DTT in Stamullen (Louth)

gan23

My friend recently moved into a house in stamullen (just off the M1 near drogheda). I set up a combo box for him for sat and dtt.
When I scanned for dtt channels I got nothing. We put up an amplified indoor aerial in the attic. We are getting rte1 and 2 analogue perfect, very poor TV3 and TG4. basically unwatchable. Does anyone know what the local transmitter is and if I should be getting any DTT there??

Thanks.

Finne1993

gan23 wrote: »

My friend recently moved into a house in stamullen (just off the M1 near drogheda). I set up a combo box for him for sat and dtt.
When I scanned for dtt channels I got nothing. We put up an amplified indoor aerial in the attic. We are getting rte1 and 2 analogue perfect, very poor TV3 and TG4. basically unwatchable. Does anyone know what the local transmitter is and if I should be getting any DTT there??

Thanks.

Sounds like you might be picking up the VHF signals from Kippure, I assume your aerial is pointed south?
Is it a VHF or UHF aerial you have?
A half decent guide is if you're not getting a reasonable TV3 analogue you won't pick up DTT.
You'll need an amplified UHF group C/D aerial and you'll probably pick up the tests from either Clermont Carn in Dundalk or Kippure/Three Rock in Dublin.

lucernarian

Stamullen, Co. Meath no?:p

The transmitter that serves Stamullen is Clermont Carn. To start with, it's a group C/D transmitter which is that bit worse at being picked up indoors, especially TV3 and TG4 which are at the very top of the UHF TV band. To make matters worse, it's vertically polarised. This is because most indoor aerials (especially the amplified ones) have a UHF loop which is only horizontally polarised.

The nail in the coffin is that CC is broadcasting DTT at a rather lower strength relative to analogue than the likes of Three Rock.

Can you find out what channels (frequencies) you're picking up RTE analogue on? You could be receiving Kippure and your indoor aerial might have a hope of picking up either Three Rock or Kippure which are in the Dublin mountains and have DTT. Make sure the indoor aerial is facing southwards with the signal passing through the minimum amount of wall and slates. Move the aerial around if necessary, picking up a signal can be a dark art.

To get DTT working in stamullen, I almost expect an outdoors aerial to be necessary, perhaps mounted to the side of the house like a sky dish or if necessary the chimney.

gan23

Finne1993 wrote: »

Sounds like you might be picking up the VHF signals from Kippure, I assume your aerial is pointed south?
Is it a VHF or UHF aerial you have?
A half decent guide is if you're not getting a reasonable TV3 analogue you won't pick up DTT.

It is a UHF amplified indoor aerial with two rabbits ears along with a kind of v shaped arangement of elements. There is another connection for a second aerial on the amplifier part to which i connected another (non amplified) indoor aerial. To be honest im not sure what direction they are pointing. we spent most of the day putting up the dish and running cables etc so when we got everything powered up we werent really bothered fine tuning. Probably should have taken the extra 15 mins to tweak it a bit...

gan23

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

Stamullen, Co. Meath no?:p

The transmitter that serves Stamullen is Clermont Carn. To start with, it's a group C/D transmitter which is that bit worse at being picked up indoors, especially TV3 and TG4 which are at the very top of the UHF TV band. To make matters worse, it's vertically polarised. This is because most indoor aerials (especially the amplified ones) have a UHF loop which is only horizontally polarised.

The nail in the coffin is that CC is broadcasting DTT at a rather lower strength relative to analogue than the likes of Three Rock.

Can you find out what channels (frequencies) you're picking up RTE analogue on? You could be receiving Kippure and your indoor aerial might have a hope of picking up either Three Rock or Kippure which are in the Dublin mountains and have DTT. Make sure the indoor aerial is facing southwards with the signal passing through the minimum amount of wall and slates. Move the aerial around if necessary, picking up a signal can be a dark art.

To get DTT working in stamullen, I almost expect an outdoors aerial to be necessary, perhaps mounted to the side of the house like a sky dish or if necessary the chimney.

Is It Meath?? Sorry I just took a guess to be honest as it was close to drogheda. sorry to any stamullians reading this:D

Anyway, Ok so clermont cairn is vertically polarised. Well the two aerials in the attic are definitely horizontal. But both can be adjusted to vertical. So to test for CC i should adjust the polarisation and point in a north easterly direction??
Also if this fails, adjust back to horizontal and try for either 3 rock or kippure.
I will try and find out the frequency channels we were picking up and post back. Dont know when I will next be back out there though. Im located in dublin 6w myself.
One more thing, alot of the houses around the estate had rectangular grid type aerials up on a pole outside the house if this gives any clues to where their signal is coming from??
Thanks

paddybudg

Hey,

Im living in Stamullen and can get full strength from Claremont Cairn for DTT.
It has dropped a little recently when the weather was good and DTT from Scotland was picked up but normally its perfect.

