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Moved House and can only get BBC on Freeview |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 9
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Moved House and can only get BBC on Freeview
I moved house today and when I set up my freeview box I can only receive standard def BBC channels.
I have automatically channel scanned using both my freeview recorder (Humax Fox t2) and my Sony kdl42w653 tv. The TV picked up more channels but they were unwatchable (very poor signal). The previous occupants of the house had Sky, where as I don't. I am in the S20 area of Sheffield (if this is useful). The Humax appears to have tuned BBC into 'Yorkshire and Lincolnshire'. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Reading
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Several things spring to mind.
As the previous occupants had Sky did they actually ever use Freeview? If not then there may not be an aerial anywhere or it may be in a poor state of repair or not pointing in anything like the right direction still. Are you certain that what you have plugged into the telly is a terrestrial aerial feed and not what used to feed the Sky box from the dish? If there is an aerial could there also be some sort of masthead amplifier that is lacking a power supply? Though the Humax is able to supply power to a masthead amplifier (it is in the menu somewhere, try the Installation menu first - called Antenna Power). Try that and see if it makes a difference. Also if they had Sky they may have used the RF Out on the Sky box to feed other rooms and you may be plugging into this cable thinking it is the aerial. Basically you need to carefully check what cables you have coming into the room and trace as far as possible where they go to. Also you need to find the aerial and check if possible what sort of condition it is in and whether it is pointing in the right direction. Oh yes one other thing. The previous occupants may have had an aerial distribution system in place to feed the aerial to several rooms. It is always possible they unplugged the distribution unit and took it with them so the cables in the rooms are no longer connected to the aerial. |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 9
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Hi,
Thanks for your reply. There is an aerial on the roof that is pointing in the same direction as others on the other aerials on the estate. The aerial appears to be OK condition. I'm pretty confident that I plugged in the terrestrial aerial. There are two 'aerial' type connections but one of them has no signal at all (even BBC channels). I have tried the amplifier option in the Humax to no avail. The previous occupants did have Sky in multiple rooms. I think the previous occupants used Sky (rather than Freeview), which made me think that maybe the aerial is out of alignment on the roof buttons they didn't notice as they didn't use it. |
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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Reading
Posts: 27,918
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There is a possibility that may explain what is happening.
If the previous occupants had Sky fed to other rooms they may have been using a LoftBox type bit of kit to achieve this. See this image http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/images/loftbox_wiring.gif This may not be exactly what they had but illustrates the principle. As you can see there is a central box that takes in various aerial feeds and one satellite feed. It combines all these onto one cable that gets fed down to the wall plate where the Sky box is located. The wall box splits the various signals back out again. The TV aerial goes to the RF IN on the Sky box and the RF 2 OUT on the Sky box goes to a Return socket on the wall plate where it gets connected to the distribution section of the LoftBox which splits the signal out to the other rooms. The Return feed carries a mix of Freeview and Sky to the other rooms. The telly next to the Sky box is fed from the Sky RF 1 OUT. If the LoftBox has been removed then who knows what has been left in it's place. They may have tried to connect the living room feed to the aerial. But may not have done a very good job or got the wrong cable, easy to do if you rip the box out first and there are no labels on any of the cables to give you a clue as to which is which! So you could just be picking up a signal from the cable and it just happens that the BBC SD mux is the one that gets through well enough to be received. Somehow I think a trip up to the loft may be in order to see what you have been left with. |
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#5 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Derbyshire
Posts: 41,792
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Humax boxes are notoriously bad at selecting the wrong transmitter to tune to, and Yorkshire and Lincolnshire doesn't sound right for Sheffield? (I would expect either Emley Moor or one of the Sheffield relays).
But as chrisjr says, the aerial system may be partially disconnected or connected wrongly, particularly if they used a distribution system powered by a Sky box ( a VERY common occurrence). Edit: Just had a thought, did you merely retune the box, or did you do a factory reset? - in my experience retuning on a Humax is normally useless, and you need to do a factory reset to start from scratch. |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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Unfortunately I don't yet have a loft ladder to check what's up there, although I can fully see what you are getting at.
