Problem with my reception (regular terrestrial arial)

deadl0ck

Hi All,
Just over a year ago I had an ariel on the roof of my place and I got RTE1, RTE2, TV3, TG4, BBC1, BBC2, UTV and CH4 (The English stations were OK reception, Irish stations were perfect).

I then got Chorus, but I have got rid of chorus now and I want to go back to my regular ariel.

Now all I can get are the 4 Irish Channels (and TG4 is a bit fuzzy).

I have a booster onthe ariel before it goes into the telly and that helps a lot, but I can't get the English channels I had before.

When I had the channels before I had what I thought was a booster also, but I couldn't find it and I bought a new booster.

Today I found the old booster, but I'n not that sure that is was a booster now....

It has an ariel input and output, but it's Labelled :

--> In Lead From Amp

and

Out Lead To TV -->

Which leads me to believe it's not a booster but some sort of power supply (it also has a mains plug) for the ariel - or is this just crazy talk ????

Could it be there's already some sort of booster on the ariel and this sends power up to to increase the signal coming down ???

Other Info on this box is as follows :

12 Vott DC
NEGATIVE EARTH
POWER SUPPLY

Technical Features
Mains input 230-250 volt ~ 50Hz
Power : Consumption 1VA:
Output 12v D.C. at 50mA max. :
DC Current Negative Earth
Insertion Loss < 1.0dB : Frequence 40-860 mHZ
REF : MH1000 POWER SUPPLY
Mercury Telecraft

Could this be the problem ?
Should I reconnect this ?
and
If this does carry power, do I need special coax/connectors or is regular OK ?

Thanks !!!

ffocused

What you used to have was probably an amplifier as opposed to a simple signal booster. I used to live in Laytown and had an amplifier for the UK channels in the living room and a signal booster upstairs to boost the signal to the other tv's in the house.
Reconnect the amp and you should be sorted. plug the aeriel output in to it and then connect the output to your tv.
Boosters only work when the source signal is strong and gets degraded down a long length of coax. eg 1 aeriel to 3/4 tv sets.

deadl0ck

Cool !
Thanks - I have BBC1, BBC 2 and UTV. BBC1 is good, the others aren't great, but a lot more than what I had.

I can't get CH4, but maybe the ariel has been moved by wind over the last year or so.

byte

deadl0ck wrote:

Which leads me to believe it's not a booster but some sort of power supply (it also has a mains plug) for the ariel - or is this just crazy talk ????

Could it be there's already some sort of booster on the ariel and this sends power up to to increase the signal coming down ???

Yes, you're quite right. That thing IS a Power supply unit, that sends 12v up the coaxial cable to power the mast head amplifier.

BTW, amplifier and booster are commonly regarded as different names for the same thing. There's just different variations of amps depending on the job it has to do.

Ulsterman 1690

I can't get CH4, but maybe the ariel has been moved by wind over the last year or so

The Aerial could have been moved by wind or bits of it might have blown off itor water could have got into the cable or maybe its just a loose connection somewhere (first explanation is the most likely though)

Also make sure that nobody has been fiddling with the tuning on the TV and untuned Channel 4 on you

Its also possible that Channel 4 are temporairly on reduced power/off air (especially with the storms and wotnot) so wait a couple of days and see if it comes back on before you waste money getting anyone out to look at it