Hey, just wondering if anyone could give me advice

I've just moved into a student house, it only has 1 wall arial connector wire thingy, which we plug into the living room tv, that tv has built in freeview so it all works fine and dandy

upstairs in my room I have my own tv and freeview box and just wondering what would be the best way to connect it so I can watch something upstairs?

I told a lovely chap in currys my little story and he sent my packing with this http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/one-for...52319-pdt.html and it just does not work at all. I tried it in 4 rooms in the house and no signal at all, like anything. Surely this isnt right? I live so close to manchester city centre, this area is full of students in similar situations, all our phones and internet get major signal strengeth and europes bussiests bus route is literally on my doorstep? surely an area like this would have a tv signal thingy thing? it's not like some emmerdale villiage with a population of 8 pensioners in the middle of acres and acres of land

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Postcode is M14 6LS if that helps?

Heavily built-up area + small, useless aerial = very poor reception. Oh, and congratulations, you've just realised that the people in Currys wouldn't know the difference between their eye and their arsehole. Well done.

The best solution would probably be to get an aerial man in to install an *powered* TV signal splitter, so that as soon as the signal comes down from the aerial into your house, it is distributed to the various aerial points in your house.

I say powered/amplified because some signal splitters are only powered by the signal coming in through the aerial and are not powered from the mains. This affects Freeview considerably.

I know that aerial installers are costly to students (I'm a second year student myself), but if this is not financially viable, then tough luck. No TV in your room, unless you use online on-demand services.

Also, are you in halls or a proper student house? If in halls or a house actually built just for students, then the builders may have built a farraday cage into the room walls, like they have done on many Unite student accommodation sites (and a few others). These can seriously affect or totally eliminate TV or radio signals.

I hope that you kept the receipt.These wretched indoor aerials tend to be useless unless you're in a strong signal area,best higher up in the house with access to a window on the right side of the property.I don't know the area where you live but in many cities there's more problems than if you live on the outskirts due to the higher amount of man made interference and of course the higher amount of obstructions to what can be a weak signal from the transmitter.Modern buildings are often worse due to the amount of reinforced concrete and steel that acts a screen against the very signal you need to watch Freeview.Take the aerial back and get a refund.You may be able to run a splitter in line assuming that your landlord allows you to go clambering in parts of the house you don't occupy.

Firstly I would take your freeview box downstairs and connect it to your existing aerial, then rescan / retune your freeview box. Once that is working ok, retry your set top aerial and box in your room.

It may just be that the box you have has been used elsewhere and not tuned in to the local transmitter.

But as AidanLunn says a proper wired aerial lead will provide a more reliable reception.

One of these splitter things is where you have more than 1 wire coming from the arial into different rooms of the house right?

I remember in my old place we had that and each room had one. Roughly how much would you say this would cost to have done/set up? I haven't particularly budgetted for such an expense but I am prepared to live without food providing I get eastenders back!!

Unfortunately, greedy parasites like Currys sometimes don't accept refunds on Freeview equipment that doesn't work properly in bad reception areas.

The reason why is because the fault is with your aerial or the place you live in. not the item you are returning.

Josh, try getting a refund, just say (lie) that the aerial is actually broken and when they offer to get an identical replacement, say you bought a much better model from another supplier earlier that day.

Eastenders is available on the iPlayer. You can watch it there whenever you want, as you probably know. I'm a student and am in the same boat as you, trust me, iPlayer and 4oD are godsends! Trust me, it's a lot easier and cheaper than faffing about with digiboxes and aerials.

Well the aerial looks impressive, sadly it's not useful as an aerial due to the laws of physics.

The rabbit ears are for receiving VHF signals - i.e. are useless for TV transmissions which are in the UHF band in this country. And an amplifier should not be used for an indoor aerial.

http://www.megalithia.com/elect/aerialsite/student.html <- interesting reading.

So take it back to Curry's... or perhaps keep it as an unusual ornament?

-rapido

I would expect the 8 pensioners in Emmerdale to get a perfect signal with all of that open space & none of those horrible big buildings to block the transmitter!
Phone, internet & bus routes (not sure why that's relevent) are totally different to TV signals.
As the previous poster said, an amplified splitter would seem the best option (apart from getting an aerialman to sort it properly for you).

I will certainly be taking it back! The staff in my local one are kinda dumb, I once found a broken ipod on the street, took it into currys and 20 minutes later I had a brand new ipod! I mainly blame the language barriers between myself and the polish women on the desk, but either way this really improved my blagging skills


PS: Mr Aerialman, technically the points you have raised are infact complely irrelevent, but how cool is it that I live next to EUROPES BUSSIEST BUS ROUTE? I mean people think englands bussiest, but nope, europes!!! Now I imagine you're like "thats not cool man, so much noise man" but it's surprisingly quiet and you know, theres a lot of busses for when you wanna go places


any idea of prices for having the splitter thingy fitted?

Someone in this pub I'm stealing wifi has just been lurking over my shoulder (quite rude if im being honest) and suggested some booster thing I put into the tv in the living room and can connect from my room? (don't worry, he's gone now and isn't lurking, feel free to call him rude too)

I've heard that they are quite ineffective and are susceptible to interference caused by people moving about in the house/thickness of the house walls. If your house is one of the old victorian houses, you may have some problems due to the walls being thicker than on more recent houses.

Also, see the note I added to the end of my first comment on this thread re: student accommodation, farraday cages and TV/radio reception problems.

Why are you bothering with tv with all those buses to watch ???