Terrible reception in Kilmainham

jamo

Howdy TV gurus,

right, I pretty much have no TV and it's starting to do my head in.

My main trouble is I WILL NOT give UPC a cent more (or Sky).

We live in an apartment complex in Kilmainham that just does not good decent analogue reception. I tried a large high gain antenna off the balcony and was no good (well it was as good as hanging the 4m length of cable just by itself). So we get fuzzy RTE1, 2, TV3 and a really fuzzy TG4.

Have also tried the power ampliefied 'bunny ears' but returned as they were no better than the dangling cable.

I then start hearing about Soarview and began thinking if this might solve my problems?? But I get the impression that DTT still requires an aerial which our apartment doesn't have...

Can anyone suggest some ideas for getting better reception? We don't watch a lot of TV and would be happy to get the RTE's, TV3, TG4 - anything else would be a huge bonus.

Thanks heaps
Jamo

jamescc

have you a sat dish if not you can probley pick one up and a decoder for as little as 60 - 80 euro you would get all the free channels on the dish itv,bbc, chanell 4 ,cbs action etc

no extra cost except for the equipment

jamo

Hiya,

sorry should have said sat dish not an option due to complex rules which state that we can't hang a sat dish off the balcony...

Ta
Jamo

John mac

can you see the mountains from the window?

jamo

Not a hope - we are in a bit of a valley near the Camac river

jamescc

ye my brother had that same problem but he got something else like a dish but not a dish not sure what it is called but i will find out

12 element

jamo wrote: »

Hiya,

sorry should have said sat dish not an option due to complex rules which state that we can't hang a sat dish off the balcony...

Ta
Jamo

Are you renting or do you own the place?

Ger Roe

Your best bet might still be satellite.
If you have a view south, you don't have to hang a dish off the wall.

I have installed a dish on a microphone stand tripod on a balcony. It is low enough to hide behind the balcony rail and can't be seen from below.

If you can 'see' the satellite, a dish can even be placed on the ground to receive - it just has to be secured against movement, height is not a requirement - I have also mounted a dish 'wall' bracket on a paving slab and then simply placed it on the ground and lined it up.

If your location is causing trouble with analogue TV reception from Three Rock, DTT is not going to be any more reliable.

Mike 1972

Satellite (without a $ky subscription) isint going to be much good for RTE though (although it should bring in all the UK stuff no problem) also the OP's balcony is going to have to face in the right direction for the satellite.

If the balcony is in the wrong direction for three rock (Dublin mountains transmitter) then maybe Kippure or even Claremont carn are alternative options (aerial vertical for Claremont)

lucernarian

To make matters worse, the dublin transmitter is roughly in the same direction as sky from that part of the world, so I'd say Sky or Freesat is a non runner. But I find it very suprising that the large aerial made no difference in any way. If it made no difference compared to a length of cable, I'd be checking the connections to make sure they were made right and that the cable isn't faulty etc. A coaxial cable by itself should pick up absolutely nothing unless it's in high signal strength areas. Even bareing 10 cm of wire would make coax pick up much more signal.

Saorview has a very strong signal in Dublin though it can't perform miracles either. Still, I'd check that the aerial was wired up properly before trying anything else.

jamo

Ok - thanks for all the replies.

We do own the place...

We do face pretty south - the balcony would be facing directly east - but you can stand on it and look due south.

There is a bay window in the lounge room that faces due south - the balcony is to the east of the same room.

Haven't got the high gain antenna anymore but it didn't seem that hard to wire up - but I could have got it wrong...

Will look into a cheap sat dish to test.

I take it then that the DTT stills needs decent aerial reception - I was hoping it might be cable based...

Ta
Jamo

lucernarian

jamo wrote: »

Ok - thanks for all the replies.

We do own the place...

We do face pretty south - the balcony would be facing directly east - but you can stand on it and look due south.

There is a bay window in the lounge room that faces due south - the balcony is to the east of the same room.

Haven't got the high gain antenna anymore but it didn't seem that hard to wire up - but I could have got it wrong...

Will look into a cheap sat dish to test.

I take it then that the DTT stills needs decent aerial reception - I was hoping it might be cable based...

Ta
Jamo

Even if you couldn't see the mountains, if you were able to point a proper aerial to the SSE from your balcony then you should have seen a significant improvement on reception. People can make mistakes like have the inner core and outer shield touching at some point, which would completely short the wire and almost completely eliminate the signal. And cables can be bent excessively, which kinks them and causes unpredictable effects or even for the central core wire to snap.

Sam Russell

@ Jamo

Try a long length of co-ax TV cable with a connector at one end, and strip back about 30 cm (a foot) of inner and outer and seperate them. Pull the two bits horizontal and selotape them to a bit of card or ruler. With the cable connected to the TV, place them on the floor so they point towards 3Rock. You should get a signal.

If it works, get yourself a better aerial.