DTT Irish and UK

Pocaide

Hi folks,

Firstly apologies if this is long an drawn out, I live in Co Wexford just outside Fethard on Sea on the South West Coast,approximately 30 to 35 metres above sea level with a clear unobstructed view out towards Wales. Firstly I was wondering could I pick up Freeview through an aerial, secondly am guessing I need another aerial for the Irish terrestial or can I combine thirdly can I record programmes with something like a humax and lastly will I be able to receive Hd.
Again my apologises as I am looking for a lot of information but am new to this and don't want to pay a fortune for something i don't have to.

Thanks again

coylemj

With the right equipment the answer is 'yes' to all of your questions. You will need separate aerials, a wideband UHF aerial pointing north to Mt. Leinster for Irish terrestrial and a Group B UHF aerial pointing east to Preseli in Wales for UK Freeview.

You won't need anything fancy for Mt. Leinster, you should pick it up no bother with any kind of UHF aerial but as Preseli in Wales is 95 miles away you should go for a high gain aerial and do not buy a wideband, get a Group B.

HD is on the way for Freeview, you'd need a DVR which supports DVB-T2, this will also support the existing UK DTT (MPEG2) and Irish DTT (MPEG4).

Pocaide

Wow, firstly thanks for such a quick reply was think of getting a triax unix 100 aerial for the Uk Freeview as for the Irish onw as you said any aerial should do, another question with two aerials obviously I will have two cables coming into the house is there any way around thi, thanks again

Pocaide

Sorry, to bother you again but should have asked what equipment would you reccomend

coylemj

Pocaide wrote: »

Wow, firstly thanks for such a quick reply was think of getting a triax unix 100 aerial for the Uk Freeview as for the Irish onw as you said any aerial should do, another question with two aerials obviously I will have two cables coming into the house is there any way around thi, thanks again

I'm not an expert on aerial cabling, you'd probably be advised to get a masthead amp for the UK signal and then merge that with the signal from the Mt. Leinster aerial so you have all of the signals coming to the TV in one cable.

Triax don't sell the Unix 100 aerial anymore, did the guy selling it to you inform you of that fact? You're not the first person on this forum to talk about buying a Triax Unix 100 in 2010, must be a lot of surplus stock around. I can't even see it in the 2008 Triax catalog.

In terms of equipment, I'd hang on and wait for more choice in DVB-T2 boxes but in the meantime buy a TV with an MPEG4 digital tuner which will give you UK and Irish digital TV today and make sure it has at least three HDMI ports, one for the DVR, one for the Blu-Ray player and one for a games console or media player.

marclt

Hi there

If you're looking at digital only, you'll need:

1 UHF aerial for Preseli (Group
1 UHF aerial for Mt. Leinster (Group A or Wide)

Then you'll need a masthead amp and power supply and an aerial combiner (to prevent the need for two cables coming into the house).

I did do a quick search online for the items. Seems Triax don't do their combiners much anymore either. So maybe someone can suggest a good local stockist, or an online outlet for you.

Marc

coylemj

marclt wrote: »

Hi there

If you're looking at digital only, you'll need:

1 UHF aerial for Preseli (Group
1 UHF aerial for Mt. Leinster (Group A or Wide)

Marc

Just to clarify the requirements for Mt.Leinster, do not buy a Group A aerial....

As one of the original Telefis Eireann transmitters, it's broadcasting RTE 1 & RTE 2 on VHF and the newer TV3 and TG4 are on UHF (channels 26 and 23 respectively). This means that for TV3 and TG4 analog a Group A UHF aerial is appropriate but......

The channels assigned to Mt. Leinster for DTT are 45, 39, 42 and 49 which fall into Group B. It doesn't matter much if you live in Fethard and are high up, a wideband will do the biz for you no problem but if you were buying an aerial post analog switch-off you'd go for a Group B aerial.

A group A aerial will give you a good signal today for TV3 and TG4 but the gain curve for a Group A aerial falls off very rapidly after channel 37 and would give very poor (if any) reception for Mt. Leinster DTT, especially on the RTE mux at channel 45.

Pocaide

Many thanks again for all the information, all extremely useful hope to get around to getting all this done in the next month or so will keep you posted.

scath

Pocaide wrote: »

Many thanks again for all the information, all extremely useful hope to get around to getting all this done in the next month or so will keep you posted.

