The journey to all Freeview channels

"James Salisbury" wrote in message ...
I did this in a previous set-up and the effect seemed to be worse than
my next effort which was terminal strip. However, the plugs and the
back-to-back socket were cheap and nasty things from Wickes. I will
try and find some better quality ones. I notice that some coax plugs
have a screw to clamp the signal wire and others don't. Is that good?
You could have accidently shorted the inner core with the braid and that
will kill the signal. You need to remeber at TV and Radio frequencies the
signal travels as if it is in a pipe of certian dimentions, any distortions
can reflect the signal and cause other problems. To minimise the signal
loss, F type plugs are prefered, the center pin is the core of the coax. If
not then solder the pin in the standard TV plug, some are badly designed and
the screw shorts the connector, takeing care not to set fire to your loft!!!

I have replaced the join with plugs as you described but I have not
soldered them yet.

What type of coax are you useing, does it have a light weave of copper as a
screen, or a thick braid and a foil as well?

At the time of my previous post, no but I have just replaced it with
better stuff that does have the copper weave and the foil.

How does the coax get from the loft to the telly, and how many tellys do you
have connected to the one ariel?

The coax enters the loft space at the bottom of the mast. The room
below is a bedroom containing one of the TVs and the distributor. The
coax crosses the room in the loft and then drops through the ceiling
down to the distributor. The total run from the aerial to the
distributor is about 4m.

The distributor has two inputs (UHF and VHF). An omni-directional FM
antenna is connected to the VHF input. It is on the same mast but at
the bottom. Its feed runs parallel to the UHF.

The distributor has four outputs. One goes to the Freeview box of the
bedroom TV, one goes to the video (for analogue recording), one goes
to an FM receiver, and the last goes downstairs. At the bottom of the
coax to downstairs, a passive splitter is used for the downstairs
Freeview box and FM receiver. Sometimes I disconnect this and put the
feed directly into the Freeview box.

snip

After these latest changes, (new coax and plugs) reception was good
most of the time on all muxes. Last night, reception was poor on the
BBC1/2/3 mux but fine on everything else (including ITV which was the
last mux that I managed to get). Later at night, reception improved.
It is a mystery why I got bad reception for a few hours on this mux
when I was able to get it even with the old aerial.

Seán O'Leathlóbhair

romise (Bill) wrote in message ...
You are deluged with information, but I would just add:
If you can fit a low gain (12dB) masthead amp at the bottom of the mast it
would be a good thing. Generally this will feed a distribution amp without
problems, but it just could result in too much gain overall weird pattening
etc), in which case you need to attenuate between the two amps. If you can get
mains to the masthead amp position you are as well to use a mains powered
'setback' amp, as long as it is a good quality one. The cheapys are noisy
(snowy pictures). If you increase signal levels by improving amplification the
splitter problems at the bottom will be cured.

Bill

After my latest simple changes, see my note to James, reception is
good on all muxes most of the time. So I will wait to see how well it
behaves for a while and whether it is worth doing more work. I will
save this suggestion in case I need it.

Seán O'Leathlóbhair

romise (Bill) wrote in message ...
You are deluged with information, but I would just add:
If you can fit a low gain (12dB) masthead amp at the bottom of the mast it
would be a good thing. Generally this will feed a distribution amp without
problems, but it just could result in too much gain overall weird pattening
etc), in which case you need to attenuate between the two amps. If you can get
mains to the masthead amp position you are as well to use a mains powered
'setback' amp, as long as it is a good quality one. The cheapys are noisy
(snowy pictures). If you increase signal levels by improving amplification the
splitter problems at the bottom will be cured.

Bill

After my latest simple changes, see my note to James, reception is
good on all muxes most of the time. So I will wait to see how well it
behaves for a while and whether it is worth doing more work. I will
save this suggestion in case I need it.

Seán O'Leathlóbhair