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PhilM

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#96568 31-Jan-2012 11:14
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I live in a rental home in Ellerslie, Auckland.
The tv reception is pretty terrible. The house is in a dip, and we get quite bad ghosting, and a super fuzzy picture on TV4.

I'm not going to go down the road of Sky, and I've always been reluctant to do anything about the aerial on a rental, so I've put up with the bad picture.

I'm coming around to the idea of freeview, so I decided to get someone in to check out the aerial.
I emailed a company and a man came round. We have an existing UHF aerial which (he thought) might do the job, but no signal is coming off it. He said he'd come back in a few days to get on the roof and take a  look. That was the last we saw of him.

I emailed back a few weeks later to ask what was going on, but got not response.

A few weeks later I thought I'd try a different company. I picked one quite randomly off a website search and sent off an email. This time, no response at all.

Are these installers really busy at the moment, and don't have time to follow up enquiries, or am I just unlucky ?

Anybody know anyone that could do a decent job without charging a fortune ?

Phil

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Linuxluver
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  #575219 31-Jan-2012 11:28
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PhilM: I live in a rental home in Ellerslie, Auckland.
The tv reception is pretty terrible. The house is in a dip, and we get quite bad ghosting, and a super fuzzy picture on TV4.

I'm not going to go down the road of Sky, and I've always been reluctant to do anything about the aerial on a rental, so I've put up with the bad picture.

I'm coming around to the idea of freeview, so I decided to get someone in to check out the aerial.
I emailed a company and a man came round. We have an existing UHF aerial which (he thought) might do the job, but no signal is coming off it. He said he'd come back in a few days to get on the roof and take a  look. That was the last we saw of him.

I emailed back a few weeks later to ask what was going on, but got not response.

A few weeks later I thought I'd try a different company. I picked one quite randomly off a website search and sent off an email. This time, no response at all.

Are these installers really busy at the moment, and don't have time to follow up enquiries, or am I just unlucky ?

Anybody know anyone that could do a decent job without charging a fortune ?

Phil


You're describing my experience on just about everthing.

I want some windows fixed. They say they will come round and have a look. They never call back.
I want my roof painted. They never call back.

Trades people in Auckland can't be looking for work.....I have several jobs right here and no one will even give me a quote.  
 




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xpd

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  #575232 31-Jan-2012 11:46
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You could try http://www.av1.co.nz/index.htm

They came round next day and had a look at our setup etc and done... unfortunately we cant get DVB-T where we are and he was straight up about it and didnt charge us anything for his time. (altho he was only there 10mins)




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gjm

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  #575277 31-Jan-2012 12:42
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I have started using the nocowboys website to find good tradesmen. Hasnt failed me yet with very good house movers, cat door installer and tv aerial guy.

For the aerial we used http://www.nocowboys.co.nz/businesses/Star-Connections-/

We had an existing uhf aerial but it wasnt working for freeview for some reason. Arranged an appointment...guy was early but phoned to let us know he would be. Found the problem was an old splitter (I think it is called a duplexer) so he just removed it and ran a cable straight from our UHF aerial as freeview doesnt need the vhf aerial.

All up, $70 bucks, job done.

Interestingly enough, at our old place we had a similar problem with our freeview signal. I just got up on the roof and disconnected the vhf aerial from the splitter so that only the uhf aerial was going in to it. This seemed to fix the problem so I think that somehow the vhf aerial signal can interfere with the uhf freeview signal? Would have done the same at new place but didnt have the time / inclination / ladder. Maybe its worth you trying that?




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Jaxson
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  #575373 31-Jan-2012 15:25
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Ha, was gonna say have you had a good look at the aerial and cabling etc.

Post some pictures on here and who knows, we might be able to guide you through it.

Things to check initially are that there are no splitters/joining boxes etc anywhere along the path. Ideally you want one aerial with one bit of cable running to one TV only. Do that first and you'll check how the signal is, and then can split later if required etc. Very often a check by eye balling the cable the entire way can through up lots of issues, such as amplifiers that no longer have power supplies to them etc.

PhilM

55 posts

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  #575408 31-Jan-2012 16:26
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Thanks for all the replies.
I'll check out the 2 installers and see what replies I get.

The house is a 2-story one, and even if I had a big enough ladder I'm not brave enough to get up that high without a safety net (or possibly trampoline).


PhilM

55 posts

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  #576204 2-Feb-2012 10:00
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I got in touch with http://www.nocowboys.co.nz/businesses/Star-Connections-/.
He got back to me within a few hours, and arranged to come round the next day.

After a short time, its all working really well now, and I've finally got freeview

gjm

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  #576208 2-Feb-2012 10:05
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good stuff, glad to hear my experience with them wasn't just a one off.




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