NTL analog cable signal

bigtimecharlie

Have moved into a house in the last month and it has NTL analog cable only. The cable was run throught a video and onto the T.V. with each T.V. channel tuned for a specific station. Picture quality ranged from good on some channel's to poor particularly on C4 and E4.

I then installed my video between the incoming cable and the video already present. I also have an old NTL cable unit that was supplied for recieving Sky Sport's at a previous address. I connected this between my video and the incoming cable and hey presto, it work's perfectly and even Sky Sport's 1 and 2 are still there. However C4 and E4 are now totally unwatchable and the other stations have lost some of their picture quality.

Removed the old cable unit and the picture inproved as the other's were not happy with the poor picture quality.

Has anyone any idea's where the main problem with the picture quality lie's? Is it with the amount of recieveing devices ( cable unit, 2 video's and the T.V.) or is it the incoming signal in the first place? I want the Sky Sport's for as long as they are available.

This post is slightly different to an earlier post which has 3 T.V. running of the one cable.

John R

Channel 4, E4 and discovery are always the first channels on ntl to deteriorate because of the frequencies they are on. ntl are testing them on new frequencies at the moment.
The most likely fix for your problem is the cables and connections, make sure the inner connection on each cable and the vcrs is tight. if that doesn't help then check if one of your vcr/cable box is causing a problem. connect each one seperately and see if one is affecting the picture badly.

m4cker

i had the problem you were talking about and the signal booster fixed it. your problem seems to be similar.

bigtimecharlie

I would have imagined that the first appliance after the wall socket acted like a signal booster?

peeps

i have the same problem, our cable is running through two other tv's before it gets to mine and discovery is nearly completely gone and e4 and channel4 have bad reception. the first tv has perfect reception, the second has faint strippy lines on e4 and channel4 and by mine its nearly unwatchable.
is there anything i can do to improve the quality or is it just because its passing through 2 other tv's first?
also does anyone know if you can buy the connection to the ntl box so that you can connect 2 cables to it?, what i mean is on the ntl box at the wall there is 2 sockets but only one has this thing like an adapter ring or something to connect it to the cable, the other is just like a nut or screw. is there anywhere that i can get that adapter ring thingy?

GreeBo

I've had this problem before (now have digital)
The prob is that most of your channels are on UHF but the Sky Sports boys are on VHF (actually I might have that backwards!) so you need to boost both signals.

A 4 way splitter worked better for me than a booster, (which was odd becuase it was an industrial booster got from a mate in the business and note a cheapy homebase job) the booster had 2 inputs, uhf and vhf
and we could get deadly sky sports from vhf but nothing else or vice versa from the uhf.

the channels are the ends of the spectrum were always worst effected (discovery, channel 4)

GreeBo

Originally posted by peeps
does anyone know if you can buy the connection to the ntl box so that you can connect 2 cables to it?, what i mean is on the ntl box at the wall there is 2 sockets but only one has this thing like an adapter ring or something to connect it to the cable, the other is just like a nut or screw. is there anywhere that i can get that adapter ring thingy?

You could split the cable before it gets to the box and then run a cable to wherever you want.

AFAIK the box does nothing but act as an annoying socket.

John R

Originally posted by peeps
i have the same problem, our cable is running through two other tv's before it gets to mine and discovery is nearly completely gone and e4 and channel4 have bad reception. the first tv has perfect reception, the second has faint strippy lines on e4 and channel4 and by mine its nearly unwatchable.
is there anything i can do to improve the quality or is it just because its passing through 2 other tv's first?
also does anyone know if you can buy the connection to the ntl box so that you can connect 2 cables to it?, what i mean is on the ntl box at the wall there is 2 sockets but only one has this thing like an adapter ring or something to connect it to the cable, the other is just like a nut or screw. is there anywhere that i can get that adapter ring thingy?

1. The cable does not pass through tv's you have split the signal several times to feed the three tv's. It is these splitters (and probably cheap cable) that is degrading the signal.

2. the ntl box has 2 outputs, one is for tv the other is for FM radio, the outputs should be filtered to each band so connecting the radio output to a tv would not give a good reception.

John R

Originally posted by redoxan
I've had this problem before (now have digital)
The prob is that most of your channels are on UHF but the Sky Sports boys are on VHF (actually I might have that backwards!) so you need to boost both signals.

A 4 way splitter worked better for me than a booster, (which was odd becuase it was an industrial booster got from a mate in the business and note a cheapy homebase job) the booster had 2 inputs, uhf and vhf
and we could get deadly sky sports from vhf but nothing else or vice versa from the uhf.

the channels are the ends of the spectrum were always worst effected (discovery, channel 4)

All the cable channels are on VHF. except for the replacement e4 which is currently testing on UHF in low power.

peeps

well if its crap cables where can i get decent ones? one of the cables has to be 10 metres long.
and with better cables would the splitters still effect the reception?

GreeBo

its probably not the cables, more likely the connections.

If you connected them yourself you need to make sure that you have the shielding on properly.
also, use the good metal connectors and not the cheap plastic crap ones.