Freeview, the Wrekin

I have an old aerial (8 or 9 element?) which I think is an A group and
is pointing at the Wrekin which is approx 25 miles away, I have line of
sight and have an
excellent analogue picture. I have a new TV with built in freeview
coming on Monday so I want to get connected to the existing aerial until
proved or otherwise that I need a wideband, maybe in October?
The aerial has a downlead ( old brown one probably 30 yrs old) in the
loft, I would prefer to cut and connect to it, rather than to the aerial
on chimney, I suspect that the connection box/screws have seen better
days and I have a few metres of cat 100 in the scrap box left over from
connecting a Sky dish when I moved to house some 7 yrs ago, so I've
threaded it into the loft, It's long enough to reach the downlead at a
point some 2 Metres from the aerial but not sufficient to actually reach
the aerial.
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?or would the mismatch be too much, I
which case I would buy a longer length of new cable and go and fight
with the Aerial, seagulls and crows. :-\

Sorry if it's been asked before.
TIA

Don

In message on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:37:54 +0000
Donwill wrote:

Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?


http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tv...t-adapter.html


--

Terry

On 24/02/2011 09:49, Terry Casey wrote:
In on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:37:54 +0000
wrote:
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tv...t-adapter.html



It seems to me that you want problems. If it was me, I would get the TV,
connect it to the aerial that is giving good results and see if you have
a problem.

If analogue is good then digital should be good. In my house ( Crystal
palace west of london) the analogue is so-so, but the digital is
excellent including HD. so it is best to connect and see .

Gary

"Gary" wrote in message
...
On 24/02/2011 09:49, Terry Casey wrote:
In on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:37:54
+0000
wrote:
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tv...t-adapter.html



It seems to me that you want problems. If it was me, I would get the TV,
connect it to the aerial that is giving good results and see if you have a
problem.

If analogue is good then digital should be good. In my house ( Crystal
palace west of london) the analogue is so-so, but the digital is
excellent including HD. so it is best to connect and see .

Gary

It may be worth waiting until the digi signal is increased in April when the
analog signal is switched off to see what you get then.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:37:54 +0000, Donwill wrote:

I have an old aerial (8 or 9 element?) which I think is an A group and
is pointing at the Wrekin which is approx 25 miles away, I have line of
sight and have an
excellent analogue picture. I have a new TV with built in freeview
coming on Monday so I want to get connected to the existing aerial until
proved or otherwise that I need a wideband, maybe in October?
The aerial has a downlead ( old brown one probably 30 yrs old) in the
loft, I would prefer to cut and connect to it, rather than to the aerial
on chimney, I suspect that the connection box/screws have seen better
days and I have a few metres of cat 100 in the scrap box left over from
connecting a Sky dish when I moved to house some 7 yrs ago, so I've
threaded it into the loft, It's long enough to reach the downlead at a
point some 2 Metres from the aerial but not sufficient to actually reach
the aerial.
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?or would the mismatch be too much, I
which case I would buy a longer length of new cable and go and fight
with the Aerial, seagulls and crows. :-\

Sorry if it's been asked before.
TIA

Don

If the cable is the right OD (my old brown cable is - with a bit of grunt)
you could cut it about a couple of feet from the end and use an F-to-F
adaptor to put in a bit more cable.
I was having trouble extending the cable by a yard as the co-ax connectors
were very sensitive to position and any slight change caused the picture to
break up. Going F-to-F has solved it and it has to last only until the new
aerial ist installed.

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/onlineca...ml#Fconnectors
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

Gary wrote:
On 24/02/2011 09:49, Terry Casey wrote:
In on Thu, 24 Feb 2011
04:37:54 +0000
wrote:
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tv...t-adapter.html




It seems to me that you want problems. If it was me, I would get the TV,
connect it to the aerial that is giving good results and see if you have
a problem.

Even if there are problems it will be with the muxes that are not in Gp
A, and altering the cable won't help that very much. Or do you mean that
the existing cable doesn't go to the TV location?

