Receiving BBC by aerial

cdeb

I've recently bought a telly for the house and don't have any interest in paying hundreds a year to get 80 channels I'll never watch. RTÉ, TG4, BBC and Channel 4 is really all I'd be looking for. How good are roof-top aerials at receiving BBC/Channel 4/UTV? I'm in Wicklow with the Irish Sea easily visible from the upstairs window.

I kind of grew up with the notion of slagging the English because we get their channels for free here, but it seems it isn't quite as straightforward as that...

I'm aware of the digital switch in Wales and all the stuff about needing a digital converter to pick up the signal.

Many thanks!

A group B aerial in wicklow town pointed to arfon with a group B amp will get you all the BBC's,ITV1 and 2 channel 4 and five and a few other channels.

It's about 90% reliable and more.

The odd time you'll have drop outs for a few seconds or minutes in fog but not in heavy rain and when you have that picture 90%+ of the time it's crystal.

Mylie redmond is probably the best I know at putting up aerials on arfon and preseli at this stage.
He has all the gear including a proper professional digital meter for locating the signal.
Thats so essential as some people just guess at where to point based on other aerials in the area but atleast with a meter you will be bang on and maximising signal.
He's based in Gorey but does jobs all over the place and one recently in ashford where they are delighted I hear.

If you want his mobile,just drop me a private message.

If your new tv has an mpeg2 or an mpeg4 decoder built in which most if not all new lcd's do,then you do not need a set top bod or "converter" as you call it.
It's all built in to the telly.
You just do a digital as opposed to an analogue tune

Hope that helps.

darth_maul

gonna be cheaper and much more reliable to go with a Satellite FTA system, and a wee aerial for the Irish channels

Macy0161

darth_maul wrote: »

gonna be cheaper and much more reliable to go with a Satellite FTA system, and a wee aerial for the Irish channels

Swings and roundabouts - most tv's sold here now have built in digital tuners capable of Freeview reception (if not mpeg4), so if you're doing multi room, aeriel installation is back in play imo.

mossym

just out of interest, what's the farthest west anyone is receiving the BBC transmissions?

DublinWriter

Freesat is the way to go. You'll also have the flexibility of choosing the regional variation of UK TV that you want to watch.

cdeb

Macy0161 wrote: »

Swings and roundabouts - most tv's sold here now have built in digital tuners capable of Freeview reception (if not mpeg4), so if you're doing multi room, aeriel installation is back in play imo.

Yeah, that's the way it seems to me alright. If I go freesat, I have to get an aerial anyway, so why not just get one (bigger) aerial and leave it at that? Google is showing from E149 for an aerial installation versus E179 for aerial plus freesat (same link), so there's not much in the price, it seems.

DublinWriter wrote:

You'll also have the flexibility of choosing the regional variation of UK TV that you want to watch.

Choosing between BBC West Midlands, BBC Yorkshire and BBC Scotland isn't a particular priority to be honest!

Thats just for a contract aerial installed for 149 capable of the irish channels only.
You will spend that on an aerial and amp alone for wales plus labour of probably another 80-100 depending on time spent.

IN greystones the wales aerial should pick up the local digital transmitter too so thats rte sorted.
Tv3 will be on that from oct 31st so no point in my opinion in putting up extra aerials.

Blaenplwyf should be possible from greystones if theres a sea view to the south of east,meaning up to 60 tv channels.
Failing that arfon is a dead cert.

Keep us posted on what you get.

Macy0161

Macy0161 wrote: »

Swings and roundabouts - most tv's sold here now have built in digital tuners capable of Freeview reception (if not mpeg4), so if you're doing multi room, aeriel installation is back in play imo.

Agreed.
The standard freesat quotes usually don't include multiroom.
multiroom on an aerial is simple to do with just €60 for a decent distribution amp and then whatever the cable costs.

@ mossym-carlow/kilkenny for wales afaik
Midland areas,ulster and parts of connaught can receive from NI.

mossym

Deleted User wrote: »

Agreed.

@ mossym-carlow/kilkenny for wales afaik
Midland areas,ulster and parts of connaught can receive from NI.

cheers...was just curious to see...

watty

This can get Wales.

Borris-in-ossary on N7
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/024.shtml

There was also a backup array on Keeper Hill, main Array pointed at Brougher. Not been in use for many years
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/015.shtml

I posted a more recent picture showing the rot of time.

