Please help - saorview in Douglas, Cork

enrique66_35

Hey,

I'm at my wits end! We had our house in Donnybrook, Douglas, Cork rewired before we moved in (original rubber wiring was still there!) and the guys who did it also ran cabling (rg6) up to the attic from a TV/FM point in the sitting room and our bedroom - so 4 cables with no indication of which is which although seemingly in pairs so assumed each pair related to each wall plate (TV/FM).

Step 1
I got a wideband aerial from Dwyers (Colourking bow-tie grid type - similar to http://www.tvtrade.ie/wide-band-grid-uhf-aerial.html) and connected it up in the attic with each of the 4 cables in turn and tried to auto-tune for digital (TV is a Samsung UE40D5003 -saorview approved) - NOTHING!

Step 2
Went to Maplins and got aerial meter (similar to http://www.maplin.co.uk/aerial-signal-strength-meter-221768) and found original aerial position was only getting 2 of 4 leds lighting so after ALOT of careful methodical placing of aerial in attic found "sweet spot" where I was getting 3 lights (with an occasional flicker). Still get nothing when tuning for digital channels. Picked up terrible RTE 2 on analog.

Bottom Line - do I need a signal booster? (more €s ) or can anyone in the area confirm it's possible to get saorview with an attic aerial.
Sorry bout the length of the post, trying to put as much info in as possible.

enrique66_35

Forgot to mention I tried an indoor whip aerial in the window beforehand and picked up all the channels but was very weak and pixelated after a very short time. Can't even get that with the attic setup!

The Cush

The Saorview coverage checker recommends Mullaghanish for your area - http://www.saorview.ie/make-the-switch/coverage-checker/coverage-map/

Without knowing the area or Saorview signal strength in the area I would recommend installing the aerial outside. Have a look at your neighbours houses, do they have external aerials pointing in westerly direction?

Regarding analogue RTÉ2 if your area is served by Mullaghanish you would require a separate VHF aerial for analogue RTÉ1/2 and a UHF aerial for analogue TV3/TG4.

Peter Rhea

Saorview coverage checker indicates Mullaghanish & Collins Barracks transmitters for that area, depending on specific location.

If there is a 2nd cable going to each tv point, it's probably intended for satellite signals. FM & tv can be easily combined on 1 cable.

If there's any metal or water in the signal path, such as foil backed insulation or water tanks, the attic install won't work.

enrique66_35

From memory (I'm not at home but I did look) there was only one rooftop aerial on my street which made me think attic was possible and that one does appear to pointing roughly in the direction of Mullaghanish which seems ridiculously far away compared to Spur hill or Collins Barracks!
I tried the aerial (with strength meter) outside walking about (prob looked like a lunatic) and held outside from upstairs windows and nothing better than 2 of 4 and worse than the 3 (or really 2.75) of 4 from the attic.
Thanks for your reply.

qhe0i9zvfgdou8

Not that familiar with the geography of Douglas but a friend recently moved to the Maryborough area and bought an amplified aerial in Tesco for 30 euro which is receiving the Saorview channels perfectly.

Peter Rhea

Don't forget the Collins Barracks signal is vertically polarised.

Page 4 here shows a vertically polarised grid aerial.

SalteeDog

Unless you are already certain they are connected, unscrew the wall-plates and check that the cables are wired in. If you did pick-up a signal using the whip-aerial then the likelihood is you should pick up a better signal from the aerial in the attic.

enrique66_35

I checked the one in our bedroom, although not the one I'm trying to setup, it was far more accessible than the one now trapped in an alcove behind the telly. I'll inspect that one when I get home/the missus isn't trying to watch tv (we have an ex-cont sky box with a freesat card working).

enrique66_35

And there was rg6 cables were clamped to the back of the one I checked. Forgot to include that above.

enrique66_35

Can anyone on Donnybrook hill tell me which transmitter they get saorview from?

RTE NL's recommendation of Mullaghanish seems strange to me. The strongest signal I got seemed to be coming from Collins Barracks or Glanmire.

Sam Russell

To identify the cables, get a meter (multimeter with ohms). Make up a bit of cable with a plug that will go into the wall plate. Make the cable short out at the end (zero ohms). Plug it into a wall plate connection and then go into the attic and check each cable for zero ohms. Only one should be zero ohms. While up there, get a friend to remove the cable and the meter ohms should go open (very high). Label that cable and repeat for each cable. If none are zero ohms, then the face plates must be removed and checked.

Once you know which cable is which, you can connect the aerial. Look at the saorview.ie site and check the direction and polarity (V or H) for the aerial. Point your aerial and run the tune on the TV. Check your signal strength on the TV.

Peter Rhea

enrique66_35 wrote: »

RTE NL's recommendation of Mullaghanish seems strange to me. The strongest signal I got seemed to be coming from Collins Barracks or Glanmire.

Don't take the coverage checker as gospel. Spur Hill is only a short distance away & is a powerful transmitter, the best site to aim for will depend on your exact location & the intervening terrain, also local clutter such as buildings & trees.