Don't confuse Freeview with Freeview HD when doing your purchase. They are not the same. Freeview is 2002 technology (MPEG2), and such TVs on sale or stb's will not show picture for Irish DTT which uses c 2005 technology, newer video encoding standard (MPEG4) even though the transmission systems both use DVB-T (/DVB-T1)

Freeview HD is being launched within the next month or two on stb's and about a month or two after that on TVs. They use a backward compatible more efficient generation 2 DVB-T2 transmission system aswell as going with newer MPEG4)>

Freeview HD will show picture and sounds for Irish DTT, aswell as being future proof and if you can pick up Freeview HD signals from Wales when they switch, you will pick up BBC HD, ITVHD, C4HD, and in 2011 FiveHD.

Do not confuse HD ready TVs with Freeview HD. There are HD ready Tvs made for HD channels for satellite no use for Irish DTT picture. Freeview HD is about aerial (terrestrial). So look for 2 HD logos on the TV not one. HD Ready if u wish and Freeview HD, not Freeview and HD Ready! cos Freeview and Freeview HD are different!

exaisle

I wonder whether the additional cost of a satellite dish and decoder/combo stb would be worth it for the few extra channels available?
Would the signals from Wales be at all weather-sensitive?

Pocaide

Would I be incorrrect in saying that there are more channels on freeview through aerial than on fta on sat

sesswhat

Pocaide wrote: »

Would I be incorrrect in saying that there are more channels on freeview through aerial than on fta on sat

There are hundreds of channels available FTA through various satellites but the issue is the number you would actually want to watch.

Popular channels on Freeview and not FTA Satellite include ones like Dave and Fiver. On the other hand with FTA you can get all the regional variations of BBCs etc. It's all down to personal taste in the end.

coylemj

Pocaide wrote: »

Would I be incorrrect in saying that there are more channels on freeview through aerial than on fta on sat

Check them out for yourself, DTT off an aerial from Wales is Freeview, if you install a satellite you can get Freesat but in both cases you will need an aerial for Irish TV, you'd need to be a Sky subscriber to get the Irish channels from satellite. If you use Freesat you can't get Irish TV from satellite.

http://www.freeview.co.uk/
http://www.freesat.co.uk/

mrdtv2010

of course this box will do Freeview, Freeview HD and Irish DTT. I gather that certain combo vendors plan to bring out T2 combos next year eg Manhattan.

http://www.richersounds.com/product/freeview-freesat-pvr/humax/hd-fox-t2/huma-hd-fox-t2

johndoc

For the sake of having two aerials and trying to grab a signal from the Uk, try getting irish DTT and UK sat. maybe?
Have a look over on the Foreign Satellite forum, a sat and aerial combo might suit you. I just bought a ferguson combo box from Tony at satellite.ie and although it has its draw backs, its a good solution for the money.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055802134

The azbox thread takes some reading but will give you a good idea of whats possible

lucernarian

coylemj wrote: »

Just to clarify the requirements for Mt.Leinster, do not buy a Group A aerial....

As one of the original Telefis Eireann transmitters, it's broadcasting RTE 1 & RTE 2 on VHF and the newer TV3 and TG4 are on UHF (channels 26 and 23 respectively). This means that for TV3 and TG4 analog a Group A UHF aerial is appropriate but......

The channels assigned to Mt. Leinster for DTT are 45, 39, 42 and 49 which fall into Group B. It doesn't matter much if you live in Fethard and are high up, a wideband will do the biz for you no problem but if you were buying an aerial post analog switch-off you'd go for a Group B aerial.

A group A aerial will give you a good signal today for TV3 and TG4 but the gain curve for a Group A aerial falls off very rapidly after channel 37 and would give very poor (if any) reception for Mt. Leinster DTT, especially on the RTE mux at channel 45.

The gain curve rapidly falls off after 37, that's correct. But my experience with aerials is that you can completely get away with any aerial if the signal is strong. DTT when it is broadcast at full power here will have better coverage than existing analogue (assuming PSB mux is rolled out fully). I've watched Mt. Leinster DTT on a contract group A aerial in Co. Tipp. I've watched Three Rock DTT on a Group A aerial 40 miles away, and analogue TG4 was only slightly fuzzy.

My point is, if anyone has a different grouped aerial to whatever DTT is being broadcast on, give it a try first before ruling it out. You may be pleasantly suprised.

Pocaide

Thanks again for all the advice and help

Pocaide

Anyone have this system set up and f so how is it working for u