I am about to move into a property (renting) that does not have a TV ariel point. The landlady is unwilling to invest in an external ariel and I am unwilling to pay for Sky as I may only be in the property for six months.

I currently live in a shared house next door (terraced) and may be able to convince my current flatmates to let me re-broadcast their TV signal using one of the Phillips Video Sender things.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experiences with these products? Maybe you can suggest a better brand or an alternative solution? I also wondered how poorly the TV signal will be diminised on a 24" Thompson widescreen.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thanks.

Tom

Ps. The area isn't cabelled either

If you didnt know, Rebroadcasting to a different house/flat via video-sender equipment is highly ileegal, and i would stongly advise you not to do it!

Even if you did have a videos ender, you would only be able to watch what your friends are watching (unless it was hooked up in a certain way)

I recommend buying a cheap internal aerial and geting a signal booster. Sometimes you can get very high quality signal with it. My nan has *perfect* signal quality with an internal aerial & booster. My nans internal set top aerial is sitting on a cabinet, so a set top internal aerial should be ok for you

Is it illegal if you still have aTV licence and are only rebroadcasting the terrestrial channels?

So using a sender I can't just plug the ariel wire into the sender and rebroadcast? It has to go straight from the TV?

As for boosters and internal ariels. Can anyone suggest any decent boosters? I've tried to use an internal ariel and booster (booster was about £20) before and it was useless.

Tom

Get a Maxview Truvision aerial, it is brilliant, i can pick up freeview with it caus it is so good. Its slightly bigger than most set top aerials, but just put it out of sight and it wont matter. Its around £10

As for a signal booster, this labgear one works brilliantly for my m8:

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/st...ategoryId=4330


and it is ileegal, even if you pay your tv licence. Because each dwelling must have it own aerial

I might be getting ahead of myself but is it possible to use a freeview box with an indoor ariel and signal booster?

(I live in central London)

well, i do


but it depends on how close you are to a transmitter, if their are any tall buildings in the way, etc.

My transmitter is 2 miles away, so i can pick freeview up with a set top aerial + booster.

Remember, your set top aerial would have to be pointing in the right direction

To answer your first question, as far as i know there are no video senders that send a UHF channel on 2.4Ghz.

The way that they work is that you plug a scart device, such as a VCR, DVD player or digital set top box (Freeview, cable, Sky). The device then sends that signal using 2.4GHz to the receiver.

So perhaps you could come to an agreement with one of your neighbours to have a video sender along with a Freeview box rigged up in their attic, and of course connected to their aerial.

Most 2.4Ghz video senders also send and receive infra-red signals, so you could do as suggested above, and use the remote to the Freeview box from your house.

Just a few ideas there.



Steven A.
(TheCableGuy)

This is correct. The input for the sending video sender is AVI or SCART.

And so is the output.

Even if you could watch freeview thru it, unless u would be forced to watch the same channel.

Rememebr tho, you are going into a grey zone with the law, and tv detector vans detect things like this

Are you sure? I thought people were free to use 2.4Ghz for video sending, as long as no money is being made out of it (e.g. charging neighbours to watch your Sky output).

no, i am sure that they must not intentionally be recieved by other households. Otherwise it is considered Public Broadcasting - which requires a different form of licence.

The law is fairly strict on things like this.

So again, i recomend against it

it could even be considered pirate tv,

because you are broadcasting OUT of a "household". And it is being recieved elsewhere.

Yes, but you would not be broadcasting on UHF or VHF, you are broadcasting on 2.4Ghz, which is allowed.

no, because it is broadcasting to a DIFFERENT HOUSEHOLD. That makes it ileegal

I'm not so sure. The Wireless Telegraphy (Exemption) Regulations 2003 don't mention anything about 2.4GHz emissions being limited to a single dwelling, premises, building or household. It would only be considered "pirate TV" if the video stream was being rebroadcast on an illicit frequency, and full motion-picture broadcasts on 2.4GHz are perfectly legal - same as if I download a video clip or watch a streaming Internet broadcast over my WLAN (also running at 2.4GHz), that is perfectly legal, too. The only potential issue would be that of "stealing" cable or satellite, but as long as the person receiving the transmissions has paid their TV Licence, you can't "steal" Freeview - it's free-to-air after all.

So, in short, I see no problem, unless he tampers with the digisender to broadcast the signal at a higher power level than is permitted under the terms of the licence exemption.

The best place for a video sender is argos.......

They do the AEI ones..... check out.... www.aeisecurity.com

They will send on 2.4 as you all say (and no licence is required legally to broadcast). Freeview you could probably get away with because it's free and the equipment you are broadcasting with does not require a licence. Sky on the other hand, if you check your contract is supplied to the house as specified on the contract so if you are in a different flat, your friend will be done for breach of contract and you for not having a viewing agreement.

If you want to increase your 2.4 range of your sender you can add a yagi aerial to your reciever (again totally legally ON THE RECIEVER) and you can recieve up to a maximum of 3KM's (almost 2 miles - line of sight - reduce that for buildings etc etc...).

For more info on yagi aerials, check out..... www.yagi.ws

Hope this helps.......

Have fun !

H&F

I would think the only real issue is that if you're not a family member (of the household with the TV licence) then you're breaking the law by using a video sender to receive TV for which you're not licenced. Freeview of course is only free with a sutiable TV licence.

You could receive TV via a coat hanger, tin can or aerial or dish.... a licence is required regardless.

It's nothing to do with the 2.4Ghz frequency, it's the fact that you'd technically need a TV licence to recieve a TV channel regardless of the means used to recieve it , other than video taped or non transmitted TV like prerecorded tapes etc. However, a video recorder videosending it's signal out would also be capable of sending out normal TV from it's own tuner, so again that requires a licence.

Complicated isn't it ? hehe

anyway, videos sender inputs and outputs are generally SCART or phono anyway. So you can not send plain "coaxial" UHF/VHF signal