Darn tv reception issues...

..its doing my head in!

First off, we've always had quite bad reception and no digital so I bought a smart new aerial which made things a bit better but not brilliant and I couldn't get a digital signal. Then, the other day, I decided to have a fiddle and I unplugged it from the back of the video and stuck it straight into the tv and it worked alot better. Hurrah I thought, so I got a digibox and plugged that in and managed to get some channels but not some essentials like ITV. It wasn't perfect but I thought "No problem, I'll plug in a booster. But it made the picture worse!" Now, why would it do that!?

The aerial is up in the attic and I'm going to move it higher into the roof space as the next measure but I'm still confused as to why the booster would make it worse, and why having it run through the video made it bad? Any ideas? And any foolproof tips on actually getting a decent picture?

 

yeah, wish I knew the answer...

we can only get 4 channels to start with (no channel 5) and gawd help us it it rains - we normally get 2 channels...!

we'd need to adjust the ariel if we wanted to use freeview and I'm not intrested in sky etc...

 

put simply ,crap in=crap out.Both the vidieo and booster will amplify the noise as well as the tv signal.
Any chance of getting the aerial outside,as high as possible.Also might be worth trying a narrow band aerial.one final thing to check is whats betwen you and the transmiter,in some cases you can get a better piccy from a tramsmiter further away than a local one .If all else fails theres always freesat

 

That would be my starting point and I'd be surprised if you needed to look further. Get it up on the roof. If it's a rubbish aerial then whilst you're going to the extreme hassle of roof clambering, it's probably also worthwhile investing in a reasonable aerial. I've never found a need to spend a lot - just not Lidl if not Fortnum and Mason if you get my drift

 

Unfortunatley some nimby planners make developers put clauses in the deeds for new builds that prohibit external areials amongst other things.

 

You can't put them on any listed buildings either.

 

Mr Smith does exceedingly good aerials and both he and the BBC offer free advice, might be worth a browse.

You could always try bbciplayer or whatever is available for other channels if your isp allows you enough download capacity.

 

Hmm. Well, I'll get a bit more height on it by getting some new cable and sticking it higher up in the roof and see how it goes from there. It can go a couple of metres higher. I'm not keen on sticking it on the roof as its a rented property and its quite a tall building so I don't fancy starting that job.

Also, looking at the Digitaluk website, my area isn't that well covered anyway so I'm not going to get great digital reception whatever I do.

Cheers for the tips.

 

HI
IM new to this site and I live in Canada
If you are referring to DTV
Then if you have any time on your hands I recently viewed a video
on you tube that illustrates a home made antenna made from coat hangers
I live near the US border and most stations I recieve come from the US
The United States is going digital come this Feb
I dont recieve cable but choose to use free to air reception
Anyway all that being said Im in need of a set top atsc tuner which I have already ordered because I am using an older television
Anyhow just check out that you tube video I mentioned maybe it will help you
Apparently this antenna does not require a roof top mounting but can be put behind the TV
Im building one this weekend and will post you the results as soon as I get my new converter
Timsbin

 

welcome to the forum timsbin!

Do you have a link to the youtube video? Will be interesting to read your opinions after you've tried it.

 

Hi Mo
I hope you get my email
I sent it to your hotmail
Its the coat hanger HDTV ant video