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TV aerial
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Just got a new Samsung HD TV for my bedroom. Only problem is I don't have an aerial socket. The TV has a built in freeview box so I wanna be able to use that. The nearest aerial socket is in the bedroom across the hall from mine, so might be a tricky job wiring it up to that. I'm just wondering if I can get any decent indoor aerials, that will pick up freeview and are compatible with HD TVs. I don't really know what the signal strength is like where I live, but I live in a first floor flat in the city and it's not a low down (or high up) area. Are indoor aerials any good and can anyone recommend me one? Or should I just try and wire it from the socket in the other room?
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its worth a try.
I was bang opposite a transmitter where I used to live and did my Freeview work with an indoor aerial? Did it buggery.
I think that website said it'd be fine too :grump:
Granted my aerial is about six years old, generally if you buy a cheapo aerial then it won't work as well.
Also the Tv signal is split into groups and to get the best signal you need the correct antenna for the transmitter - these universal wideband ones they sell in the shops are cheap and may not be the best ones for the job - I already posted about this in the past so if anyone is that keen they can do a search to find out more.
i used this one, went from having really poor signal with a older indoor aerial to be able to get spot of freeview pictures.
abviously depends on where it is, but i recommended one of these to a guy at work and it did the trick for him too.
if argos is near by, get one and try it, if it dont work, take it back
nice one, might try it out.
also saw this one, which is more expensive but says it's HD ready. Should I go for something like that instead seeing as I have a HD TV?
The country is divided into different bands - to get the best reception you need to know what band you are in
If you look at that graph it show that if you in a Band A area (like Me) and buy a wideband antenna you'll only get around 11Db of signal BUT if you buy the correct Band A Antenna you'll get more like 20db of reception, and that's not almost double because the strength in decibels double every 3db, so 14db is double of 11db, 17db is double of 14db, etc
Maybe you could use one of those wireless signal senders they sell these days? It'd probably only cost the same as a crappy indoor boosted aerial, and you'd have the proper picture off the main aerial.
I agree. I have always found indoor ariels to be shit.
It might be a hassle but wire it up to the ariel point, you will get a much better picture and all Freeview channels, especially for you shiny new TV
When I bought my samsung 32" HD Freeview built in tv I switched the aerial to the tv but it would find any signal no matter what I did and I know what I'm doing with these things.
The funny part is that the tv is right next to the freeview box and i never moved the aerial yet the box gets signal and the tv doesnt.
I did a test a while back with the cheapest aerial at the time we had and an expensive one, both sat in the same place connected to the same tv and believe it or not the expensive one was worse for signal than the cheap one.
The whole thing is really trial and error due to many differing factors.
Depending on where you are in town Addict watch out for things like high rise buildings around you, cranes and that kind of thing as it can screw the signal right up.
As for what people are saying about using a proper aerial, whilst this is the recommended method it isnt always possible. IF you live in a flat with the wrong aerial type there is nothing you can do about it to fix it. If like us you have one aerial split to all the homes and it's supposed to be a wideband freeview compatable aerial and it doesnt work, again you can't do anything about it.
Just gotta work with what you got eh.
He said he wants it for freeview so it won't make a difference if the signal is strong enough - we have our Band A antenna in the loft and the Analouge signal is not that great simply because
a) it's in the loft and not outside
b) it's not aligned as perfectly as it could be
HOWEVER none of that makes any difference with freeview because the decibels from our Antenna are so strong because we've bought the proper antenna for our transmitter and the picture is digital - you either get a picture or you get nothing.
BTW wireless senders only send the picture from the scart socket we have one - also the signal from those is HUGELY affect by people nearby with wireless internet.
Did the auto-tune thing with the TV, and it's found alot of channels with good picture, however I've noticed some channels are missing that should be with freeview.
Can't get any of the following: Sky News, Sky Sports News, E4+1, FilmFour, and Dave. Probably some others missing too that I don't know of.
Anyone have any idea what's up?
Looks like the aerial is missing MUX C from its reception. Some banded aerials can't get all the channels from all the transmitters.
You may have to point it in a different direction to try and get both transmitters
our signals come from two difference sources.