Advice on fitting an external tv aerial please?

Question

I'm pretty diy competent, including electrics and coax, but I have no idea what sort of aerial I will need to receive digital freeview. The local transmitter is a relay station 6 miles away, of which I would have a clear view if it wasn't for some trees 200 yards from our house. We live in a bit of a dip, and some neighbours have aerials on poles, which I don't understand because the transmitter is at the end of our valley (visible, like I already said). Is this enough info for someone to tell me where to start? If I'm wasting my time, and it's better to get a professional, please let me know. Many thanks everyone.

Answer 1

a digital aerial is actually just a wide band aerial,grouped in to poor - medium  and good reception aeries. the poorer the the reception the better the aerial has to be and the more it costs.check out the BBC web page ,click on to digital link and put your post code in. will tell you lots. where i am about 75% + will work on ordarny aerial. a lot of hipe on this for peaple to make money when it is not deserved

Answer 2

If your only getting a signal from that in sight antenna then a paperclip on the back of the receiver might even pull in enough freq. to get a picture, but I dont recomend that.

Use RG-6 cable. RG-6 quadshield if your house has ground issues. If your radio is staticky alot assume a ground problem from the start. RG-59 is garbage, dont use it.

Make sure that you are safe. Overhead powerlines can be deadly to touch. Even phone lines use a pretty high voltage to make your phone ring (or at least they used to)

Make sure that you put in a drip loop (its just a dip in the cable before entering the house, prevents water from dripping into your house).

Go here http://www.hdtvprimer.com/

and here http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ISSUES/erectin...

and finally here http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Stations.as...

Make sure that you check that last site and get an antenna thats suitable for what you need. Some antennae only do UHF or VHF and the ones that do both wont have the same distance for UHF as they will for VHF.

HTH

Oh yeah. GROUND IT!!! Especially if you have thunderstorms ever.

Answer 3

Fit a High Gain Wide Band aerial on a pole outside and run CT100 or similar satellite cable from the aerial directly to the freeview box (set for strongest terrestrial signal first before scanning for channels on freeview). In other words normal channels must be 100% first.

Answer 4

See Maplin:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?Menu...

Answer 5

Get yourself a 4 Bay Bow Tie UHF antenna, 300 ohm to 75 ohm transformer, RG-6 coax cable, length to be determine by the distance of your antenna to the TV and the necessary hardware to mount the antenna on the roof or chimney.  This antenna is capable of pulling in stations 30 miles away.  I have one plus an 8 Bay type also.