Analogue TV Reception in Skerries

christo82

I was wondering is it possible to get a good reception on TG4 and TV3 from Skerries. My aerial is pretty old, so that might be the cause of the bad signal. Anyone from around that area have the same sort of poor signal?

Also, can anyone recomend a decent rooftop aerial around town for an ok price?

Cheers.

Mayo Exile

I'm not from the area so this is a guess. Are you getting your RTE1/2 on VHF? If so its probably from Kippure (south from you). You will then need a UHF grp. C/D aerial (horizontally polarised) to receive TV3 on ch. 62 and TG4 on ch. 59. If you are getting your RTE 1/2 through a VHF aerial already feed both aerials into a UHF/VHF diplexer.

Three Rock (also south) might also be possible. TV3 from here is on ch. 35 and TG4 is on ch. 55. (horizontally polarised too). RTE 1/2 is also on UHF from this transmitter. (chs. 29 and 33) so a UHF grp. W aerial is needed. Three Rock is alot weaker than Kippure though. 25 KW as opposed to 500 KW (on UHF).

Any aerial installers viewing these pages will give you the correct info if this is wrong.

watty

I would have thought Three Rock (south) or Clermont Carn (north) both all UHF. for Skerries depending on exact location. But not Kippure

Mayo Exile

Apologies Watty! Thought about adding Clermont Carn as well. But thought it might be too far from Skerries for decent reception. (30+ miles?) Clermont Carn, if suitable, is all UHF, grp. C/D, vertically polarised, TV3 is on ch. 66, TG4 on ch. 68. (RTE 1/2, chs. 52, 56).

Is Kippure not suitable, even though a stronger signal, because it is aimed mainly to the south and west, for Kildare and Wicklow, while Three Rock is meant for Dublin City and county?

watty

Kippure, Mt. Lienster, Truskmore (Sligo), Maghera, Mullaghanish are all the original VHF sites that would appear to be more chosen for height / geographic coverage rather than looking at actual corverage likely for any population centres. IMO they are all poor sites. Worse at UHF than at VHF because of terrain. They all give great coverage for sheep.

Clermont Carn, Carn Hill, Spur Hill, HolyHill? (Derry) and Three Rock are all good sites for either geographic UHF propagation or to cover major population centres. By this stage obviously RTE RF planning had improved immensly. Unfortunately while Woodcock hill gives a good Limerick City feed, it would better further east on ridge near "Golfball" as it gives no Shannon coverage also it is only 100W, A bigger mast and 10kW would be good. Previously Limerick area (150k people) only got "fringe" quality reception from Maghera and Mullaganish.

Unfortunately by time Three Rock introduced most of Dublin was already cabled.

Kildare mostly has to make do with Kippure.

Various bits of the West of Wicklow covered by Kippure and Mt Lienster, but doen't folks more often live on EAST side of Wicklow facing Wales?

Look at the sites with Google Earth. Accentuate the height of terrain x3 and rotate to get a perspective view.

North West Mayo, all Donegal, West Cork and Most of Kerry are hard to cover without lots of small relays. They probabily need more relays in all those areas and stop the Donegal Illegal transmitters (get the folks Satellite BBC/ITV).

L1011

Three Rock is going to be -very- weak by Skerries. Its Clermont or nothing, really. Three Rock is a very, very low power transmitter.

mrdtv

Actually Three Rock can be received in South Down ( works well from Newcastle south along the road to Kilkeel, used to be received well in East Down but is now wrecked by Divis DTT, and has been received regularly in North Wales. Its a high site and has 20kW ERP.

L1011

mrdtv wrote:

Actually Three Rock can be received in South Down ( works well from Newcastle south along the road to Kilkeel, used to be received well in East Down but is now wrecked by Divis DTT, and has been received regularly in North Wales. Its a high site and has 20kW ERP.

Theres a difference between "can be" received and "good quality on an indoor aerial".

Clermont is relatively high and is 300kW ERP. Both have relatively little to anything in the way, either.

christo82

Thanks for your help guys. It's much appreciated. I'm not really that technically minded when it comes to transmitters and all. I should probably ring around some aerial installers, see what they think about it.

Again, thanks.:)

Ulsterman 1690

watty wrote:

the original VHF sites that would appear to be more chosen for height / geographic coverage rather than looking at actual corverage likely for any population centres. ).