When we viewed the house, there was a sky box in three rooms. I think they were using a fully multi room functionality (not just viewing whatever is showing on the sky box in three places, if that makes sense)? In the main living room (where our TV is) we have: 1 x Wall Plate with an aerial point on (this is the one that has a signal) 1 x aerial cable 2 x satellite cables (I don't know what they are called but they have the screw ends. In bedroom one we have: 2 x aerial cables 1 x satellite cable In the dining room we have: 1 x satellite cable. I think I might need to get an engineer out
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#7 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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I did just retune, not factory reset. I could try that. I don't suppose you know if I will lose any recorded stuff do you?
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#8 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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I did a factory reset and it's picked up a few extra channels eg ITV3, unfortunately the signal is terrible.
I didn't get the option of tuning it into a different area though, BBC one is channel 22. |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 1,904
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Quote:
I moved house today and when I set up my freeview box I can only receive standard def BBC channels.
I have automatically channel scanned using both my freeview recorder (Humax Fox t2) and my Sony kdl42w653 tv. The TV picked up more channels but they were unwatchable (very poor signal). The previous occupants of the house had Sky, where as I don't. I am in the S20 area of Sheffield (if this is useful). The Humax appears to have tuned BBC into 'Yorkshire and Lincolnshire'. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I had something similar when I moved into my house a couple of years back. Looking at this "In the main living room (where our TV is) we have: 1 x Wall Plate with an aerial point on (this is the one that has a signal) 1 x aerial cable 2 x satellite cables (I don't know what they are called but they have the screw ends. " The 2 x satellite cables are the ones for a Sky / Freesat box. The wall plate may be getting a signal from a distribution box in the loft or similar. (which is what I had) but the feed from the aerial was coming direct into the lounge and then being looped through the SKY box back to the distribution box in the loft. Have you tried putting the aerial cable into the TV / Humax box and seeing what you get? Another question - how old is the house? If it's a new build, there *might* not be an aerial even in the loft. If the previous owners were the first owners and solely used SKY all they did was use the wiring the builders installed to distribute without ever having a terrestrial aerial. |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Quote:
I did a factory reset and it's picked up a few extra channels eg ITV3, unfortunately the signal is terrible.
I didn't get the option of tuning it into a different area though, BBC one is channel 22. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmon...itting_station |
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#11 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Reading
Posts: 27,918
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Quote:
Unfortunately I don't yet have a loft ladder to check what's up there, although I can fully see what you are getting at.
When we viewed the house, there was a sky box in three rooms. I think they were using a fully multi room functionality (not just viewing whatever is showing on the sky box in three places, if that makes sense)? In the main living room (where our TV is) we have: 1 x Wall Plate with an aerial point on (this is the one that has a signal) 1 x aerial cable 2 x satellite cables (I don't know what they are called but they have the screw ends. In bedroom one we have: 2 x aerial cables 1 x satellite cable In the dining room we have: 1 x satellite cable. I think I might need to get an engineer out ![]() Something else is a bit puzzling. Are you sure there are two aerial cables and one satellite cable in the bedroom and not the other way round? It would make more sense to have two satellite cables and one aerial. Though it is always possible that this is where they looped through the aerial and one of the two cables in the bedroom is attached to the aerial and one might be the feed down into the living room. But somehow I think the only way you are going to make any sense of this is to get up in the loft and hunt around for the cables and see what goes where. |
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#12 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: North Derbyshire
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Channel 22 for BBC1 is definitely Belmont not Emley Moor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmon...itting_station |
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#13 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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Quick update, I've borrowed a sky box from a friend and plugged that into the living room using the satellite cables only and low and behold everything works.
That suggests to me that the issue with with the aerial, not a LoftBox (or similar) - if it was a LoftBox type issue I'm assuming the satellite cables wouldn't work either? Does that sound about right? With regards to which way the aerial points, it's pointing North East. Thanks everyone for your help so far. |
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#14 |
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Quote:
That suggests to me that the issue with with the aerial, not a LoftBox (or similar) - if it was a LoftBox type issue I'm assuming the satellite cables wouldn't work either? Does that sound about right? What I'd then expect is the RF out of the satellite box to be used to distribute the output from the box around the house - via the loft distributor. If there are other 'satellite' wires in the other rooms, I'd expect those to be coming direct from the dish as well - there are multiple output LNBs (the bit on the end of the dish) which would accommodate this. |
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#15 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Reading
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Quote:
Quick update, I've borrowed a sky box from a friend and plugged that into the living room using the satellite cables only and low and behold everything works.