I do have a external antenna.

lucernarian

Those aerials would be typical for Stamullen alright. Vertically polarised and wideband, which takes in Clermont Carn for the Irish Channels and a much weaker transmitter near Kilkeel in Co. Down for the NI channels. Reception of Kilkeel on a grid would be a bit snowy at best, even when mounted outdoors and with an amp. CC would be perfect however.

Using two aerials could cause more problems than benefits. But such is the nature of these things, a lot of messing around and unusual positioning will probably be needed. Sorry for the suggestive words!:p As I said, it's a dark art and all that.

gan23

ok thats great, what i wanted to hear.
Do you have an especially large aerial or some specific type?
Should it be possible to pick it up with the setup I mentioned earlier if I pointed the aerials the correct way with correct polarisation etc.?
My friends house is located in a new enough estate across the road from a primary school beside the village do you know it

gan23

sorry just seen your post there to_be_confirmed. Yeah Id say ill have to do some messing around with it before i get a result if any. At least i know they can get it there now.

lucernarian

Oh you could definitely get DTT in Stamullen alright. It's just a case of being able to get it inside an attic or not. Clermont Carn is such a pain in the ass to receive indoors in my experience. I live in Co. Louth and we can pick up perfect Clermont Carn from a outdoors grid aerial, yet we get no reception on any rabbits ears type of aerial inside.

Good luck with it all!

gan23

Great stuff thanks a lot, i will try tweaking the aerials in the attic first.
One more thing, If that fails how much would an appropriate aerial be? I dont know how much my friend is willing to spend...

lucernarian

Difficult question. Money will have to be spent on a pole and the required fixings. If you go on to the internet, many aerials can be had for anything between €10 and €40. You could probably get away with a cheap Group C/D contract aerial (they can be picked up in electrical wholesalers or on the net) but analogue TV3/TG4 may not be absolutely perfect.

If you want to source it yourself, and put everything up then I would expect €40 to €50 would cover it. Don't hold me to that figure though!

You could also buy an outdoors aerial and mount it in the attic, but the attic will weaken signal considerably so having a cheaper aerial outside will probably work better long-term. Of course, you could get an outdoors aerial and try it in the attic first in case it does work. That will spare the hassle of erecting the aerial outside.

Finne1993

Theres no reason why an amplified contract C/D aerial won't work in the attic for Kippure/Three Rock at least, with a proper aerial and not them rabbits ears types, they're pure crap in my eyes. You're about the same distance away from Kippure/Three Rock as Clermont Carn so I'd go for either if I was you, only thing is you'd probably need a wideband aerial if you want to pick up the analogue signals from Three Rock.
I'm just outside Carlingford (approx 70miles away from Kippure) and I get a perfect TV3/TG4 analogue and the DTT tests from Kippure with an amplified aerial in my attic, its a contract aerial like this:


If you got perfect RTE1/RTE2 i'd be inclined to think it was the VHF channels from Kippure you were getting because you would've got a decent TV3/TG4 if you were picking up Clermont Carn.

BTW, I was installing in a house on the south side of Dunleer a few weeks ago and got all channels perfect from Clermont Carn on an unamplified aerial in the attic of this particular house so maybe your house is low lying, its hard to say though as To_be_confirmed says aerial reception can be a pain, I've seen cases where one house has perfect reception and another only half a mile away has poor reception with the exact same set up in each house.

lucernarian

I live to the south of Dunleer too, and there really is a big difference between indoors reception of TV3 and TG4 compared to RTE1/2 from Dundalk. And with Stamullen, there are hills to the south (around The Naul, extending to outside Balbriggan) which would impede the group C/D signals of Kippure. Stamullen has pretty much got line of sight to Clermont Carn.

Also, a masthead amp and booster usually costs about €40 while a good aerial would cost as much and would improve signal quality, something an amp wouldn't do. An amp would be useful if the signal is being split, but the money is better spent on an outdoors aerial if it's for one TV. Extra TVs can always be easily added later.

On the other hand, Three Rock and Kippure output a stronger signal than Clermont Carn so that may make a difference.

gan23

thanks alot lads, i will have to drop back up soon and get tweaking:)
Just chancing my arm here but is there any hope of freeview reception in that area?? With the right gear of course