Firstly i must say i am a complete newbie at this, so apologies for my ignorance.
There may be a simple answer to my woes.

I bought a Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T stick usb today.
The guy in the store said just plug it in, Windows 7 will recognise it and fire up Windows media centre and you'll be away.

So firstly,
I plug it in. It is not recognised and not installed properly - i checked in the device manager.

Secondly,
I go to Hauppauge uk website and download the current drivers for this model, install them and the stick is then ready to use.

Thirdly, I plug in the portable DVB-T antenna, fire up media centre and go through the set-up and it scans for channels. Apparently i found 5, but when i went to view them, there was pretty much no reception at all and they were Chinese channels of what i could make out.

So there is my first issue - portable antenna didn't pick up any channels.

So i go to try plug it into my old UHF cable that has not ever been used since we moved in here as we immediately got sky moved over from our old house....

But, the UHF cable ends in a female and my WinTV Nova-T stick is also a female...
I don't get it. The portable antenna is a male plug so why wouldn't the UHF antenna from my roof also be a male? I don't recall if there was any other cables plugged into the UHF antenna when we bought the house, so i really don;t know how an old TV set-up works.

So please help, this is where i am feeling rather silly.

Two issues..
1. Should i expect not to be able to pick up any channels on the portable antenna even though i am in Mt Wellington, Auckland? The whole reason i bought it was so that i could watch tv on my laptop in the kitchen while preparing dinner for my family - i never see the news!!
2. My UHF cable - what's the deal with it? Do i need another cable to turn it into a male?

Many thanks, i hope someone can help me as i know things about computers, but not TV's, aerials, frequencies etc - they all mystify me.

Cheers.