That suggests to me that the issue with with the aerial, not a LoftBox (or similar) - if it was a LoftBox type issue I'm assuming the satellite cables wouldn't work either? Does that sound about right? With regards to which way the aerial points, it's pointing North East. Thanks everyone for your help so far. But there need not necessarily have been a LoftBox type device anyway. The LoftBox simply reduces the number of cables you need to run from loft down to the living room or wherever else you insert the Sky feed. If you run a direct aerial feed and a return cable back to the loft then you can distribute Sky around the place with a conventional aerial distribution amplifier or even a passive splitter if the signal is good enough. You run the aerial direct to the Sky box and take the RF 2 out of the Sky box back up to the distribution system to feed aerial + Sky everywhere. Mind you if it was done that way then somewhere there must be a cable with the direct feed of the aerial on it. Alternatively if they fed cables direct from the dish into each room they may not have bothered looping the aerial via the Sky box anyway. Just taken the aerial into a distribution amplifier/splitter and fed each room from that. So if the distribution amplifier/splitter was taken away that would explain the lack of signal just as much as if there had been a LoftBox set-up. Like I said the only way to find out is to get up in the loft and see if the aerial cables end up there and try and work out what they all do. |
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#16 |
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: colchester
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I did a factory reset and it's picked up a few extra channels eg ITV3, unfortunately the signal is terrible.
I didn't get the option of tuning it into a different area though, BBC one is channel 22. You can find the frequencies here http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/industry/Channels This avoids picking up multiple channels of say bbc1 and the recorder picking a weak one to record on giving rise to later issues. |
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#17 |
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cheshire
Posts: 6,462
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My read and possibly the most likely scenario based on the info so far regarding the previous occupants and their Sky boxes:
The house has a normal Sky dish with 4 outputs: Two go to the lounge to feed a recording Sky box. One each go to the master bedroom and dining room. These feed the "view only" Sky boxes An aerial on the roof feeds two areas: The lounge (via the wall plate) and the master bedroom. - [Depending on the gear used, this could be something as simple as a passive T splitter (1 in: 2 out) or could be via some kind of active amp either bolted to the aerial mast or somewhere in the loft. Given the issue with only receiving BBC then I would suspect either a damaged aerial or a missing power supply for an active splitter. With a good aerial and a passive T splitter then the tellies should get more than just the Beeb. Si I think the existing cable is still acting as an aerial possibly either because a very strong local signal or (more likely) it's old cable that is poorly shielded.] The second aerial feed in the bedroom is the tail end of the loose aerial cable in the lounge. This would have fed an RF2 signal from the lounge box to the bedroom TV, and with that the occupants could watch Sky recorded programmes. It also feeds up the house TV aerial signal to the bedroom, thus making the first aerial feed to that room redundant. I doubt that the satellite cables go via a loft box or any amplification in house. They're direct feeds off the dish outside. The lack of any diplexer wall plates with satellite (SAT) outputs as well as aerial (TV) outputs means that there's no device in the loft that's combining the satellite signal with the aerial feed. Historically the cabling may well have been done in phases. Houses built from the 70's onwards were increasingly likely to have had a basic aerial feed to the lounge installed by the house builder. The clue would be that there's no aerial cable showing on the outside of the house for that socket. The cable would be in the wall cavity instead. The alternative is that the cabling could also have been retro fitted. An additional aerial feed for the bedroom might have been added at a later date. When the Sky was installed the householder could have asked for the lounge to bedroom link to be added. The fact that that's a separate cable rather than the signal going via the aerial signal cable already in lace in the bedroom suggests then that the room feeds are from a masthead amp/splitter. The occupier went for an "easy and cheap" solution rather than have the job done properly. A masthead amp runs off a low voltage power supply that feeds the power up one of the aerial cables. This is called Phantom Power. Customers with this kind of arrangement installed often mistake the power supply for some kind of booster. That's understandable. It sits in a the short aerial cable from the wall to the TV, and there's a mains plug on the box so it looks like it is wired the same way as a set back booster. When they move they take the "booster" with them. This renders the house TV aerial unusable until a replacement power supply is fitted. These are relatively inexpensive. Here's a link |
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#18 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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Quote:
It's best to manually tune it by selecting the frequencies required, scanning on one, saving and moving onto the next one and repeat.