Maybe its because RTE's public service remit requires them to serve all (or as much as possible) of Ireland regardless of population density and not just cream off the densely populated bits

watty wrote:

They probabily need more relays in all those areas and stop the Donegal Illegal transmitters

Presumably this is yet another anti-deflector tirade
Firsty the deflectors are NOT illegal. COMREG have issued deflector licences in 2000.
Secondly the deflectors are licenced on a "secondary basis" which means they CANNOT cause interference to anyones reception of RTE or any other primary service
Thirdly I cant for the life of me understand the deep rooted begrudgery against deflector stystems that several posters on ICDG seem to have ! Granted FTA satellite and/or DTT are destined to eventually replace them over the next decade but for the last 25 years they have provided a service to many parts of Ireland which would have been condemed to televisual ignorance otherwise.

watty

They are legal now, retrospectively, for political expediance. That's six years out of 25 - 30 they have been legal.

Oddly people in Donegal or anywhere else don't have a "right" to getting UK TV. Lot of Irish areas never served by "deflectors".

Now at least anyone in Ireland can get BBC/ITV free via satellite. Even C4 and Five is not complicated.

I did consultancy for deflector groups in the past. Most did it to try and make money, not out of some desire to provide quality TV.

With a licence the so called "deflectors" should meet basic technical standards.

DTT was supposed to have started before 2000, the licence was a recognician that wasn't happening and sets a bad precedent.

watty

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Maybe its because RTE's public service remit requires them to serve all (or as much as possible) of Ireland regardless of population density and not just cream off the densely populated bits

So they should have put more repeaters (what RTE calls transposers).

When I moved to Limerick from N.I. in 1983 I was appalled how poor the TV coverage was. In BBC a lot of "coverage" would have been regarded as "fringe reception".

National coverage is still poor IMO, and it is crazy in the very areas most likely to want TG4 they need two aerials.

MMDS or Cable at the 8 or so locations I lived was so bad I chucked it and did without BBC/ITV. So was UK TV less I got Five on Analog Satellite, then BBC / ITV later on Digital Satellite.

It would have made more sense for COMREG to arrange FTV cards for people in Ireland in 2000 than licence Deflectors.


I'm from the North. I got to have a tirade against something Don't be too hard on me "Ulsterman 1690". I'll try not to give out about them again for a few months!

SPAWKER

christo82
Where abouts in the town are you and do you have a power unit on your aerial?The cheapest place to buy a new aerial is in Wescos in Drogheda it will cost you around e30 you will also get the power unit and masthead amphlier there as well.You can also get the gear in Vision Radio in Balbriggan.

Ulsterman 1690

They are legal now, retrospectively, for political expediance. That's six years out of 25 - 30 they have been legal.

About time too. Kinda proves that those who used to maintain it was "impossible" to legalise them because there "wasnt enough frequency space" were lying

Now at least anyone in Ireland can get BBC/ITV free via satellite. Even C4 and Five is not complicated.

Except those unfortunate to be living under the thumb of the more naziesque local authorities/property "managment" companies who dont allow dishes

Most did it to try and make money, not out of some desire to provide quality TV.

Is wanting to make money a crime ?

So they should have put more repeaters /When I moved to Limerick from N.I. in 1983 I was appalled how poor the TV coverage was. In BBC a lot of "coverage" would have been regarded as "fringe reception"./National coverage is still poor IMO,

Most (99%+) parts of Ireland can get perfectly adequete RTE & TG4 reception with a proper outdoor aerial. RTE could of course spend vast sums installing high powered relays in every city and major town to pander to those who think theyre entitled to perfect reception even on "rabbits ears" but why should they. It would be a waste of money (which they could be using to make better programmes) and a waste of frequency spectrum (which could be used for additional services)

and it is crazy in the very areas most likely to want TG4 they need two aerials.

Nothing at all crazy about it. Its pretty standard throughout Europe for people to need at least two aerials to recieve their main national TV services (not including channels from neighbouring countries) Even in the UK it is not uncommon for people to need a second aerial to get Channel 5

It would have made more sense for COMREG to arrange FTV cards for people in Ireland in 2000 than licence Deflectors.

Perhaps but then who would pay for the ROI programming rights for the UK channels quite apart from the fact that it would undermine the whole (albeit rather dubious) purpose of said cards

lawhec

Using coverage maps I generated a while back...

Three Rock - https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/3195/19815.gif

Clermont Carn -
https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/3195/19503.jpg

It appears that Clermont would be the safest bet, with Three Rock being available in most places though it could prove tricky in parts depending on the terrain.

I haven't generated coverage maps in a while. I'll get back around to it soon.