Page 1 of Any TV aerial boffins?

I know its not DVD but the wife`s giving me stress and iv`e nowhere else to turn!

My house has TV aerial point`s in practically every room, but the tight gets I bought the house off took the roof aerial with them, so I bought an aerial (about £8.99 from Wilko`s) and put it up in the loft. This can only produce poor quality pictures on the TV down stairs even with a signal booster, but not to bad on the portable upstairs.

So my question is. Will simply moving the aerial on to the roof be good enough or do I get a better aerial (and from where?) and put that on the roof?

This item was edited on Friday, 21st June 2002, 12:58

Yes it will make quite a big difference siting the antenna in its proper place externally. However, I would go for something with more gain than your cheap Wilko aerial.
Make sure you get an aerial for the correct group for your locale and try to get one with at least 14dB forward gain. Those with x-shaped elements give you more gain per unit boom length. Ensure you use good quality air-spaced coax cable in the downlead (not cheap solid dielectric) ; the more copper the cable uses, the better.
I don`t know the various antenna points in the house are interconnected. If they use passive splitters, you are losing signal each time you add another connection. If an active (powered) splitter is used, then (properly installed) this shouldn`t be a problem - as long as the amplifier involved (which compensates for the losses occurred when splitting) is reasonably low noise.

Chris Muriel, Manchester.

Hi, Every area is different, but there is a lot more signal outside than in a loft. I have put up many aerial`s & the answer is a good 18 element ariel on the highest point outside. Yellow pages may tell you where to find one in your area. If in the future you may want ITV digital or similar you may, depending on your area need a `Wideband` ariel.

This item was edited on Friday, 21st June 2002, 14:43

Thanks for all your help Chris & Paull, Now where did I put that roof ladder?