You can find the frequencies here http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/industry/Channels This avoids picking up multiple channels of say bbc1 and the recorder picking a weak one to record on giving rise to later issues. |
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#19 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
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Quote:
My read and possibly the most likely scenario based on the info so far regarding the previous occupants and their Sky boxes:
The house has a normal Sky dish with 4 outputs: Two go to the lounge to feed a recording Sky box. One each go to the master bedroom and dining room. These feed the "view only" Sky boxes An aerial on the roof feeds two areas: The lounge (via the wall plate) and the master bedroom. - [Depending on the gear used, this could be something as simple as a passive T splitter (1 in: 2 out) or could be via some kind of active amp either bolted to the aerial mast or somewhere in the loft. Given the issue with only receiving BBC then I would suspect either a damaged aerial or a missing power supply for an active splitter. With a good aerial and a passive T splitter then the tellies should get more than just the Beeb. Si I think the existing cable is still acting as an aerial possibly either because a very strong local signal or (more likely) it's old cable that is poorly shielded.] The second aerial feed in the bedroom is the tail end of the loose aerial cable in the lounge. This would have fed an RF2 signal from the lounge box to the bedroom TV, and with that the occupants could watch Sky recorded programmes. It also feeds up the house TV aerial signal to the bedroom, thus making the first aerial feed to that room redundant. I doubt that the satellite cables go via a loft box or any amplification in house. They're direct feeds off the dish outside. The lack of any diplexer wall plates with satellite (SAT) outputs as well as aerial (TV) outputs means that there's no device in the loft that's combining the satellite signal with the aerial feed. Historically the cabling may well have been done in phases. Houses built from the 70's onwards were increasingly likely to have had a basic aerial feed to the lounge installed by the house builder. The clue would be that there's no aerial cable showing on the outside of the house for that socket. The cable would be in the wall cavity instead. The alternative is that the cabling could also have been retro fitted. An additional aerial feed for the bedroom might have been added at a later date. When the Sky was installed the householder could have asked for the lounge to bedroom link to be added. The fact that that's a separate cable rather than the signal going via the aerial signal cable already in lace in the bedroom suggests then that the room feeds are from a masthead amp/splitter. The occupier went for an "easy and cheap" solution rather than have the job done properly. A masthead amp runs off a low voltage power supply that feeds the power up one of the aerial cables. This is called Phantom Power. Customers with this kind of arrangement installed often mistake the power supply for some kind of booster. That's understandable. It sits in a the short aerial cable from the wall to the TV, and there's a mains plug on the box so it looks like it is wired the same way as a set back booster. When they move they take the "booster" with them. This renders the house TV aerial unusable until a replacement power supply is fitted. These are relatively inexpensive. Here's a link Thank you for that. Based on what I know about the previous occupants, this seems to "fit" best with what I've seen so far. Am I correct in thinking that I plug one of those power supplies in behind our TV (with the aerial going in/out accordingly) and that may sort out the issue? We will get someone to have a look at the rest of the setup but if we can avoid it for a month or two that would be great - apparently moving house is expensive, who knew? |
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#20 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Reading
Posts: 27,918
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Quote:
Hi Chris,
Thank you for that. Based on what I know about the previous occupants, this seems to "fit" best with what I've seen so far. Am I correct in thinking that I plug one of those power supplies in behind our TV (with the aerial going in/out accordingly) and that may sort out the issue? We will get someone to have a look at the rest of the setup but if we can avoid it for a month or two that would be great - apparently moving house is expensive, who knew? You really need to find out where the various cables go and how they are interconnected, if indeed they are. We can all speculate about how the place is wired up but that is all it is, speculation. There is no substitute for actual hands on knowledge of the system. You could as an experiment try the Humax with Antenna Power switched on to see if that makes a difference to anything. But you may have to drag it around to all the aerial points in the house to locate the one that is actually connected to any amplifier. But as I say there is really no option but to get searching for the cables and working out where they all go to. |
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#21 |
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cheshire
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Hi Chris,
