So I have a single coax cable coming into the lounge which is connected to our Sony KDL-40W705C. There is a bit of flex before it goes into its connector which gives us options if that has to be rewired.

Picture quality is good, plenty of channels, happy days.

However, we now want to get a TV in our bedroom too, an older 2009 Sony Bravia that we upgraded from.

I estimate a distance of 25 metres of coax will be needed to get the connection point from our lounge to the bedroom, I have no time for trunking that amount of cable so I will hide it under the carpet then mount a connection box near the second TV.

I am rather limited in the respect that the maintenance company of the building will not allow any more external aerials or dishes (as they already have a sky dish if you pay to have connection to it, would rather make do with the regular free view everyone gets in the block) so I am having to make do with either an internal aerial or tapping into what we have in situ.

The transmitter we are tuned to is 16 miles away, so not exactly great for an internal aerial I would have thought

Can anyone give any pointers as to what would be the best solution as I've not had to deal with this kind of situation before

I don't mind mounting a signal booster if they are good near to our main TV in the lounge, I don't plan on having any other TVs, (maybe a small one in the kitchen if funds allow eventually) so 3 outputs will suffice max.

TIA

I presume there is no aerial point in the bedroom already? Some systems have a point in a bedroom wired to a socket on the living room wall plate, often labelled "Return". The idea is that if you have a Sky box you can plug the RF out from it to the "Return" socket then get Freeview plus Sky in the bedroom.

And if you don't have Sky just add a simple splitter to split the main aerial feed to the living room TV and "Return" socket.

In the absence of a Return socket then your only option is a length of cable from the living room. Make sure you use good quality double screened low loss cable to minimise problems. For example

http://cpc.farnell.com/webro/wf100-b...50m/dp/CB14804

I would not run the cable under carpets however. If you run it under places where people can walk over it all it does is make it harder to fix the breaks. Better to use cable clips to secure it to the skirting and round door frames. And take the cable through holes in the wall or the door frame. Don't rely on that gap under the door to run the cable through!

If your communal system is anything like the one feeding my flat a powered splitter would be unnecessary. The signal is so hot a passive splitter would have no noticeable effect. If your TV can display signal strength then check that and if hovering up close to 100% you might be able to get away with a passive splitter and with good cable the losses shouldn't be too great to degrade the signal beyond use.

Not the best solution overall, but given the constraints you have perhaps the most appropriate would be something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/SLx-Aerial-.../dp/B0009D5W0Q which you would place in the main room where the aerial connection is and run the distribution from there.

Whether an indoor aerial would work is less to do with just distance and more to do with terrain and the power of the transmitter - e.g. if it's open countryside and the transmitter is a high-power one then the chance of success is much higher than if you are in a built up area with alot of other things around which could disrupt the signal - even a high power one. For example there are areas of East and South London which struggle to get a good signal from Crystal Palace transmitter which is fewer than 10 miles away (despite the fact it is a very high power transmitter) because of the disruption Canary Wharf creates to the signal......

The signal strength was fairly strong when I looked (have only recently got the TV wall mounted and installed).

I will come back to you with its reading on the read out screen.

Thanks for the replies so far, gives me something to mull over

What about a Freesat box coupled to the commual Sky connection, with a video sender?

Forgot to mention, I have one redundant cable in the balcony which might be worth tapping into and seeing if I can get something from it.

I am wondering if that was the old sky connection from the previous flat owner

I was asked if I wanted to pay for sky but if the connection is already there that's not my fault is it? lol

Its been cut off at about mid door height and was left dangling around our balcony/patio doors....

Forgot to mention, there are no other sockets in the property at all, only one coax coming into the flat which is connected to a standard aerial (except a redundant cable in the balcony which I have had no time to try to connect to).

When I moved in there was a standard aerial connection on the cable going into the flat, which I am using now, I know nothing about sky or its connections so even If the redundant cable in the balcony is for sky I wouldn't know easily.

Would the construction of the cable be different I am simply more interested to know if Sky would be possible without yet more cables coming into the flat or its a redundant standard aerial from a previous old system.

Can you see where the cable goes? Depending on how the satellite system is set up it may go to the LNB on a dish or it may go to a multiswitch device which distributes the satellite LNB feeds.

If it goes to a multiswitch it may have been disconnected at that end as well and so be completely dead.

The other problem if it is outside on the balcony it may have been there for some time exposed to rain which could have degraded the cable. Usually easy to tell as the copper screen braid can turn a nasty black colour. You may have to chop back several feet of cable to get a decent bit of copper to make a good connection, or if you are lucky just a few inches.

Its been hiding under the next floors balcony so it might still be ok, but I cant see where it goes to as the flats are about 5 levels high and then it goes way back into the building top somewhere.

That sort of suggests the satellite feed (assuming that what it is) is using a multiswitch type distribution system as there are probably too many flats for a simple dish and LNB set up.

So there is always a chance it's been disconnected at the multiswitch end. But no harm trying it.

Of course it's a multiswitch, that's how communal antennas work ......