Bill

On 2/24/2011 12:22 PM, PeterC wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:37:54 +0000, Donwill wrote:


I have an old aerial (8 or 9 element?) which I think is an A group and
is pointing at the Wrekin which is approx 25 miles away, I have line of
sight and have an
excellent analogue picture. I have a new TV with built in freeview
coming on Monday so I want to get connected to the existing aerial until
proved or otherwise that I need a wideband, maybe in October?
The aerial has a downlead ( old brown one probably 30 yrs old) in the
loft, I would prefer to cut and connect to it, rather than to the aerial
on chimney, I suspect that the connection box/screws have seen better
days and I have a few metres of cat 100 in the scrap box left over from
connecting a Sky dish when I moved to house some 7 yrs ago, so I've
threaded it into the loft, It's long enough to reach the downlead at a
point some 2 Metres from the aerial but not sufficient to actually reach
the aerial.
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that will not
attenuate the signal substantially?or would the mismatch be too much, I
which case I would buy a longer length of new cable and go and fight
with the Aerial, seagulls and crows. :-\

Sorry if it's been asked before.
TIA

Don

If the cable is the right OD (my old brown cable is - with a bit of grunt)
you could cut it about a couple of feet from the end and use an F-to-F
adaptor to put in a bit more cable.
I was having trouble extending the cable by a yard as the co-ax connectors
were very sensitive to position and any slight change caused the picture to
break up. Going F-to-F has solved it and it has to last only until the new
aerial ist installed.

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/onlineca...ml#Fconnectors

Yes thanks for that, it looks like a good idea and will suffice until
the new broadband aerial plus cable goes in after they've finished
messing about in October if we're lucky
Don

Don

If the cable is the right OD (my old brown cable is - with a bit of grunt)
you could cut it about a couple of feet from the end and use an F-to-F
adaptor to put in a bit more cable.
I was having trouble extending the cable by a yard as the co-ax connectors
were very sensitive to position and any slight change caused the picture to
break up. Going F-to-F has solved it and it has to last only until the new
aerial ist installed.

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/onlineca...ml#Fconnectors

Yes thanks for that, it looks like a good idea and will suffice until
the new broadband aerial plus cable goes in after they've finished
messing about in October if we're lucky
Don

Surely something wrong with the co-ax connectors in use there then?....
--
Tony Sayer

In message on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:20:30 +
0000
Java Jive wrote:

And note that any outside joint should be taped up with
self-amalgamating tape.


Surely he specifically said he wanted to put the connector in the loft?

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:49:03 -0000, Terry Casey
wrote:

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tv...t-adapter.html

--

Terry

"Donwill" wrote in message
...
I have an old aerial (8 or 9 element?) which I think is an A
group and is pointing at the Wrekin which is approx 25 miles
away, I have line of sight and have an
excellent analogue picture. I have a new TV with built in
freeview coming on Monday so I want to get connected to the
existing aerial until proved or otherwise that I need a
wideband, maybe in October?
The aerial has a downlead ( old brown one probably 30 yrs old)
in the loft, I would prefer to cut and connect to it, rather
than to the aerial on chimney, I suspect that the connection
box/screws have seen better days and I have a few metres of cat
100 in the scrap box left over from connecting a Sky dish when
I moved to house some 7 yrs ago, so I've threaded it into the
loft, It's long enough to reach the downlead at a point some 2
Metres from the aerial but not sufficient to actually reach the
aerial.
Is there an F-plug to coax connector gizmo that I can use that
will not attenuate the signal substantially?or would the
mismatch be too much, I which case I would buy a longer length
of new cable and go and fight with the Aerial, seagulls and
crows. :-\

Sorry if it's been asked before.
TIA

Don



DSO at The Wrekin is 20th April. Unfortunately the new channels
spread across aerial groups A and B so you will need to get the
aerial changed to wideband. If you want to watch Freeview before
6th April you may have problems as channels currently in use go
right up to 57.

http://www.ukfree.tv/shutdowndetail.php?tx=SJ628082

Before I get flamed let me explain. Your existing group A aerial
will have a peak response in channels 21-34 and the response
(gain) will tail off above that. As the lower channels are lower
frequencies then there will be less loss in the cable so, with
the associated higher gain, you will get very strong signals for
some of the muxes and very weak ones from those 'out-of-band.
Note also that some of the muxes on the oob channels are also
lower power so you will be double disadvantaged. If you are not
careful you could end up with a signal overload on some channels
(and believe me, with DTTV you most certainly don't want that)
and even end up with pixelation/freeze frame on some of the
higher channels.

If you replace the aerial then I would suggest a log-aperiodic as
this have a much flatter wideband response, have a good
front-back ratio, and you can get them with a slightly rising
response which will help to overcome the additional cable losses
at the higher frequencies.

You should also consider replacing the entire downlead with a
copper foiled screened variety as the braid on the old 'brown'
stuff is vary loose and will leave the cable open to interference
pickup. Even with strong solid signals a radiated switch click or
similar picked up on the cable will at best cause pixelation, at
worst temporary loss of picture/sound - it depends how your TV
handles such issues.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com