Freeview Reception

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krispienz

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# 77268 13-Feb-2011 19:27

I have recently bought a Zinwell Freeview Terrestrial receiver off TradeMe. It is yet to be delivered.

in anticipation I have bought an amplified uhf indoor aerial. I've connected it to my tv and the reception is almost worst than my rabbit ears. In the past I have created a cardboard parabolic reflector and placed it on the rabbit ears. this has given me better reception than this $70 uhf indoor aerial.

Now I am HOPING that this is because I have'nt got my freeview tuner connected yet.

But in saying that if I get a decent reception with uhf channels with my cardboard reflector, would'nt it be 10 x better with an amplified uhf aerial?

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# 438966 13-Feb-2011 20:00

To put it bluntly, indoor aerials suck.

However, where do you live? Are you in a strong or weak signal area?

freitasm

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# 438967 13-Feb-2011 20:10

I have directly line of sight to Mt Kaukau, no more than 2kms away, and lived for a few months with an indoor antenna. It was terrible. Couldn't walk in front of the antenna without reception being impacted.

Got a real antenna on the roof, now feeding two tuners on my Media Centre, and a TiVo, without any problems...

rscole86

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# 438968 13-Feb-2011 20:10

It is a common misconception that amplifiers actual make reception better.
All they do is amplify, and therefor if your signal is rubbish, and you amplify it, you will have a lot more rubbish!

What channels have you tried amplifying? And as already asked, where in NZ are you?

krispienz

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# 438977 13-Feb-2011 20:29

I live on the 3rd (top) floor of an apartment on Dominion Road, Mount Eden. More specifically opp the Target building. I know an outdoor aerial is best but I want thinking off doing it on the cheap. I have two buildings to contend with before I can see the Sky Tower. The picture doesn't have to be perfect cos I'm using a 16"crt widescreen tv. Looks like when I finally get the freeview receiver and it still doesn't improve, I might have to put the Freeview away for another day and stick with my cardboad reflector.

Cheers for the help so far. So much for a smooth transition from analogue to digital. Oh well a couple of years left.

richms

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# 438986 13-Feb-2011 21:11

What reception are you looking at and comparing? Last I checked analog from the skytower was just a weak as tv3 on band 3 and a almost useless C4 on vhf band 1 below what most tuners can actually tune to, amplified UHF antennas should be attenuating the VHF before the amplifier and will also likly not have the elements to get VHF either.

that leave prime and maori from waiatarua that you are looking at, which should be coming in really well there on an indoor antenna, it certainly does up the road in newton, more signal than I get here in beach haven. A USB tuner worked sweet as with the useless stick antenna sitting on the windowsill.

Richard rich.ms

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# 438997 13-Feb-2011 21:32

krispienz: So much for a smooth transition from analogue to digital. Oh well a couple of years left.

You can't say that... You don't even have the Freeview box yet, so you can't judge anything. No one has any idea of the quality of Freeview in your case, seeing you don't actually have a Freeview tuner there yet...

richms

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# 439010 13-Feb-2011 21:55

Here is what I use for a freeview antenna in my loft because I was too lazy to get a splitter or another RF cable to go to the TV as well, it works fine.

Richard rich.ms

krispienz

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# 439013 13-Feb-2011 21:58

True, I'll wait for the receiver.

So in doing that, is the quality of reception I get from uhf free to air (analogue?) channels is not a good indicator of the quality of reception I'd get on the freeview terrestrial receiver? or is that a silly question?

Anyway will post results tomorrow.

Cheers

krispienz

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# 439016 13-Feb-2011 22:00

Nice! I got seven days to return my uhf indoor aerial too. lol

richms

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# 439018 13-Feb-2011 22:04

krispienz: True, I'll wait for the receiver.

So in doing that, is the quality of reception I get from uhf free to air (analogue?) channels is not a good indicator of the quality of reception I'd get on the freeview terrestrial receiver? or is that a silly question?

Anyway will post results tomorrow.

Cheers

Not really, there is freeview UHF on skytower but no other UHF, and there is a massive variance in the quality of analog tuners, I have a sony on the garage that gives a lousy noisy picture because the cable is so long, whereas a transonic thats older and uglier gets a totally noise free picture.

If you are getting a watchable analog UHF on a proper antenna than it should be good to go for digital, but just because it is useless doesnt mean that digital will have issues.

Look at who is telling you that you need a fancy antenna - its the people that sell the things. Digital is much younger than AM analog, so has had a lot more technology go into it, it is not reliant on a noise floor thats really low like AM is, and its got correction for multipathing that would make your analog look more like a 3d movie gone wrong with ghosting.

Richard rich.ms

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# 439135 14-Feb-2011 10:22

You might be surprised.
Our uhf outdoor (draco white plastic amplified box thing) picks up absolute rubbish analogue signals even for things that are on the uhf band, but put the tv on freeview and it picks up everything as clear as a bell.
Just wait till you try it all together before getting rid of everything.
You may even find that just your rabbit ears will work for freeview.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

trig42

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# 439148 14-Feb-2011 10:42

+1 to above. I'd say that your rabbit ears will work if you can pick up UHF channels on them.

krispienz

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# 439371 14-Feb-2011 18:02

Okay, I got the receiver hooked up, the channels I get are picture perfect but I could not get channels tv3, 4, prime, and other channels. that's pointing at sky tower. Pointing at Waiatarua I get even more channels but still no tv3 or 4. Then I set the box to default and it automatically started the scan , I am now getting:
TV ONE
CH2
Māori tv, YAY!!!
TVNZ6
TVNZ7
PRIME Trackside
Parliament
Chinese tv
TV33
Senzu SSU

and now the channels I want (tv3 and 4) are not listed anymore
I knew that would happen. I want them back just incase I get better reception somehow.

Overall I'm happy so far. I'm gonna move my set top box in the lounge and try and get tv3 and 4 back on my list again.
UNLESS... I can manually enter the station details such as frequency etc.

Any tips and tricks anyone?
Thanks for your help so far.

krispienz

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# 439434 14-Feb-2011 20:08

PATIENCE IS THE KEY

I think I have all the channels now including tv3 and 4. tv3 reception not so good. I did a lot of auto scans and repositioning of the indoor uhf aerial. A lot of patience is required especially in aligning the aerial in the right spot.

pogostickconz

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# 439444 14-Feb-2011 20:35

im in chch with good line of sight to sugarloaf (bar a couple of pine trees) but my combo aerial but its pretty badly pixelated a lot of the time so im forking out for a dedicated uhf aerial - you can usually buy them for around $60 - hopefully itll fix the problem

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