Thank you for that. Based on what I know about the previous occupants, this seems to "fit" best with what I've seen so far. Am I correct in thinking that I plug one of those power supplies in behind our TV (with the aerial going in/out accordingly) and that may sort out the issue? We will get someone to have a look at the rest of the setup but if we can avoid it for a month or two that would be great - apparently moving house is expensive, who knew? I do aerial work as part of what I do for a living, so if I was on site then here's how I would approach working out what's what. Some of the following is based on "most likely scenarios". There's always the chance of an exception or deviation from the norm. It's easy to get sidetracked on forum sites with discussions about every single last possible variant, but that creates confusion rather than clarity. The objective here is to deduce what might be installed based on observation and some lateral thinking so as to increase your chances of being able to put in a DIY fix for something simple before calling in the pro's. 1) Establish if there's an aerial on the roof, and it's pointing in the right direction and doesn't look like there's bits missing or no cable connected to it. That's easy, just go look. Is it pointing in roughly the same direction as your neighbours aerials? While you're there, is there any other aerials on the mast? Most likely would be additional TV aerials to feed other rooms or radio aerials for FM and/or DAB. (My guess is there's no radio aerials simply because there's no wall plates with the breakout connection of an FM/DAB socket on them.... but I'm not on site, you are, so you have to be the eyes on this.) 2) Does it look like there's a masthead splitter? Again this is a bit of observation. If there's just the TV aerial on the mast and the cable goes to a little box from which then two or more cables drop down to the house then it's 90% certain that there's a masthead splitter of some description. The next question is whether it's one that needs a power supply or If it's a passive one. Given the issue of only getting BBC then it's 90% sure that if one is fitted then it's the type that needs power. If it was a passive then you'd probably pick up ITV too, but that's not the case here. If there's no box on the mast and the cable just goes in to the loft or drops to enter the main body of the house somewhere then you'll need to go investigate further. That means getting in to a loft or wherever the cable disappears in the house to see if there's some kind of amplifier/splitter and whether or not it is working. Alternatively if there's two aerials on the mast then chances are pretty high that one feeds the bedroom and the other feeds the lounge. If that was the case though I would expect only one TV point to be affected, not both. If they're both affected then there's a common source for the signal i.e. one aerial in to a splitter. 3) Check the wiring on any screw-together aerial plugs. At this stage you can't rule out bodging by any previous occupiers. Open up the plugs and just check that there's none of the fine shield braid wire touching the centre pin of the aerial plugs. While you're at it, check for signs of water damage such as blackened copper braid or rusty brown water from inside the wire. You should also have a look at the back of the TV socket wall plate for the same too. 4) Tracing cables. This requires a multi-meter to test for continuity (low resistance). There's only really one cable to test here. That's the loose fly lead in the lounge that I suspect is the feed from there to the bedroom TV. Start off by putting the meter on continuity test if it has it, or put it on an Ohms setting that gives a nought reading when you touch the probes together tip to tip. Now test the flylead in the lounge; one probe on the centre pin and one on the metal of barrel. It should measure the same as if the probes are apart. i.e. infinite resistance. Use a piece of tinfoil or wire to link the centre pin to the outer barrel of the plug on the living room fly lead. Go to the bedroom and repeat the test on the aerial lead there. If it's a link from the lounge as I suspect then it should measure low resistance. The length of the cable involved may well give a slightly different reading than if the probes were simply touching, but it should still be a low reading. Finally, go remove the shorting link and retest at the bedroom end. The resistance should now be very high. If that all works then you know that the cable is the feed from the lounge to the bedroom. If not then it's something else. By this stage you should have a good idea of what cables go where and what bits of gear (if any) is sitting in between the aerial on the roof and the outlet sockets and flyleads around your home. If it's a simple aerial-masthead amp-TV socket arrangement and you haven't found any bad plug wiring then it's probably time to try a power supply. Some masthead amps accept power up any leg of the downleads while others only one leg accepts power. Since you probably can't get to the roof to check what sort you might have then be prepared to try both legs. FYI- 1, wall sockets can sometimes be fitted with a decoupling capacitor which blocks phantom power up that leg. FYI- 2. It's common now to use the satellite type screw connectors for most bits of aerial gear. That means either changing plugs or making up adapter leads. You'll probably need a bit of aerial coax and some plugs to complete the test. Here's guides to fitting both plug types http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/fplugs.htm http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/tvplugs.htm but you don't need to bother with soldering the centre pin. Let us know how you get on. |
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#22 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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[url=http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/tvplugs.htm[/URL] but you don't need to bother with soldering the centre pin.
