UHF aerial and splitter

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tionge

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#69249 5-Oct-2010 11:23

Hi there,

My first post here.

I am in Burnside, Christchurch. Currently I have a Lincrad UHF TV aerial (code 801) with a UHF booster (code 808) on my roof, RG6 cable to a 3 way splitter and RG6 cable to all the TVs. I am splitting the signal to 3 rooms but I am getting grainy picture on TV3 in both 3 TVs. I don't have freeview yet but that's in the upgrade plan, all 3 TVs will be upgraded to LCD with freeview build-in.

If only one TV is connected direct to the aerial (remove splitter), the TV3 picture is crystal clear.

So I am thinking to change the aerial to a higher gain one so I can get clear picture on all TVs.

So my question is, how much gain do I need so I can split the signal and still get clear picture? The freeview shop has a 47 element UHF aerial and its gain is 11-12dB. Will that be enough or do I have to get the 91 element one with 14-16dB gain?

Or there is a better way to do this?

Thank you very much.

Elton

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#388214 5-Oct-2010 13:20

Hi, TV3 off sugarloaf is in the VHF band, your antenna is a UHF one so its response to the VHF band will be all over the place (ie not specified) and spurious.

Personally I would not spend another cent on any antennas or equipment to support analog services, its wasted $.

Also for DTT reception you may find that UHF amp is not required. Getting a higher gain antenna will not help VHF reception.

Do yourself a favour, toughen up, ignore the nagging wife, get the new LCD.

Cyril

richms

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#388216 5-Oct-2010 13:21

If you dont have freeview and want to watch 3 then you need a vhf antenna, not a uhf one.

higher gain in the wanted band (UHF) usually means worse performance in other bands that the antenna is not designed to recieve.

Put a coathanger on the roof, its as made to get VHF as what you have installed at the moment.

Richard rich.ms

tionge

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#388228 5-Oct-2010 13:39

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. My oh my.. for all these years I thought TV3 is UHF. Ok, maybe I will try Maori Channel (671.25MHz) tonight whether I can get clear picture on all 3 TVs.

So you think the lincrad aerial will be good enough to give good signal to split to 3 TVs with build-in freeview HD?

richms

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#388246 5-Oct-2010 13:59

If you have line of sight then that little lincrad antenna should work fine, assuming you are pointing it at a site that actually has freeview on it, there are a lot of transmitters around chch.

The booster may not help much with freeview, and normally is better to get a larger antenna than to try boosting a small one, but really getting anything to sort out analog reception is pointless with it having at best a couple of years left and digital boxes costing so little now.

Richard rich.ms

bfginger

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#388287 5-Oct-2010 14:55

You could buy a couple of terrestrial receivers instead of replacing all three with LCDs, if they're good models.

robbyp

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#388293 5-Oct-2010 15:05

tionge: Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. My oh my.. for all these years I thought TV3 is UHF. Ok, maybe I will try Maori Channel (671.25MHz) tonight whether I can get clear picture on all 3 TVs.

So you think the lincrad aerial will be good enough to give good signal to split to 3 TVs with build-in freeview HD?

I think you may be confused with prime, which is broadcast over UHF in analogue.

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tionge

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#388308 5-Oct-2010 15:26

richms: If you have line of sight then that little lincrad antenna should work fine, assuming you are pointing it at a site that actually has freeview on it, there are a lot of transmitters around chch.

The booster may not help much with freeview, and normally is better to get a larger antenna than to try boosting a small one, but really getting anything to sort out analog reception is pointless with it having at best a couple of years left and digital boxes costing so little now.

The reason why I want to do that is because I thought I am able foresee the quality of the picture I will get on all 3 TVs when I switch to freeview by checking the analogue signal strength on all 3 TVs.

Well, if freeview requires less signal strength to power, then I might as well just leave it until I have the LCD TVs. If by then the picture quality is still poor, I get a bigger aerial.

richms

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#388314 5-Oct-2010 15:37

Analog can look a right mess with barely holding colour and sync and digital still work.

Richard rich.ms

robbyp

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#388324 5-Oct-2010 15:46

tionge:
richms: If you have line of sight then that little lincrad antenna should work fine, assuming you are pointing it at a site that actually has freeview on it, there are a lot of transmitters around chch.

The booster may not help much with freeview, and normally is better to get a larger antenna than to try boosting a small one, but really getting anything to sort out analog reception is pointless with it having at best a couple of years left and digital boxes costing so little now.

The reason why I want to do that is because I thought I am able foresee the quality of the picture I will get on all 3 TVs when I switch to freeview by checking the analogue signal strength on all 3 TVs.

Well, if freeview requires less signal strength to power, then I might as well just leave it until I have the LCD TVs. If by then the picture quality is still poor, I get a bigger aerial.

If you can get a good prime analogue signal, your freeview signal should also be good, at least from my experience,

cyril7

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#388329 5-Oct-2010 15:53

As explained your antenna is UHF as is FreeView|HD, so to check using a VHF service that is not supported by your antenna (in any predictable manner) is a bit daft, as robby says, see what Prime (Ch62) goes like, if its relatively noise and ghost free then FreeView should be fine.

Cyril

tionge

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#388639 6-Oct-2010 09:32

Hi all,

Tested with Prime channel last night and picture is a bit grainy on all 3 TVs. So I guess I will have to go and get a higher gain aerial.

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xarqi

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#388719 6-Oct-2010 12:25

I suggest that you wait and see if your existing aerial works when you make the move to Freeview, rather than upgrading your aerial now just because the signal is grainy with analogue. At worst, you'll delay the installation of a new aerial; at best, you may discover you don't need it.

cyril7

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#388721 6-Oct-2010 12:32

I agree, FreeView can get by with signal levels much lower than analog. That said, your only 15km from Sugarloaf, I presume in line of sight (you can see it from the roof on a smogless day?) if so then you should have heaps of signal.

Personally I find some of the lincrad antennas lacking in performance, although the broadside array you have should be just fine, makes me wonder if the installation is faulty or degraded.

Cheers
Cyrl

tombrownzz

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#389390 8-Oct-2010 00:07

You can actually get an outdoor antenna that receives both VHF/UHF from the Christchurch dick smith electronics store as listed here:

http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4cada9b60380bce2273fc0a87f3b0764/Product/View/L4715

That should fix your problem of not getting tv3.

tionge

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#389418 8-Oct-2010 08:30

Thank you all for your feedback. I am going to buy my first 50" plasma tv this weekend. So I will let you know how the picture looks like.

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