Aerial direction and polarisation

Carter P Fly

Its probably very simple but this is confusing me.

All the wideband UHF grid aerials in my area (stamullen, Co. Meath) are all vertical and pointed pretty much due north as in the crosses are facing north and the grid to the south.

On the checker http://coverage.rtenl.ie/RTENLcoveragechecker.php it says that the best signal is Kippure, although the town center says CLERMONT CARN

So my confusion is if thet aerials look to me to be sitting horisontal whilst pointing to clermont carn which should be vertical?

is it the way that the bows go that determine the H and the V? and not the way the aerial goes or is it that theyre all really pointing south cos i have it backwards in my head or what?

Peter Rhea

Those photos are of vertically polarised aerials, the bowtie dipoles face the transmitter, with the reflector behind.

lucernarian

Stamullen is sort-of equally covered by Clermont Carn or Kippure, it's complicated because Three Rock mountain also overlaps the area with the same frequency and depending from one spot to the next, the two signals add together or cancel each other out! As Peter above says, they're vertically polarised. Clermont Carn would be the analogue transmitter that historically covers the area best and also allows people to pick up generally weak reception for the 4 NI channels.

On the off chance that the Saorview signal from CC is slightly unreliable every so often, come the switchover next year, the power from there will be turned up and will be quite reliable. People in Stamullen might also get Freeview from Kilkeel but it's a much weaker signal and may not reach far enough to offer reliable reception from the same grid aerials.