problem with dtt signal

ronanphilip

hi

setup the ferguson combo box for the parents at christmas. worked perfect for the first few days and then when the rain started the picture started breaking up on the dtt channels. put the sky box back in till i find the prob. i was assuming it was rain in the ariel / cable / connectors. would like to know if it sounds like water problem or something else completely and best way to go about sorting it. some of the symptoms below

i also have a usb dtt reciever in the pc so checked that out. same prob of pic breaking up. the signal meter on the software (total media 3.5) is normally full bars but was now jumping from full to nothing or almost nothing back to full. the picture on analogue is still watchable while this is happening.

thnks again for any help

STB

ronanphilip wrote: »

hi

setup the ferguson combo box for the parents at christmas. worked perfect for the first few days and then when the rain started the picture started breaking up on the dtt channels. put the sky box back in till i find the prob. i was assuming it was rain in the ariel / cable / connectors. would like to know if it sounds like water problem or something else completely and best way to go about sorting it. some of the symptoms below

i also have a usb dtt reciever in the pc so checked that out. same prob of pic breaking up. the signal meter on the software (total media 3.5) is normally full bars but was now jumping from full to nothing or almost nothing back to full. the picture on analogue is still watchable while this is happening.

thnks again for any help

Its only on the DTT side then.

Check the cables/connectors. I note that you say you have it going to a PC as well. So you have the cables split. Did you do this properly ?

Its a connector problem.

lucernarian

I agree with STB, it does sound like a connector/join issue. The jumping from 0 to 100% signal can indicate that aswell, but those signal strength meters can be quite inaccurate especially with instantaneous changes.

If the aerial's outside then I'd check all of that. And make sure you're using f connectors and joiners if you have to join cables together. An f connector is what you use to plug in a cable from a satellite dish to the sky or any satellite box.

ronanphilip

hi

back home now and signal is back at full agin. the signal is sent to other rooms with one of these

there is a load of cables going all over the place behind the tv which im going to tidy up and check now but im thinking it might be due to the rain again as its working fine now. im not good with heights so someone else will have to head up to check the outside stuff if thats the case:eek:

ronanphilip

more problems, the dtt signal was perfect earlier on the combo box, now its gone completely. no picture at all on dtt, not breaking up totally blank no picture so done a scan on the pc and found 0 channels. the signal is from truskmore as far as i know. it is raining and a littly misty here but surely that shouldnt make a signal drop to 0. the house next door has perfect picture on freeview hd box so im confused. however they can also pick up alot of the uk dtt channels wheres as we can only get a few of them. the neighbours house is close also. our tv3 and tg4 anologue picture is still there:(

any ideas?

ronanphilip

picture back perfect now this morning and rain and mist gone. wasnt working upto late lastnight. is it possible the ariel just isnt good enough or do you still think its a connection problem?

lucernarian

Rain does nothing to a properly set up system. You seem to think that the weather itself is causing the issue when it's not at all like that. As we already said, it's most likely an issue with the cable somewhere between the aerial and your equipment. You should try the signal with one length of unbroken cable to the aerial and see if that makes any difference. And if the aerial's outside, it's very important that the point where the cable connects to the aerial is completely waterproof.

Could you please describe what aerials you have and how the cable is split to the various TVs etc?:)

ronanphilip

Rain does nothing to a properly set up system. You seem to think that the weather itself is causing the issue when it's not at all like that

good to hear, i had 2 reasons for thinking this. first the two times it stoped working it was either raining or misty/fogy and raining before and after the rain the signal came back without doing anything. second googleing the problem brings up a lot of people mainly in uk saying they loose dtt signal due to rain

Could you please describe what aerials you have and how the cable is split to the various TVs etc

aerials on chimney. as far as i know top one is vhf pointing to truskmore for rte1 and 2. middle one uhf pointing to truskmore for tv3 and tg4 and also the one recieveing the dtt signal. bottom one is for the uk channels


there are two boxes mounted on the aerial pole


cable coming into house goes through surge protector then into one of these i guess for amplifier


it now gos directly from output of above unit to the combo box (originally went to splitter below first but i changed it incase that was causing the problem)

the rf out from the combo box then goes to one of these to send to other rooms, one of which has dtt on the pc

thanks for helping

lucernarian

Yikes. It looks like there's going to be a fair few things to check for this.

