aerial question

shovel

Hi lads, wonder if you could help.

Will try to keep this as short as possible.

I got a local installer to fit rooftop aerials on my house a few years ago.He put up a vhf and a seperate uhf aerial wired into a combiner on the pole and then wired down into the attic. In the attic an "argos" 4 way booster/splitter sends signal to 4 tv points.

The picture quality was never great so i decided to see what i could do.

I have replaced all interior rf cable in the house with good quality cable. direct runs with no wallplates. all new connectors. Changed the booster/splitter

The picture quality has improved greatly.-BUT one thing is still the same

On rte 1 only i am getting a "ghost" effect.

On a programme such as the 9 oclock news i can see an outline of the newscaster to the right of the actual figure.

When a match is on the scoreline box up in the corner has an outline double next to it. all the players have outline doubles. One fifth of the picture on the left hand side of the screen has a small bit darker hue.

Rte 2 is fine. tv3 and tg4 are fine too.teletext is fine with no text missing so assume signal is ok.

All tvs in the house show the same.

I am in north kerry.

Rte 1 comes in on ch 5.
Rte 2 comes in on ch8.
Tv3 comes in on ch 66.
Tg4 comes in on ch 68.

Any ideas. do i get ladders and start moving the aerial

Any ideas appreciated

Shovel

coylemj

You're picking up the signal from Maghera which is near Gort in south Galway, RTE1 and 2 are on VHF channels E & H and and TV3/TG4 are on UHF channels 66 and 68.

If the other channels are OK then you're picking up a good signal from Maghera so it doesn't look like your problem is the transmitter but the VHF aerial and/or the splitter/booster. Nonetheless a possible solution is to find an alternative transmitter such as Mullaganish or one of the 18 RTE repeaters in Kerry.

For starters, will you be a bit more specific about where you live because Kerry has more repeaters than any other part of the country and you might also tell us what frequency your car radio prefers for RTE1 radio when parked at your house -assuming it's RDS with auto tuning enabled.

shovel

Thanks for the reply

I live in tarbert. co kerry.

Have tried the rds function on my car radio for radio 1,but i must be doing it wrong. Its not changeing from the frequency i have it normally set to which is 88.8.

On a manual seek i am recieveing at 88.8, 89.2,89.4,90.0.

My tv's are panasonics and only display numbers when tuning, so when you say that rte 1 and 2 are channels e & h. i am not too sure what you mean.

Have just bypassed booster/splitter and no difference.

So it must be the vhf aerial or the cableing outside.

BUT why is rte 2 ok?

Thanks for your patience

Shovel

coylemj

The VHF channels I quoted were E and H and you mentioned 5 and 8 so there's no clash as E is the 5th letter of the alphabet and H is the 8th so there's the explanation.

The radio signals you're picking up are coming from Maghera (88.8), Spur Hill (89.2), Woodcock Hill (89.4) and Mullaganish (90.0) so all of these are possible sources of TV reception though the TV needs a better quality of signal than a radio so simply being able to pick up FM radio from a transmitter doesn't mean that you can get TV from the same place.

Your only options appear to be Mullaganish or Maghera and both of these transmit RTE 1 and 2 on VHF and the signals are vertical polarity which makes them more prone to the ghosting effect that you describe. Your problem might be caused by trees and one of the solutions is to resite the aerial if this is possible - otherwise chop down the trees!

shovel

Thank you for the explanation.

The face of the aerial seems to be pointing towards the galway direction.There is a landbank in front of my house so resiteing aerial is not an option unfortunately.

I assume that mullaghanish transmits rte 1 &2 on a different frequency/number to maghera.

Would you happen to know these.also the general direction of mullaghanish

Do you think it would be a good idea to have one tv channel tuned to rte 1 maghera and another channel tuned to rte 1 mullaghanish on the one tvto see any quality difference when moving aerial.

Thanks again

Shovel

coylemj

From Tarbert to Galway city is 20 degrees (all bearings are magnetic) whereas to Maghera is 50 degrees so you might get a better reception by swinging the aerial more towards Ennis than Galway. From Tarbert to Mullaganish is 170 degrees - point towards Abbeyfeale and you're in business.

The Mullaganish VHF channels for RTE 1 and 2 are D (4) and G (6) so it will be just a matter of stepping down one channel for both. If you can swivel the VHF aerial around towards Mullaganish it might be worth a try.

shovel

Thanks very much

Time to borrow a ladder!

Regards

Shovel

Digifriendly

shovel wrote: »

Thanks very much

Time to borrow a ladder!

Regards

Shovel

Or simply wait for DTT to come as there is no ghosting with digital.

shovel

But when is that supposed to happen?