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

Tv3 will be on that from oct 31st so no point in my opinion in putting up extra aerials.

There is no guarantee that TV3 will be there at launch or by the end of Oct. The only requirement is for RTÉ to launch the PSB Mux by that date, TV3 may or may not be willing to pay the extra transmission cost associated with DTT. Transmission charges continue to be a problem for TV3. I think it will be safe to assume they will be there at ASO .

A ministerial order would and will get tv3 on that very quickly.
For the first time,tv3 coverage will be almost universal.

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

A ministerial order would and will get tv3 on that very quickly.
For the first time,tv3 coverage will be almost universal.

No such requirement in the Broadcasting Act and a Ministerial Order still won't pay the transmission costs.

Coverage will only be universal if they are carried on a PSB Mux otherwise reduced coverage on any commercial mux (which could have happened if Onevision were successful).

FREETV

watty wrote: »

This can get Wales.

Borris-in-ossary on N7
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/024.shtml

There was also a backup array on Keeper Hill, main Array pointed at Brougher. Not been in use for many years
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/015.shtml

I posted a more recent picture showing the rot of time.

Interesting and informative post with the pictures Watty. I am glad to see you back here on Boards and making helpful knowledgeable comments and posting articles. Keep up the good work! What do you reckon are my chances of receiving Welsh transmitters in Swords? I had a 40 feet long mast made, 2.67mm thick galvanised guy wire and iron rods to secure the two joined poles, Triax Unix 100 Group A and Group B aerials, a so called 87 element wideband aerial, WF100 and very high gain Triax grouped mast head amps and an FTE Maximal wideband amp. I am just waiting to get a couple of friends up to help me erect it from the ground. I have gone to a lot of trouble and expense in order to try and get the extra FREEVIEW channels not available on FTA channels. I probably wouldn't have gone to such trouble to receive anything other than Divis towards the end of 2012 to get the Freeview but joining Boards and seeing reports of people receiving Welsh reception in Finglas, and different areas of South Dublin and Wicklow etc has made me interested in seeing if it is at all possible.

FREETV

Deleted User wrote: »

A ministerial order would and will get tv3 on that very quickly.
For the first time,tv3 coverage will be almost universal.

I hope that 3e will be added on to that channel lineup too and more channels to follow it shortly afterwards. We could do with some more choice after DTT officially launches just to have even a little extra variety for the general public.

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

No such requirement in the Broadcasting Act and a Ministerial Order still won't pay the transmission costs.

I believe you can be guaranteed that politicians will not want tv3 left out.
Do we even know any details as to what tv3 is disputing apart from media conjecture?

Coverage will only be universal if they are carried on a PSB Mux otherwise reduced coverage on any commercial mux (which could have happened if Onevision were successful).

Well I think we've discussed to death the likelyhood of a viable commercial mux so thats out.
I'd doubt that would have survived the courts either.

watty

FREETV wrote: »

Triax Unix 100 Group A and Group B aerials, a so called 87 element wideband aerial, WF100 and very high gain Triax grouped mast head amps and an FTE Maximal wideband amp.

Theory says the gain of yagi is about proportional to boom length up to about 2.5 wavelengths long, then increasing length produces exponentially less gain.

Blakes make very robust aerials. The Kathrien, Triax and other 87/100 so called high gain aerial are fragile. Easily damaged by ice and wind.

Theory suggests a pair of Blake Contract 18 element group aerials (never use "wideband" for high gain) stacked phased with combiner is the same. I tried both at Dundalk pointed at Divis. The pairs of stacked 18 elements won. Much better performance. So the fancy big aerial with lots of cosmetic extra prickly bits to catch wind and ice actually perform worse than a plain yagi of same length.

I also used helical filters per mux/channel to reduce intermod and such of stronger unwanted signals and to reject DX pickup of BBC/ITV on the single aerial used for Irish TV, as it picked up enough Divis to cause "ghosting" on N.I. Analogue.

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

I'd doubt that would have survived the courts either.

On what grounds would the courts be involved :eek:

TV3 is a commercial company, the Broadcasting Act allocates capacity on the PSB Mux, for a charge, if required by TV3 otherwise they are free to make arrangements with any commecial mux operator (if any :rolleyes:).

watty

Deleted User wrote: »

I believe you can be guaranteed that politicians will not want tv3 left out.
Do we even know any details as to what tv3 is disputing apart from media conjecture?