Let us know how you get on. The braid MUST be brought round over the claws NOT bunched up underneath which will give an intermittent connection and may not show continuity. It is also important to solder the centre pin for the same reason. Here is the correct method: http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html |
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#23 |
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Cheshire
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WRONG, & WRONG.
The braid MUST be brought round over the claws NOT bunched up underneath which will give an intermittent connection and may not show continuity. It is also important to solder the centre pin for the same reason. Here is the correct method: http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html ![]() I know this is your hobby horse but quite frankly I don't care about VHF TV; we don't use it for Freeview in the UK, and as for your other usual suggestion that Sky magic eyes must have the centre pins soldered or else they won't work correctly either then a) that hasn't been my experience and I have had zero return service call requests for that as an issue in 10+ years of installing, and b) it's not even relevant to the OP. So, with respect, take your "WRONG, & WRONG" and "MUST" and go shove it. |
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#24 |
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Join Date: Apr 2006
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Look, to all intents and purposes it makes bugger all difference in anything but some rare occasions that have very little to do with watching Freeview. I wouldn't have minded so much if you'd just have said "IMO there's a better way"... but to come on and start shouting (typing in caps) is flippin' rude.
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as for your other usual suggestion that Sky magic eyes must have the centre pins soldered or else they won't work correctly either then a) that hasn't been my experience and I have had zero return service call requests for that as an issue in 10+ years of installing, and b) it's not even relevant to the OP.
You don't need to solder it, but you MUST make a secure connection in some way, more common than soldering is crimping. If you don't, then it WILL be intermittent, and will almost certainly fail in a few years time. Almost all magic eye faults are caused by this not been done, and I've been to many hundreds to sort out such problems. |
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#25 |
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Join Date: Jun 2003
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The link he posted merely shows one individuals personal method of fitting coax plugs, it's not the 'right' way, and it's not the 'wrong' way - just one individuals way.
I'm not as convinced at any theoretical advantage to the way they recommend handling the screen braid. I have a lot of time for the boys over at ATV. We both seem to have come to the same conclusions independently: Braid over the claw doesn't make any significant difference in typical real world applications. LINK If a site is so blighted by interference that it requires a fully shielded RF connection then I'll ditch the Belling-Lee plug altogether and use a proper radial compression plug. I carry these as standard van stock. I also have a roll of BBC coax cable with two layers of the thickest braid coverage you've ever seen in your life. The point is that the BL plug is ancient technology. We now have an aerial system based on an impedance matched 75 Ohm load. Coax cable for TV and Satellite use is 75 Ohm too. Most half-decent aerial amps, splitters and even Sky eyes have now switched to the F plug because it maintains the 75 Ohm connection through the system. So what do we put on the end of this carefully impedance matched system as our final connection to the TV?.... A plug designed almost 100 years ago (1922) with an impedance which could be as low as 50 Ohms and that's no longer ideal for modern TV applications. Quite frankly, folding the braid over the claw is akin to polishing a turd. Quote:
You don't need to solder it, but you MUST make a secure connection in some way, more common than soldering is crimping. If you don't, then it WILL be intermittent, and will almost certainly fail in a few years time. Almost all magic eye faults are caused by this not been done, and I've been to many hundreds to sort out such problems.
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