New house - some aerial sockets work but others don't - help!
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Hi guys - any advice or suggestions greatly appreciated!
In summary, I have recently moved into a new house and can't get any TV signal from some of the sockets. Others work fine though.
To explain: the previous owner had six TV aerial outlets in the house: 2 in the living room, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in the loft room, 1 in the bedroom, 1 in the bathroom (!).
In the loft there is a black box (labelled "ERL Amp 8 8-way uhf Distribution amplifier") which I believe is the splitter. It has one aerial cable plugged into the "in" socket (I assume coming from the roof aerial) and six cables coming from the "out" sockets. The box is plugged into the mains and turned on, and there is a red "on" light which is illuminated. Each of the cables coming in and out of the splitter has a male connector in the very middle of which which a piece of exposed copper wire pokes out. (I have photos if that would help.) I have pushed all connections in as far as I can, so they are all tight.
Plugging the TV into the aerial sockets in the kitchen, bedroom and loft, and then selecting "auto tuning" from the setup menu allows the TV to find the various channels on digital (i.e. the programme info in the top left corner of the screen shows "DTV" and the channel). I get all the channels I used to in my old place, including the usual terrestrial ones (BBC1, BBC2, ITV etc) and the digital ones (ITV2 etc), as well as digital radio stations.
HOWEVER, when I do exactly the same thing for the aerial sockets in the living room, I get nothing. The TV display says "no signal" and cannot find any channels. (The same happens in the bathroom, but that doesn't bother me, so I'm focussing on the living room here). The sockets look like standard female aerial sockets that take a standard male aerial cable.
When auto-tuning I am choosing the "automatic numbering" option from the TV menu screen, which works fine for the other sockets to find all the channels. There is also a menu option for "SECAM L Search", which I used on the living room sockets just to test and once managed to find a very small number of the digital channels, but only e.g. one or two music channels, and none of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 channels etc. The "automatic numbering" option brings back no channels at all.
In case it's relevant - the TV is an LG TV with a built-in Freeview box. The only way I have been trying to test whether a socket works in the house is through using the "auto tuning" function to find if there are available channels - which approach works fine for other sockets in the house. I have been connecting the TV to the aerial sockets directly rather than through a DVD player, to strip out any possible issues with the DVD player.
Also, in case it's relevant - the previous owner had Sky and Virgin Media, but we don't, so that seems irrelevant. One of the aerial sockets in the front room has an F-type connector coming out of a separate wall socket nearby, which I assume is for Sky, but the previous owner tells me that he wired the house for Sky separately, so he doesn't think that would be a reason why the normal aerial sockets wouldn't work.
Any help greatly appreciated!
(And apologies for writing at great length - I thought more info rather than less might be helpful, so sorry if that isn't the case!)
In summary, I have recently moved into a new house and can't get any TV signal from some of the sockets. Others work fine though.
To explain: the previous owner had six TV aerial outlets in the house: 2 in the living room, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in the loft room, 1 in the bedroom, 1 in the bathroom (!).
In the loft there is a black box (labelled "ERL Amp 8 8-way uhf Distribution amplifier") which I believe is the splitter. It has one aerial cable plugged into the "in" socket (I assume coming from the roof aerial) and six cables coming from the "out" sockets. The box is plugged into the mains and turned on, and there is a red "on" light which is illuminated. Each of the cables coming in and out of the splitter has a male connector in the very middle of which which a piece of exposed copper wire pokes out. (I have photos if that would help.) I have pushed all connections in as far as I can, so they are all tight.
Plugging the TV into the aerial sockets in the kitchen, bedroom and loft, and then selecting "auto tuning" from the setup menu allows the TV to find the various channels on digital (i.e. the programme info in the top left corner of the screen shows "DTV" and the channel). I get all the channels I used to in my old place, including the usual terrestrial ones (BBC1, BBC2, ITV etc) and the digital ones (ITV2 etc), as well as digital radio stations.
HOWEVER, when I do exactly the same thing for the aerial sockets in the living room, I get nothing. The TV display says "no signal" and cannot find any channels. (The same happens in the bathroom, but that doesn't bother me, so I'm focussing on the living room here). The sockets look like standard female aerial sockets that take a standard male aerial cable.
When auto-tuning I am choosing the "automatic numbering" option from the TV menu screen, which works fine for the other sockets to find all the channels. There is also a menu option for "SECAM L Search", which I used on the living room sockets just to test and once managed to find a very small number of the digital channels, but only e.g. one or two music channels, and none of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 channels etc. The "automatic numbering" option brings back no channels at all.
In case it's relevant - the TV is an LG TV with a built-in Freeview box. The only way I have been trying to test whether a socket works in the house is through using the "auto tuning" function to find if there are available channels - which approach works fine for other sockets in the house. I have been connecting the TV to the aerial sockets directly rather than through a DVD player, to strip out any possible issues with the DVD player.