They want to pay less than RTENL is charging.
So they are currently in breach of their licence as they are not carried on all analogue relays. They excuse this by claiming an on-going dispute. It seems very like a cost saving exercise as the extra cost out weighs extra revenue.

They very likely will not pay to be on DTT till either forced to, or DTT has significant market penetration or ASO occurs. Whichever is first. They are a commercial company that makes money from Advertising. Actually having to produce TV is simply a means to this end, so they will go for most coverage for minimum money and maximise content for adverts for lowest money and effort.

The Cush

Interesting discussion on TV3, probably deserves a thread of its own.

Macy0161

Deleted User wrote: »

Agreed.
The standard freesat quotes usually don't include multiroom.
multiroom on an aerial is simple to do with just €60 for a decent distribution amp and then whatever the cable costs.

Aye, if I was starting again now, with the increased power, I'd be seriously looking at a professionally installed aerial. Harder to justify when you already have a FTA/ Freesat system set up though (hence UK DTT attempts will be a DIY job in due course!)

mossym

watty wrote: »

This can get Wales.

Borris-in-ossary on N7
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/024.shtml

There was also a backup array on Keeper Hill, main Array pointed at Brougher. Not been in use for many years
http://wrightsaerials.co.uk/aerialphotography/aerialingus/015.shtml

I posted a more recent picture showing the rot of time.

cheers for that. I'm pretty close to keeper, i remember back in the 80's we were picking up bbc, pretty sure it was from keeper. it was very noisy and a pretty bad picture, but i remember watching bully and catchphrase on it.

thanks for the pics though, i'd never seen the keeper aerials, should relaly take a spin on the mountain bike up there some day

as for the first pic, do you mind if i ask if that is a private residence or a commercial venture?

also it says it was replaced by a vhf aerial pointing at the north, i thought all the uk transmissions were uhf?

watty

The VHF aerial is on that mast. Presumably for BandII radio.
The mast was the local Illegal Deflector.

The new site likely uses satellite to feed Rebroadcast if it is still running. The "so called" Deflectors (illegal TV rebroadcast transmitters temporarily legalised) all lose licences either already or at latest when DTT officially launches. None are needed any more (except ironically for TV3 or RTE in some areas!) with Freesat available. Even Maplin in Limerick has Freesat brochures.


Keeper is a private secured UPC site. You can't get in. I was there by permission I think in 2005 helping remove some equipment and an aerial that had fallen off the mast!

Taken on a cheap Sagem camera phone in 2005
Snow damaged the aerials. It can 12ft deep up there. The mounting array was actually too low.

In 2005 at least it was still used as Limerick Cable Head end with multichannel Microwave link from off-air BBC/ITV pickup in Cavan. It was the 1st non P&T/RTE licensed microwave link in the State, according to my "tour guide".

See more here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054982581

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

On what grounds would the courts be involved :eek:

TV3 is a commercial company, the Broadcasting Act allocates capacity on the PSB Mux, for a charge, if required by TV3 otherwise they are free to make arrangements with any commecial mux operator (if any :rolleyes:).

The competition authority.
Both sell advertising yet one of the competitors sets the price for the others access to the market without charging itself the same fee.
If RTE can get the usage of national infrastructure at cost so should tv3.
I'm pretty sure theres a basis for a case there.

mossym

watty wrote: »

Keeper is a private secured UPC site. You can't get in. I was there by permission I think in 2005 helping remove some equipment and an aerial that had fallen off the mast!

cheers watty, appreciate the info. no intention of going anywhere not supposed to, just be interesting to cycle up and see them as close as you can lawfully get, it's supposed to be a good run for the mtb anyway

was speaking to the old fella there, it was keeper we were picking the uk channels off of. This was back in the mid 80's, reception varied on a day to day basis but there was always something there.

razor_ryan

These look interesting might be good for freeview ?

The Cush

mossym wrote: »

cheers watty, appreciate the info. no intention of going anywhere not supposed to, just be interesting to cycle up and see them as close as you can lawfully get, it's supposed to be a good run for the mtb anyway

You can walk or cycle to the top of Keeper, myself and the brother walked up there about 2 years ago (about 2 hours). You can get to the locked gates of the small enclosure.

watty

Walking... or very serious experienced mountain biker. You can look down into compound from the last part of road.