And will the coverage be the same or better (or worse!)?

Will we have to pay for it (on top of the tv licence)?

not being smart,but it wouldn't be the first thing in ireland to turn out different from what it was supposed to.

regards
shovel

coylemj

DTT will be broadcast on UHF channels so you'll be able to pick it up from Maghera no problem since you're currently getting TV3/TG4 from there.

I see that there's a UHF relay in Abbeyfeale broadcasting RTE1 on 39, RTE 2 on 42 and TG4 on 49 but no TV3. The relay station is in exactly the same direction from you as Mullaganish - 170 degrees magnetic but obviously you'd need to swing your UHF aerial around to test it and if it works then you'd need to buy a second UHF aerial cause you'd still need to be pointing a UHF aerial at Maghera to pick up TV3.

shovel

Thanks very much for the infomation.

I have one more question please.

Could you explain how i can find 170 degrees magnetic?

I assume i would need a compass but what then?

I know that these are probably stupid questions but when i was a young fellah,I remember being up on my parents chimney moving a (falling to bits) aerial bit by bit and my mother roaring out the window "BETTER,BETTER" or "WORSE,WORSE".

That is the extent of my experience in this area!

Thank you for your patience.

Shovel

p.s. how do you know that mullaghanish is 170 degrees magnetic from tarbert in the first place??

Rippy

shovel wrote: »

Thanks very much for the infomation.

I have one more question please.

Could you explain how i can find 170 degrees magnetic?

I assume i would need a compass but what then?

I know that these are probably stupid questions but when i was a young fellah,I remember being up on my parents chimney moving a (falling to bits) aerial bit by bit and my mother roaring out the window "BETTER,BETTER" or "WORSE,WORSE".

That is the extent of my experience in this area!

Thank you for your patience.

Shovel

p.s. how do you know that mullaghanish is 170 degrees magnetic from tarbert in the first place??

Google Earth is your friend when it comes to finding bearings. If your compass does not have degree markings , try going a bit east of south.
If you do pick up Abbeyfeale , it is worth seeing what TV3 looks like on ch 27. from Mulliganish. ( Hope fully the UHf aerial you have for Magara is wideband).

coylemj

I have digital maps on my laptop (Garmin Mapsource) and I have entered the location of all the major transmitters so I can see the direction from any specific location to any transmitter.

On a compass 180 degrees is due south so if you had a magnetic compass you hold the compass in your outstretched hand and you swivel around until the north pointer is pointing at you and the other end of the needle is pointing away from you, at that stage you are facing magnetic south and 170 degrees is 10 degrees to the left.

If you don't have a compass but you have a traditional analog watch with hour and minute hands and the sun is shining you can find south very easily, this is an old Boy Scout trick:

Look at your watch and deduct an hour for Summer Time, then point the hour hand (as it was an hour ago) at the Sun, due South is then midway between the hour hand and the '12' poisition on the watch. This is 'true' South and the true bearing froim Tarbert to Mullaganish is 167 degrees so 13 degrees to the left of south, that's two minutes on the watch.

So let's say it's 3 p.m. Summer Time, point the two o'clock marker on your watch at the Sun, now midway between the two o'clock marker and the 12 o'clock marker is true South, go two minutes left on the dial, that's the direction to Mullaganish.

shovel

To cotlemj,

Thanks very much.you learn something new every day.Thank you for your patience.

Now for the ladder!

Regards

Shovel

Antenna

coylemj wrote: »

The radio signals you're picking up are coming from Maghera (88.8), Spur Hill (89.2),

the 89.2 there would be from Knockanore (near Ballybunion) in North Kerry (not Spur Hill). RTE FM radio only (not TV)

http://forum.frequencydb.com/download/file.php?id=164
http://forum.frequencydb.com/download/file.php?id=162

coylemj

Very good, it's listed as 'Cnoc an Oir' on the RTE Radio frequencies list and I couldn't figure out where it was because unlike the TV relays, they don't tell you the counties for the radio relays.

Antenna

shovel wrote: »

The picture quality has improved greatly.-BUT one thing is still the same

On rte 1 only i am getting a "ghost" effect.

the ghost may be a reflection from a tall metalic structure in your locality (factory etc) .
Depending on direction the ghost is coming from:
(A) Experiment with putting your existing antenna a bit off-beam - this may reduce the ghost (this would be a compromise - reduced strength but no ghost
(B) You could try a different type of aerial (LP7 instead of Yagi, or vice versa)
(C) try relocating antenna elsewhere on your property. Putting the VHF antenna in the attic might work better, if the 'ghost' signal (but not the wanted direct signal) is blocked