10 years, a signal booster has been used. Three years ago we bought our first Digital TV and the same aerial continued to work OK for digital TV and our HUMAX Personal Video Recorder. Recently, however we continue to find that we struggle to pick up channel 5 reliably. Seeing as one of my favourite programmes is the Gadget Show, this unreliability has become intolerable; I missed the whole programme tonight with "BAD SIGNAL" being reported on screen  !!

So, here is the question. Seeing as I have a Digital TV and use a HUMAX PVR (with its own inbuilt digital TV tuner), are my options limited to just getting a better

terrestrial aerial on the roof, or could I consider FreeSat? If I did consider Freesat, I guess that would then make the tuners on the TV and the HUMAX redundant? And not having my HUMAX would mean that we wouldn't be able to record anything? I'm right aren't I?

Given the choice, I would opt for FreeSat; but not at the expense of making my TV and HUMAX tuners redundant. So, do I have a choice?

Thanks !

John

 

[gary]

Good question this, I have been using a dish,Sky box and I think whats known as a 'yellow house card' in the van. Some 'Freeview' channels were missing so I payed a one off

 

[JeremyClarksson]

Free channels available on freesat at the moment

http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/United-Kingdom.html?PHPSESSID=cfcaf99d687204b5a401d2589e7dd676
C4 and C5 will be available at some time although I can not find a date for this

Do not forget when analogue is switched off the freeview coverage will improve - see

http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/
for dates

Have you tried using a signal booster on freeview

You will have to think of freesat as another tuner but it will not make your existing tuners redundant.

Not much experience of PVRs but does it not have an external input connection for cameras, videos etc - this should take a signal from a freesat box.

 

[JohnI.Stephen]

Hello Gary; yes I'm aware of the current C4 and C5 limitations on freesat. Yes I currently use a signal booster.

Last nigth it was awful; for the very first time I 'lost' even BBC1. This coincided with my loss of BBC R4 on DAB digital; so perhaps we have a transmitter down? I wonder how I could find out?

Thanks

John

 

[JeremyClarksson]

Some very good info available from the BBC including transmitter problems

http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/index.shtml
Ignore what they say about not being able to get BBC on freesat from outside the UK - not true.

Do your neighbours all get the same problems, if they do I believe it is possible to install a repeater transmitter on a hill side or similar to relay a better signal to the community.

I have even been taught in the past that a piece of metal of the right length placed in the right place can act as an unpowered repeater.

If you are wondering where I am getting this from - I trained as a Marine Radio Officer years ago before working for BT for 24 years some of it in transmission.

 

[Josef_374226726]

Hi John

I have the Humax 9200t which has twin Freeview tuners but am lucky to live in a strong reception area.

Have you tried doing a rescan of channels with your Humax box just to make sure you are tuned in to the strongest signal?

Are all channels on the same multiplex as channel 5 poor?

You would benefit from a properly fitted high gain aerial on the roof with new cable which would enable you to get the maximum signal.

A local installer would know what you need.

Check the signal strengths in your humax for each channel - I get 100% quality and 60 to 65% strength on all channels. If quality is low the picture is liable to pixelate and break up. Anything above 50% strength should be OK.

 

[Josef_374226726]

If you type your poscode into this site (link below), it should give you the type of aerial needed and if an amplifier is necessary.

http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe?DX=L&HT=10&OS=

 

[JohnI.Stephen]

Thanks Garry and Josef; (Garry I'd really appreciate being able to email you directly as I'd like to understand this stuff; however no pressure !) Yes, my neighbours had and have the same signal strength problem. They tell me that BBC news yesterday suggested that because of high atmospheric pressure (??!) the signal was degraded here in Kent ??!

Also when aerial fitter was setting up my dipole aerial for DAB recently, he told me that my 'old' "analogue" TV aerial was unlikely to give good performance on digital. Well, it's been OK; until recently . Surely a wave length is a wave length? Unlike with DAB where I can see that I need an aerial capable of receiving around 220Mhz; for digital TV I have no idea what the frequency is and whether it is different from the analogue transmission?

So, yes I have an aerial amplifier and yes I have an old aerial with regular coax. I liked Josef's website of ]http://www.wolfbane.com/cgi-bin/tvd.exe?DX=L&HT=10&OS=]UK digital TV reception predictor[/url] which shows that I need an Amplified extra high gain aerial. Is it as simple as that? Could I possibly buy one of these and then help my neighbour by sharing my extra signal strength with him? If so, how (without trailing a load of coax between our houses ??)

Happy to take this chat off line if the non caravanning nature means that I am out staying my welcome on this thread ?!!!

John

 

[JeremyClarksson]

John

I am not claiming to be an expert as my qualifications were gained over 25 years ago.

I am happy to e-mail you if required but am reluctant to post address on a forum (spam,phishing etc), can respond to yours if you wish, however I do not believe this is off topic as the same rules apply to caravans.

It definitely sounds as if you need to get a better aerial/amplifier combination, why not contact the local tv aerial fitter or shop for a price, (you could get a discount with the neighbours in as well) - if it does not work you can then get them to sort it.

If you are going to signal share make sure the amplifier is powerful enough or you could end up at square one, you can use rf transmitters to pass the signal but it would probably not be economic for two of you to do it this way - seperate aerials might be better.

I believe some old analogue aerials are not ideal for digital and I also believe the same can apply to some old amplifiers.

Digital is not my stongest point because of the age of my training, but you should need a better aerial (certainly until analogue turns off) - What might be a flicker or a grainy picture on analogue would mean a lot of lost digital information.

All radio signals incl satellite are subject to interference from atmospheric conditions like pressure storms sunspots etc but the weaker your signal to start with - the more prone you will be to interference.

Think of the interference on a signal as a ripple on a wave, when it is very small it makes no difference but as it gets much bigger in relationship to the wave it can take over - by this time you would have no signal.

The frequency range is the same for analogue and digital signals, I am not sure that digital signals are distributed in exactly the way that analogue signals are - in other words if you were in an area that did not recieve CH5 would you get CH5 on digital, I suspect the answer would be yes but am not sure.

The only way to know this is to know what all the transponders are transmitting on your local aerial.

My route would be start with a new aerial and it would probably pay to get the cable changed at the same time, you can always get an amp afterwards

 

[JohnI.Stephen]

Garry :

You're a pal; thanks for this valuable info. I was chatting to my neighbour yesterday and we agreed that a new aerial (probably each) was the way to go. And yes, we both have coax that dates to the early 1980s; and the amplifier is certainly of around 20 years old ..!

Garry; I'll let you know how I get on.

John

 

[Guest]

New coax cable for use with satellite systems has an internal foil shroud!

We had to change to new cable at home.