Is this booster/aerial any good?

yop

Lads, I spotted this on ebay, what do ye think, is it a load of pants and only suited to towns, I am out on the West coast with a big Transmitter in Achill for the signals which is crap, would this be of any use as all other people around me use the long aerials with boosters, but the pictures are not great.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/PHILIPS-TOP-OF-THE-RANGE-PORTABLE-TV-VHF-UHF-FM-AERIAL_W0QQitemZ5862585089QQcategoryZ101365QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

watty

No. It is total rubbish. No good for Towns either.

Any aerial in an Attic works better than one of these.

The second one down the list here
http://www.partmaster.co.uk/cgi-bin/catalogue.pl?section=7854

Or here
http://www.partmaster.co.uk/cgi-bin/product.pl?PID=261273&item=92327&section=7854

Mercury Set top TV Aerial £3.75
Budget priced UHF set top aerial, Five elements with folded dipole, Easily adjustable for horizontal & vertical planes.

I've used these. They work as well as any indoor UHF aerial, better than many. But no use if you need an outside aerial. They will work better in attic or on upstairs windowsill pointing at transmitter.

An amplifier on a set top aerial will just amplifiy noise.

If everyone else has a big outdoor aerial, then that is the starting point!

adrian.s

watty wrote:

No. It is total rubbish. No good for Towns either.

Aggggh, Now I read this. After several brilliant years of free NTL, I was finally rumbled last summer and rambled down to PowerCity to buy one of those yokes.

3 days later I resigned myself to calling NTL and getting my cable re-connected. Quality from the aeriel was crap, and when you've just built yourself a big fancy PVR system to manage TV, you want to have some reasonably decent TV channels to watch.

Gas thing is they gave me 12 months free cable for taking broadband with them!

A.

L1011

You'd be surprised how good those Philips powered set top antennas are, watty. I'm using a fancier one then that and its giving me perfect VHF and UHF off Kippure here, its more than perfect for towns that have even fairly bad coverage. I can't get VHF off kippure with the whip antenna that my portable came with, for instance.

And yes, I know I should get Three Rock here. I can't. Don't ask me why.

watty

I was talking about UHF.

Perhaps your TV is not so sensitive as mine, but a preamp close to aerial on VHF causes less problem.

Have you compared on UHF with the aerial I suggest?

In Kildare you OUGHT to get good VHF even without a preamp. Your built in Whip must be unusually poor

Three rock is shielded by Hills and Mountains to West and south. Draw a line on map From Three rock to Kells. There is nearly nothing West of that line.

yop

Ya, I see what you mean, I had a pair of rabbits ear there on a portable Philips tv and I could barely get RTE 2!!
On another TV, a mitsubishi, I managed to get an excellent picture on all 3 channels, must be a poor tuner in the philips or some thing

L1011

I don't have any other aerial kit to compare UHF on, but all I can say is that its giving me perfect UHF also, with NICAM and teletext all coming in clean.