I hope someone may shed some light on the problems we are having...

This is our set up,
We have a sky+ box in the living room with an aerial connected to a lcdtv in the kids playroom, the signal is ok, not brilliant on some channels but adequate.

In our bedroom we have a new lcd tv (which is causing the problems to arise) which can be connected to the sky+ box or to another sky box (as multiroom) in the conservatory. However when connected to the sky box there is no signal on most freeview channels (this changes occaisionally but all signals are 0 or under 50%- sometimes if you move the aerial cable the situation changes, dodgy cable??). There is no proper aerial connected to this sky box just an old internal one.

When this bedroom tv is connected to the sky+ box most channels are there with a few exceptions itv, channel 4 and 5. But when picking up sky on analogue channel the reception is worse than on the other aerial. Why could this be? (this aerial is shorter than the other)

What I need to know is how can we improve the reception on this tv to pick up all freeview channels on the sky box aerial?
What will improve reception generally?

Would a booster help at all? and where to put it? ( no rude remarks please!)

At present we have an aerial in the loft as we are higher than surrounding houses but it is OLD! We are about to have a loft extension so it will have to be moved/updated - any advice on this would be great! Dont get too technical but at least Ill have an idea what to ask for and not look like a complete idiot!

One more thing - when on to technical support to get advice - they told me what we were doing was impossible although it worked on the kids tv, but anyway - they said the sky signals were analogue not digital - how can this be?

Sorry to be long winded, its all very frustrating so any help will be gratefully received! Many thanks!

Very simply; put an external Digital capable aerial outside with distribution amp. locate the Amp. in the accessable loftspace thats left after the conversion, then an aerial lead from the Amp. to each TV. A typical distribution Amp. will have around 6 outlets but you can get larger & smaller ones, Example; http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...416&doy=search

I'm not sure why you think you would get freeview reception fed from the RF lead of the sky boxes? you will simply get an Analogue Sky output which when tuned into your TV will provide the Sky TV channels only. Unless I have misunderstood what you are saying?

Right let us try to explain things.

On the back of the Sky box you will find three aerial connectors. One is for connection to an aerial (RF IN), either a roof top, loft or indoor aerial. the other two, RF 1 and RF 2, are outputs to feed to TV sets.

Inside the Sky box is a circuit called a modulator. This is in effect a small TV transmitter. It takes whatever channel the Sky box is set to and creates a signal that gets mixed with the signals from the aerial and fed to the TVs. This signal can then be tuned into on the TVs just like BBC1 and BBC2 etc. from the aerial. That is the ONLY signal that you will receive from the RF 1 and RF 2 sockets on the Sky box that is generated by the Sky box itself. Anything else depends on what, if any, aerial you have connected to the RF in socket.

The Sky box plays only a small part in whether you can get Freeview via this aerial or not. If there is no Freeview signal on the aerial then it won't get passed on to the TVs via the Sky box. If there is a signal then the Sky box can degrade it slightly or cause interference to it if the modulator is set incorrectly. But it will not generate a Freeview signal that isn't already there.

What you may get in strong signal areas is pick up via the cable. This will be pretty weak though and nothing like as good as a proper aerial. But it may explain why things change as you move the aerial lead.

But what you need is a proper aerial connected to the RF IN socket on the Sky box to get Freeview on the TVs attached to the RF 1 or RF 2 sockets.

HI
Thanks for that, makes sense really!
As the freeview channels come through the original loft aerial and then get passed along, I get a better freeview reception on the tv connected to the loft aerial as the other doesnt have a proper aerial. Logical really!

Ill be keeping this ready for when we can get it done. Thanks again!