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Addiding a signal for a second TV - aerial needed?

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8
Forum Member
in Technical #1
Hi,

I've just bought a second TV that I will put in my front room using our Sky plus box and signal. We currently have no aerial.

We are going to move our current TV to the dining room so that will need some sort of signal to work.

For the dining room TV we would like more that the 5 terrestrial channels so would like to use a freeview/freesat box.

The new TV has built in HD freeview and HD freesat so we would like to view the 'free' HD channels from that if possible. This poses the questions of how to connect it all together?

1 Do I just get an aerial installed and can it supply 2 feeds to 2 different TV's. This could then supply the new TV with HD freeview and the current TV with freeview if I get a freeview box. Also, any ideas how much it costs to buy an aerial and get a man to install it?

2 Can I use the current SKY dish in any way that means the new TV can get HD freesat and the current TV get freesat if I get a freesat box?

3 Any other options open to me?

Thanks in advance

Comments

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8
    Forum Member
    #2
    Can I just add that we want to be able to watch different things at the same time on both TV's so a feed from the back of my exisiting Sky Plus box isn't a realistic option.

    I'd rather pay a few quid and have two fully functioning independant TV's.

    Thanks
  • joshua_welbyjoshua_welby Posts: 9,025
    Forum Member
    ✭
    #3
    Any Aerial Installer will install both a Satellite Dish
    and a TV Aerial for you, the Aerial will cost
    around £110 for one room to be installed
    and another £45 per room for any other room you want done

    The dish will cost around £80 for one room installation
    and extra charges are payable for other rooms you want,

    Sky or Freesat Dishes can be used for the following services

    Freesat
    Freesat from Sky
    Sky
    Soon Real Digital

    Before you have any work done,
    ask for an estimate form your local Aerial Installer,
    or from Retail Shops like Currys, Comet, Argos, Best Buy, etc
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 3
    Forum Member
    #4
    Hi,

    I've set mine up with everything in the front room, Sky, video recorder, DVD.

    Then I have a feed out of the video up to the roof where an amplifier distributes to all rooms. We can watch DVDs or Videos in other rooms too.

    In your case you just want a TV aerial. Depending where you are and where thE nearest transmitter is, you might be able to get away with an aerial inside your roof. Cost about £40 from Maplins, etc, and a tenner for cable, get some satellite quality cable, lower loss.

    Have a look outside to see where the other TV aerials are pointing. Do a Google search for TV transmitters and find out how far it is. Over, say, 20 miles and the aerial needs to be outside.

    Regards
    Peter
  • MartinPickeringMartinPickering Posts: 3,711
    Forum Member
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    #5
    Winston_1 wrote: »
    That is not true at all. You use satellite cable for it's improved screening. The loss is about the same.

    I beg to differ: http://www.glodark.com/cable.htm
    Ordinary aerial cable is only designed for signals up to 950MHz compared with over 2000 MHz for satellite LNBs. Consequently, TV cable losses are very high at higher frequencies.
  • spiney2spiney2 Posts: 27,058
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    #6
    at uhf tv frequencies, there's only a small difference in loss between standard and satellite cable (although, it becomes huge at the satellite intermediate frequencies, 1-2 GHz).

    The main reason for using satellite cable - now used as standard - is improved screening, since the "cofdm variant" modulation used in digital terrestrial tv doesn't work properly, and receiver impulse interference response is around 10dB worse than originally anticipated ........
  • Ray CathodeRay Cathode Posts: 13,231
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    #7
    Impulse interference (usually from motor vehicles) is picked up by both the UHF aerial and outer conductor of the downlead. The latter makes its way through the centre conductor and on to the receiver through the aerial itself. It can be minimised by using a "digital" aerial which if benchmarked by the CAI, contains a balun. That is a transformer which matches the unbalanced downlead to the balanced dipole of the aerial. Any interference picked up in the outer or screen of the downlead is cancelled out in the balun which correctly matches downlead to aerial. The interference can also be picked up by the aerial itself, and there is not much that can be done about that except perhaps carefully positioning the aerial away from a road using the building as a screen.

    All this is to show that impulse interference is not the problem it was when On Digital launched. And the improved screening of satellite cable has very little effect on impulse interference since it is picked up by the outer screen, which is the same regardless of cable quality. However there are other reasons for using double screened coax apart from impulse interference.

    I am using the term "digital" aerial to indicate a CAI benchmarked UHF aerial optimised for digital reception and Freeview. I know that it is an analogue device. Older UHF aerials generally known as "contract" aerials do not contain a balun and so may well be unsuitable for Freeview. But everyone knows that some viewers get perfect reception from 25 year old aerial systems.
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