Also, in case it's relevant - the previous owner had Sky and Virgin Media, but we don't, so that seems irrelevant. One of the aerial sockets in the front room has an F-type connector coming out of a separate wall socket nearby, which I assume is for Sky, but the previous owner tells me that he wired the house for Sky separately, so he doesn't think that would be a reason why the normal aerial sockets wouldn't work.
Any help greatly appreciated!
(And apologies for writing at great length - I thought more info rather than less might be helpful, so sorry if that isn't the case!)
0
Comments
However there is a possibility that they are standard coax plugs with the body and centre pin sections missing. The photos may well help. You can't post them into DS directly but have to use an image hosting site and post links to the images.
If the plugs are F-Types then it is possible some of them are not terminated properly. It is possible that on the feeds to the non-working sockets that the screen braid of the cable is not making proper contact with the body of the plug.
Or a few stray strands of screen braid have worked free and are touching the inner conductor. Only needs one strand and can be hard to spot! So worth taking a close look at the connectors and remake them as necessary.
Also take the wall plates off the wall where the points don't work and check the cable termination on the back. Again check for neatly trapped screen braid and check for stray strands touching the inner conductor.
There are also types of distribution amp that are designed to feed Sky signals along with Freeview round the house. These tend to have additional input sockets for things like FM and DAB radio aerials and satellite dish feeds. Plus there will be a socket labelled Downlink and one labelled Uplink.
The downlink feed goes into the Sky box and the Uplink is connected to the Sky box RF 2 out. This signal then gets distributed to all the other locations. However with that type of box if the downlink is not connected somehow to the uplink at the living room wall plate usually only the living room works and none of the others do. Doesn't sound like that is your situation so perhaps you don't have that type of box.
Oh and by the way.
Plug the telly into a socket that is working and tune it in. Then DO NOT touch the tuning again. It will remember all the tuning settings so you simply need to plug it into one of the other sockets and dial up a channel. If the socket works you'll receive the channel, if it doesn't you won't. But don't use the lack of any channels as an excuse to retune! That just makes it harder to know if you've fixed things or not.
I've put a photos of the back of the socket, and two of the splitter in the loft, into a public dropbox folder - let me know if this doesn't work:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bf6a2gzhjukebom/AAC5qesKbfvdMQ2jWdzPbCEZa?dl=0
Does the fact I've had some success with fiddling with the socket suggest the problem is there rather than with the splitter? Do I just need to re-wire the socket? If so, can anyone suggest a site with a clear explanation? I know how to wire a normal plug, so I can at least get that far...!
The aerial cable looks deformed were it bends into the plug. I would chop off the bent bit and put a new plug on and make sure that it isn't bent so tightly that it deforms.
I would also be tempted to redo all the plugs as there shouldn't really be any copper wire poking out of the end of the centre pin in the plugs. This shows how to wire a plug.
http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html
As for the sockets.
What you need to do is ensure all the screen braid is securely clamped down and very little is poking out.
The insulation round the inner conductor should butt up against the terminal. Clamp the exposed conductor under the screw down plate and trim any excess poking out the other end. If you do wrap it in a U loop like in that picture make sure there is no copper poking out of the screw. This is to avoid the possibility of the exposed conductor touching the metal body of the socket.
Can you confirm that the input socket on the box is the same style as the output sockets?
If the previous owner had Virgin Media cable, then I suspect the seperate box with the F connector on is for that. Does the box with the F connector on have any markings on it (such as NTL etc.)?
Perhaps the raw signal off the aerial was overloading the amplifier?
Could be some horrid bodge job repair. Maybe the socket on the amp broke and someone bodged an adapter plug onto it as a "repair"
It looks like the source of the problem whatever it is.
It would be if all the outlets were not working but it seems some work and some don't. If the aerial input were faulty then all outlets would be affected equally.
You would think so but possibly all the outlets are operating at the edge of the digital cliff so some appear to work, or may work with some TVs but not others depending on the length of the cable runs. It needs sorting out first as it looks very dubious. Also as you say all the other plugs probably need their connection remaking as well.
That is quite possible.
If there is a bodged repair job on the amplifier input then I would be tempted to rip it all out and start again with a new amp.
It is a amplifier and splitter that has a overall gain of over 3dB on each outlet.
This particular model is at least 20 years old .
It is unlikely that some outlets on the amplifier work and others don't as the splitter in the amp is resistve 20 dB taps to provide high reverse isolation .
Often TV coax cables were installed by electricians not in conduit but using plastic capping that sometimes crushed the cable .
Suggest you disconnect the amp and using a coaxial back to back connector, connect each lead straight through one at a time .
This then would establish for certain if the problem is the buried coax cable in the wall,the TV outlet socket ,or the amplifier, but I doubt it is the amp as if it does fail, all will go off.
Steve
Good advice and check the incoming aerial signal level as well.