Firstly, I once used an older version of the fringe amp 12V power supply that you have in the picture. It was linked to a distribution amp for other TVs in the house with a 6ft cheapo aerial lead like you'd see in any €2 shop. When I swapped that for a 2ft long lead using RG6-branded "satellite cable", I noticed a small but visible improvement on TV3 from Clermont carn in particular, and less so on TG4 which was better to begin with. My point is that you might benefit from using a better cable for the TV side of that power supply, especially with Truskmore's Group C/D analogue and digital channels.

There's another issue. From what I can see, and what I know of Fringe's line of combiners and masthead amps, you would need to use 3 boxes for the setup in question. A VHF/UHF combiner, a UHF 21-37/39-68 combiner and a masthead amp (either wideband or usually for Group A as the northern irish channels are normally weaker)

You can try the signal with just the one cable going into the power supply straight from the aerials. With just one cable coming from the power supply into your DTT box. See how that works.

Otherwise, it's going to take a trip to the roof to check the integrity of those two boxes on the poles along with the cable conncection points of the Unix 52 aerial pointing towards Truskmore or a replacement of the cables going from the amps to the aerials. They do look a bit aged from what I can tell. I suggest you don't do this unless you can work safely on a roof like that and know what to do with the equipment and aerials. Better off with a professional on that one.


Finally, if it's looking like the professionals are going to cost you big time, it could be worth emailing RTÉNL asking what EIRP the Truskmore mast is operating at for DTT and what increases are expected by 2012. The hope would be that you could hold out until 2012 to see if any further power increases do help with reliability.

lucernarian

By the way, I'm going to make a stab at this and say that there seems to be a UHF/VHF combiner from before TV3 days (which is the older red box) and then a Group A/Group BCD UHF combiner when another aerial was added to pick up TV3.

The red box *might* have an amplifier built into the VHF/UHF combiner part but I didn't think Fringe always offered something like that. The name for the part they currently make is WB22/V. As it's older and has the amplifier and DC power within it, it's possibly the reliability weak link.

ronanphilip

You can try the signal with just the one cable going into the power supply straight from the aerials. With just one cable coming from the power supply into your DTT box. See how that works.

thats more or less the way it is at the moment except its going through the surge protector first.

think its a job for a pro. i can hardly stand on a step ladder let alone head up there to look at them. any pros that anyone can recomend in the cavan fermanagh leirim border areas or even sligo its not too far away? might stick with sky for anoher while if its gonna cost alot.

thanks again for your help

ronanphilip

By the way, I'm going to make a stab at this and say that there seems to be a UHF/VHF combiner from before TV3 days (which is the older red box) and then a Group A/Group BCD UHF combiner when another aerial was added to pick up TV3.

thats a strong possibility

The red box *might* have an amplifier built into the VHF/UHF combiner part but I didn't think Fringe always offered something like that. The name for the part they currently make is WB22/V. As it's older and has the amplifier and DC power within it, it's possibly the reliability weak link.

what should this be replaced with if that is the case

lucernarian

ronanphilip wrote: »

what should this be replaced with if that is the case

If it does have an amp inside and it's completely waterproof then there's no need to replace it. The fringe part which *should* be there is a WB22/V or somesuch. So you'd get that if the red box was at fault.

Did you try scanning for Cairn Hill on Ch. 47? It's outputting at a very high power pre-Analogue switch off.

The aerials look in good nick and they'd be the most expensive parts usually. I don't know anyone in that part of the world I'm afraid. If you wanted, you could PM a mod and ask them to stick (west Cavan) in the thread title and maybe it will catch some people's eyes that way. Anyway, the job shouldn't be that expensive and it could be sorted out quite cheaply especially if you were willing to sacrifice the analogue NI channels. And could put up with a more snowy analogue RTÉ1 and 2.