My "host" was driving a 4x4 used to visit mountain top masts. Not the polished "school run" type.

However we visited a different mountain repeater site with an other friend who had a "real" landrover. The goat track excuse of a road was so steep and with hairpins with precipitous drops that the "crawl" cruise gear setting coming down was brilliant. I heard a JCB fell a few 100ft making that path. We were installing a voice repeater I built at a site owned at the time by a company that specialised in renting space on its mountain top masts.

Good view of Woodcock to North and Galtees to southwest. Site is one of two part way between Croom and NewcastleWest in Limerick. I'd not be surprised if an aerial array at top of mast could get Wales sometimes as I was able to use 435MHz FM voice repeater on Mt Lienster with 100mW and short "rubber duck" aerial from nearby hilltop.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

The competition authority.
Both sell advertising yet one of the competitors sets the price for the others access to the market without charging itself the same fee.
If RTE can get the usage of national infrastructure at cost so should tv3.
I'm pretty sure theres a basis for a case there.

The charges paid by RTE and other broadcasters to RTENL are set by a regulator. TG4 pays more than TV3. The competition Authority are not involved in any way. When TV3 got its licence, it agreed to the terms of distribution. They have failed to take up those distribution rights and so are in breach of their licence.

RTENL also derive revenue from other sources, which will grow in the future, such that TV distribution is a smaller fraction of their business. Telecomms is a big business, and growing.

watty

razor_ryan wrote: »

These look interesting might be good for freeview ?

less than ideal for long distance as they are Wide Band Log Periodic.

Good for Irish reception of Analogue + Digital on widely different channels.

Better solutions
A pair of Blake CR18 (18 Element) for the correct group would work better
http://www.blake-uk.com/page/aerial_range/aerial_cr

Or a bit better a pair of these 18 element, for the Group
SR18A SR18B SR18CD SR18E

http://www.blake-uk.com/page/aerial_range/aerial_sr

Do not buy multigroup (K) or Wideband (WB) aerials for Long Distance reception.

The cheapest Blake aerial is better than the scrap Aluminium sold as Aerials in most Wholesalers and Retailers here. Blake bought some of the famous jbeam/jaybeam designs when they ceased domestic production.

As Bill Wright says of Wrights Aerials, the yagi has not improved in design since 1970s and many aerials have cosmetic features that make them more prone to damage from ice and snow.

A pair of 18 Element is better than one of these 21 element:
http://www.blake-uk.com/page/aerial_range/aerial_jbx
The 21 bay is a better made similar performance to UNIX 100. Unscrupulous dealers and manufacturers would ONLY call it a 104 element aerial. Blake to their credit while listing the "marketing" speak so called "elements" do refer to it mainly as 21 bay.
These are MUCH better quality than the equivalent so called 80+ to 100+ element Katherien, Triax, Maplin etc.

If you want a more gain you mount FOUR 18 elements in a Quad layout. Two F- connector Y splitter combiners to combine upper pair and lower pair (all identical cable length) and a 3rd "Y" to combine the two combiners.

Then appropriate gain mast amp (for length of cable!) about 1.5m / 5ft down mast from aerials.

Blake sell decent mast amps and splitter/combiners too with F-connections.

cdeb

Deleted User wrote: »

Thats just for a contract aerial installed for 149 capable of the irish channels only.
You will spend that on an aerial and amp alone for wales plus labour of probably another 80-100 depending on time spent.


Keep us posted on what you get.

Thanks for that. Rang yer man; he says he'll give me a shout back next week and have a look see what he can do.

What size aerial are you looking at to pick up the signal from Wales? There's a few aerials around the estate and down by the coast, so if others have that, there's a good chance I'll be able to sort it!

Yeah he's a gas man.
He's been putting up aerials for over 40 years now so plenty experience and has taken to digital terrestrial like a duck to water.

Your aerial will look like this with a sturdy 15ft pole attached :



There are lots of grid aerials [like rectangular squares] around for arfon but one like the above is what you want they are better by far.

Ask him to bring a Group A aerial for Blaenplwyf [prenounced Blainplooey!] and ask him to try that as if you can get it,you will have 60 channels and more.

