Installation of Aerial for the first time

dlambirl

Moving into our new built now in a fortnight and have to get the TV Aerial installed and up and going because god forbid we'd have no telly!!

Anyway, what i wanted to ask was - what should i expect to pay for the installation of the aerial and an 8 way splitter?? I want the house prep'ed for sky as i plan to get this in the next month or two.

Is there anything i should be wary of or ask the installer to do re: aerials??

TheDriver

Thats a massive open ended question as it really depends on how the house is wired, where the aerial would have to go etc. Also note the dtt is going live so maybe an indoor aerial would suffice too. Also your installer could do the whole sky install with the splitters and maybe fta satellite on other lines if its that big a job. Try Tony on here, he could sort you out with a price, found him great in the past

dlambirl

The whole house is wired back to the eaves (its a dormer house) with some rooms having 4 cables down to a socket (the living room and sitting room). Good enough quality cable used i think

Kashkai

I paid for and expected "good quality cable" too when my house was being built but when I later checked I found that it was RG6 cable which I now know to be at the budget end of things. I've since used this cabling to run the signal from my aerial to the tvs to use for the terrestrial signals, i.e. RTE, TV3 etc and I installed superior tx100 cabling myself for the Freesat channels from my satellite dish.

One question though, why do you want to put up an aerial if you're getting SKY installed as you'll be getting RTE etc on SKY so an aerial would appear to be superfluous? Would you not go the Freesat route and for a once off fee (unlike SKY where it'll be a continous monthly drain on your bank account) you'll get the BBC's, ITV's, Channel 4's, Film4's etc and combined with an aerial will also give you the terrestrial stations so you'll have a great range of channels for free?

lucernarian

It depends on the version of RG6, but I've used it with no problems for <15m satellite cable runs. Also, any of the sky installs I've seen (which isn't that many) don't use CT100-like cable. Even though they're meant to under Sky regs.

Anyway, whereabouts roughly are you based dlambirl?

Kashkai

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

It depends on the version of RG6, but I've used it with no problems for <15m satellite cable runs. Also, any of the sky installs I've seen (which isn't that many) don't use CT100-like cable. Even though they're meant to under Sky regs.

Anyway, whereabouts roughly are you based dlambirl?

Thats because RG6 cable is a damn sight cheaper than tx100 cable ( i.e. almost half the price in some retailers) so for some satellite installers, its a way of boosting their profit margin I suppose. There are numerous threads on the merits of cables but it boils down to you get what you pay for. Like I said, I used the tx 100 cable for the satellite installation and used the rg6 that my sparks put in for the terrestrial. While putting on the f-plugs, it was very obvious that the rg6 was the inferior cable, i.e., less shielding and insulation compared with the tx 100.

lucernarian

Fair enough. I basically used the opposite in my home as the satellite signal was grand with the 80cm dish properly aligned, but I have to contend with picking up fuzzy NI channels from Kilkeel.

dlambirl

Firstly i live in Monaghan.

Secondly the cable is RG6 High Performance 2.25GHZ Digital Cable 0.41m

The set up that i was thinkin of was to get the aerial and have it throughout all the tv points in the house then get sky later down the line and have it set up that i can have it through the rooms too and change the channel by magic eye (i know that if i change it on one tv it'll change on the rest) So thats the set -up i'd like!!

TheDriver

With that kind of setup, I would consult a local instaler to complete the whole job for you, they could put in a dish and serial for you and use a distribution box for you and probably cheaper that setting it up seperately later, you wouldn't need to get sky in yet though

lucernarian

dlambirl wrote: »

Firstly i live in Monaghan.

Secondly the cable is RG6 High Performance 2.25GHZ Digital Cable 0.41m

The set up that i was thinkin of was to get the aerial and have it throughout all the tv points in the house then get sky later down the line and have it set up that i can have it through the rooms too and change the channel by magic eye (i know that if i change it on one tv it'll change on the rest) So thats the set -up i'd like!!

Hmmm, that doesn't tell too much. Drumlin country. What is suitable for one house may not be suitable for the next.

Another big variable is how good your reception of the NI channels is, and whether you want the NI channels or especially Freeview through the aerial. What I can tell you is that getting sky or freesat stuff and having an aerial put up, will be cheaper than doing the two separately most likely.

You have the cabling already in place, so the distribution end of it shouldn't cost too much.