If not Arfon [which is what most aerials in the area will have been on] will use a group B so get him to bring that too.

He'll probably just want to stick up the group B for arfon but be persistent and get him to try the group A for Blaenplooey

The blaenplwyf transmitter in analogue days used be shielded to your area but not in digital-so if you have a sea path to the south of East,you are in business for that one I'd say.

cdeb

When you say a 15 foot pole attached, do you mean the aerial rises 15ft above the roof of the house? I'd say the house is not much taller than that itself! Do you not need planning for something like that?

Nope-You don't need planning for a 15ft pole.Anything over 20ft afaik.
10ft might do-yer man will know.

If he can see the sea at roof level 5 or 6ft might even do!
10 to 15ft would be standard for the type of aerial above in most circumstances.

watty

Even this doesn't need planning permission



145MHz Hor
145MHz Ver
435MHz Hor
on Rotator.

I was going to add a TV aerial to it today, but I think maybe it's got enough wind loading.

mossym

Watty can i ask just out of interest what you are receiving on those?

watty

Other people with similar interest.



The big one I have talked as far as Spain on it.


BTW, the "short" skinny pole you see beside the mast is a 3m tall VHF/UHF vertical colinear at far back corner of garden on a really big guyed pole (maybe 15m inc extension on top).

The angled "rope with knot" just below rotator motor is a 18MHz to 30MHz near vertical aerial wire.

mossym

I was wondering was it radio alright.

Is the 30mhz for that as well? Seems low

FREETV

watty wrote: »

Other people with similar interest.



The big one I have talked as far as Spain on it.


BTW, the "short" skinny pole you see beside the mast is a 3m tall VHF/UHF vertical colinear at far back corner of garden on a really big guyed pole (maybe 15m inc extension on top).

The angled "rope with knot" just below rotator motor is a 18MHz to 30MHz near vertical aerial wire.

The big guyed pole at the far back corner of your garden, how tall is it approximately? How was it erected, short pole perhaps of four feet in lenght concreted in place, sliding the longer poles over it? Was a two feet or deeper hole dug, attaching the poles by coupling them together and then guying them with galvanised steel wire rope tied to long rigid iron rods sledge hammered in to the ground maybe? What are you receiving terrestrially from those aerials mentioned? How high can a mast in a garden be without obtaining planning permission? 40 feet? Sorry about all of the questions but I am interested in how your mast was erected and I want mine when it is put in place to be structurally sound. It wouldn't do for it to fall in to the neighbour's garden during a storm.

watty

The lowest freq I'm allowed to Transmit is 137KHz. The lowest frequency I am allowed and actually have equipment is 1.8MHz. (66ft long wire parallel to ground fed at one end for 1.8MHz to 14MHz Bands).

FREETV

watty wrote: »

Other people with similar interest.



The big one I have talked as far as Spain on it.


BTW, the "short" skinny pole you see beside the mast is a 3m tall VHF/UHF vertical colinear at far back corner of garden on a really big guyed pole (maybe 15m inc extension on top).

The angled "rope with knot" just below rotator motor is a 18MHz to 30MHz near vertical aerial wire.

Just out of interest Watty can you give me some details of how your tall guyed mast was secured in place and how tall it is?

watty

That is corner of garden, the image is cropped, the walls about 1.8m/6' tall to the dark cope slabs. The garden behind us is a much higher level as you can see looking at rear of their shed. My two walls are not right angle, but more like 120.

• base of pole is in ground
• about 2/3rd way up wall (1.2m to 1.5m) there is double bracket (KT maybe). Too high up wall and the top layer of blocks will "pop off".
• Three guys: each is doubled steel core washing line. The fourth wire you see has a insulator just out of shot to right holding up the radio feed end of a 20m/66' long wire to front gate (Short wave transmitter aerial). The far guy is on a steel rod hammered into field right up against the rear neighbour's hedge.
• The white part at top with three 50cm radials and black joint in middle is 3m long fibre glass tube with VHF/UHF multi-element co-linear inside it.
• It must be about 14m approx 45' to bottom of the 3m /10' long aerial
• The bottom section is quite thick wall steel tube. The next section is Aluminium to reduce weight and top pipe is light weight thinner diameter and thin wall steel tube. The Fibre glass cased 3m/10' long aerial "whip" is lightweight.

You could not have a TV yagi on this without additional guys to top joint!

BostonB

Do you guys have these masts earthed?

FREETV

BostonB wrote: »

Do you guys have these masts earthed?

That was another question that I had on my mind guys, how could one earth a satellite mast and a separate tall tv aerial mast as cheaply as possible? I read something somewhere vaguely about using short copper rods but never emailed the chap at the site to ask him how to go about doing it.

FREETV

watty wrote: »

That is corner of garden, the image is cropped, the walls about 1.8m/6' tall to the dark cope slabs. The garden behind us is a much higher level as you can see looking at rear of their shed. My two walls are not right angle, but more like 120.

• base of pole is in ground
• about 2/3rd way up wall (1.2m to 1.5m) there is double bracket (KT maybe). Too high up wall and the top layer of blocks will "pop off".
• Three guys: each is doubled steel core washing line. The fourth wire you see has a insulator just out of shot to right holding up the radio feed end of a 20m/66' long wire to front gate (Short wave transmitter aerial). The far guy is on a steel rod hammered into field right up against the rear neighbour's hedge.
• The white part at top with three 50cm radials and black joint in middle is 3m long fibre glass tube with VHF/UHF multi-element co-linear inside it.
• It must be about 14m approx 45' to bottom of the 3m /10' long aerial
• The bottom section is quite thick wall steel tube. The next section is Aluminium to reduce weight and top pipe is light weight thinner diameter and thin wall steel tube. The Fibre glass cased 3m/10' long aerial "whip" is lightweight.

You could not have a TV yagi on this without additional guys to top joint!

This was what was suggested to me.
I have a two inch steel pole four feet long with a plate welded on to the bottom of it, two feet of it is concreted underground with a mixture of stones and a large cement block concreted over the plate to the top of the earth. The 20ft long pole approx 60mms thick was cut in half before it was delivered to me and has an internal wall diameter of 5mms so is rigid and heavy. Now I paid a local man to join the two poles together with a coupler with two 8mm bolts welded on to join the two ten feet lenghts together with two short steel pipes inside the poles and another one at the top of the second two inch twenty feet long galvanised steel pole. All this is supposed to be slide over the two feet lenght of pole sticking out of the ground and be guyed down with six wires, i.e tied to the left and right sides of the pole and one to the front to three long rigid iron rods of lenghts of between five and six feet with sharp ends and sledgehammered in to place in to the ground. My worry is that because it is so heavy, even though I can lift it all up to about shoulder height horizontally and will get two mates to help me lift it in to place and tighten the bottom coupler to pole in the the ground that it may capsize or buckle! There are two sets of three way hooks welded on to each half of the masts and I have three 3 way bolt on guy wire hooks that I can also add on to make it more sturdy and secure in place. I have a 150 metre reel of 2.67mm thick galvanised steel guy wire for aerial masts and I also bought two twenty metre rolls of B&Q heavy duty galvanised general purpose gardening wire of 4mm thickness. I still am not confident that it will stay up if put in place? What would you advise me to do please Watty to make it more secure for health and safety purposes? The chap that made the mast for me had previously advised me to get in contact with an ex RTE rigger here in the area but he never turned up after several promises and phone calls to do the job. He fobbed me off in the end saying that he was retired and that he didn't do much of that anymore although he does the odd building job now. That was a couple of months back. I originally planned to get him to source and erect a small thirty to thirty five feet high second hand tower and use that for tv reception. All this trouble because the landlord wouldn't allow us to install an aerial mast either on the gable end of the wall of the house or on top of the roof but I am allowed to put it in the ground in the back garden. I asked him politely and explained to him that all I had to do was fill in any holes from wall bracket properly with mortar and paint the wall before we would eventually move out but he was having none of it. This will be the final house that I ever rent. That's just one of the pains of not owning a property. I would allow a tenant if I was a Landlord install any sat dishes or tv aerials that they wished.

watty

I'm sorry, but I can't offer ANY advice on masts.

I only post the information about mine for entertainment value.

You really need local professional advice and site survey. You need planning permission for any mast. A pole up to 15' on the chimney I think is exempt.

Even if a pole or mast arrangement is correct, someone could get killed or serious property damage to a neighbour etc is possible.

I suggest you get a professional installer.

FREETV

watty wrote: »

I'm sorry, but I can't offer ANY advice on masts.

I only post the information about mine for entertainment value.

You really need local professional advice and site survey. You need planning permission for any mast. A pole up to 15' on the chimney I think is exempt.

Even if a pole or mast arrangement is correct, someone could get killed or serious property damage to a neighbour etc is possible.

I suggest you get a professional installer.

True, I agree with you Watty, thanks anyway, I'll look in to it again. It should have been up months ago. I guess your an expert on the technical side of tv, sat and radio communications engineering but not so much on the rigging side. So a 30 feet or higher mast still needs planning permission, which you had to also apply for at one time? The trouble is the highest point of the dormers on the house next to me must be at least thirty feet high as the 20 ft pole only reaches the gutter. I checked official legislation on aerial masts on a site before and it said 6 metres above the height of any roof but I have seen guyed poles of at least thirty feet in lenght on a couple of houses here in Swords. Hopefully will be able to buy a house in a little over a year from now and will install aerials on the roof then for Divis, Three Rock and Wales.

watty

Why not have a 80cm dish, quattro LNBs and Multiswitch to feed up to 16 set boxes?

There is no need for big TV masts any more. If you can't do it with < 15'/5m pole on chimney, don't bother.

Much more discreet.
1) Far Dish (not used)
2) Mid Dish. Motorised 45W to 42E
3) Near Dish: Feeds 17x 16 Multiswitch (up to 16 setboxes, or 8 PVRs or mix, expandable to 1024). Uses 13E, 19E, 23.5E and 28.2E Quattro LNBs. Sky box "sees" Freesat/Sky. FTA boxes and PC cards "see" 4 way Diseqc switch. About 2000 free radio & TV: French, German, English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Italian, UK and others.

I know quite a bit about masts. But it's not something to do over the Internet. The site and structures need to be expertly examined.

FREETV

watty wrote: »

Why not have a 80cm dish, quattro LNBs and Multiswitch to feed up to 16 set boxes?

There is no need for big TV masts any more. If you can't do it with < 15'/5m pole on chimney, don't bother.

Much more discreet.
1) Far Dish (not used)
2) Mid Dish. Motorised 45W to 42E
3) Near Dish: Feeds 17x 16 Multiswitch (up to 16 setboxes, or 8 PVRs or mix, expandable to 1024). Uses 13E, 19E, 23.5E and 28.2E Quattro LNBs. Sky box "sees" Freesat/Sky. FTA boxes and PC cards "see" 4 way Diseqc switch. About 2000 free radio & TV: French, German, English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Italian, UK and others.

I know quite a bit about masts. But it's not something to do over the Internet. The site and structures need to be expertly examined.

Aye, I already have two dishes in the garden already. The Comag 80cm dish which I modified slightly to perform better on windy days as they only designed "one screw to keep the LNB arm in place and the B&Q sold Ross 65cm Dish that came with the Ross HD sat kit. One is a dual Lnb, the other a single. Wanted HD so bought the kit instead of a Technomate motor but will get a larger dish and that motor sometime. I only wanted to put up the mast for the handful of extra channels on Freeview not available on FTA satellite. The smaller dish is pointed at Astra 19.2. The thing is there aren't many foreign satellites with programmes in English or with English subtitles or dubbing. Dubbing is awful! If I was allowed to install an aerial on the roof or at the gable end of the house I am renting I would have not bothered with the mad idea of the mast, it's just that I watch a lot of tv and I hate being told that I can't do something by a Landlord when paying high rent and was told that Welsh reception is possible in Swords. You'd think that I was about to knock the whole wall of his precious house down installing wall brackets or leave huge gaping holes in his wall and devalue his property greatly. The Bank still owns his house anyway. I doubt it very much if I can receive a Welsh transmitter up in the loft or attic with a 20db decrease in signal. Lots of other Landlords allow aerial masts and dishes on walls or to be attached to the chimneys. The gits expect you to have an endless supply of money to subscribe to Sky if they even allow a dish or UPC while paying through the nose for renting a poxy semi-detached house.

KeRbDoG

FREETV wrote: »

...was told that Welsh reception is possible in Swords.

I've picked up Welsh TV more inland from Swords, approx. 10km from the sea with no sea view. This was with a small old aerial and depended on the weather