WHL

I am in Shamrock Lawn and getting perfect Saorview pictures from Collins Barracks. I am using a yellow vertically-polarised UHF antenna with a masthead amplifier that is located in a downstairs attic. However the analog signal has been poor - must figure that out!

enrique66_35

Thanks to all who replied.

Sam Russell - when you say short I'm guessing you mean create a copper to copper loop, in other words strip the cable to expose the copper and allow the end not connected to wall plate to contact the copper along it's length?

Peter - My initial thoughts were that Spur Hill should be my best bet and let to my initial placement (before I got a signal meter) without success. My guess is I'm somehow blocked from it by location. Despite being on a hill there is a new development of houses in the general direction of Spur Hill and slightly raised.

WHL - Not to sound ungrateful for your response but can you clarify what you mean by downstairs attic? Also when you say masthead amplifier, is that part of the aerial or a separate signal booster connected downstream? Is you aerial pointed down towards Douglas village or at right angles to Donnybrook hill and out towards Wilton?

Thanks again for everyones help and suggestions.

Sam Russell

enrique66_35 wrote: »

Sam Russell - when you say short I'm guessing you mean create a copper to copper loop, in other words strip the cable to expose the copper and allow the end not connected to wall plate to contact the copper along it's length?

Yes, but do it on a extension cable and you do not have to touch the wall plates (if it works out).

Most electricians put little nicks in the cable (1 nick, 2 nicks, 3 nicks etc.) to identify the cables, but you would have to have access to both ends of the cable.

MikeSat

If you are lower down the hill in donnybrook Cork forget about Spur hill your transmitter should be Collins barracks,only problem with Collins barracks is that it is a low powered relay station and in your area it might be quiet difficult to receive tv reception with an indoor aerial,a booster may help indoors?? but i think for quality saorview reception an outdoor aerial vertical polarisation should do the job.

enrique66_35

I'm fairly high up the hill but I think house placement around me is blocking Spur Hill from me (in the attic at least) and possibly why RTE NL insists on Mullaghanish even when I move the pin around the map in the vicinity. Unfortunately it was too late when I got home last night to start tinkering in the attic.

Lots of good ideas to try so thanks to everyone and I'll report back when I next have an opportunity to work on it. Thanks to all who contributed.

enrique66_35

Hey all,
I spent of couple hours at it last night and still no joy. Thanks to Sam Russell's suggestion I had a brainwave and made up a test cable from an old fly lead that had one end cut off, stuck on an F-connector and tested each wall plate connection with the signal meter - 0 signal on 3 and poor on 1. By chance it was the TV point I wanted to use to at least I now know the right cable to connect in the attic!

With the meter recording 3 of 4 lights of strength reading in the attic, I tested at the TV point downstairs and it had dropped to 1 of 4!! That explains why the TV was getting nothing even when I had reported good signal at the aerial. I unscrewed the wall plate and the cables were stripped back and clamped tightly so no loose connections. I'm pretty confident there's no break in the cable run.

That just leaves the cable itself, is rg6 cable unsuitable to carry terrestrial digital signal?

Just to further complicate matters, the best signal in the attic is from Collins Barracks but when I connect the aerial in the sitting room (using my test cable) I can pick up and tune in a solid signal from Mullaghanish (or at least it shows up on Channel 21) but I can't stand in the window holding a large grid aerial every time I want to watch RTE!

watty

The clamp could be too tight, wall plate substandard (many are 50MHz 1950 designs!) and there is no such cable as RG6. RG6 is a "family" of cables, some excellent and some rubbish.

enrique66_35

Thanks for your input Watty. I understand RG6 is a vague term (after a bit of research) but it's all I had to go on based on what was printed on the cable. When stripped it's light foil screen with silver (most likely aluminum) braid and waxy plastic tube around a copper core.

The wall plate is labelled TV and FM (two connections on the back mounted on small circuit board). Good point though, maybe eliminating the wall plate by connecting that cable direct to the tv might be worthwhile. The wall plate was only fitted in Feb 2011 after a full rewire so I'd hope it's up to scratch but can't rule anything out!

WHL

enrique66_35 wrote: »

Thanks to all who replied.
WHL - Not to sound ungrateful for your response but can you clarify what you mean by downstairs attic? Also when you say masthead amplifier, is that part of the aerial or a separate signal booster connected downstream? Is you aerial pointed down towards Douglas village or at right angles to Donnybrook hill and out towards Wilton?

Thanks again for everyones help and suggestions.

Hi Enrique. No offense taken. I was away for a few days so i am just reading your response. The house here is two storey with a single story garage attached. The aerial is in the attic over the garage. I am using a Televes amplifier that I bought in Dwyers on Forge Hill - this was definitely needed for analogue TV from Collins Barracks before Saorview became available. To explain briefly, there is a short length of coax (maybe 1.5m) from the antenna to the amplifier. I then have a long run of coax from the output of the amplifier to the TV. There is a power supply behind the TV - this is the power supply for the amplifier in the attic but is located about 6m away behind the TV if that makes sense. Thus the long coax cable goes into this power supply behind the TV and the output coax from the power supply goes into the back of the TV.

I am using a yellow vertically-polarised UHF antenna and it is pointing directly towards Collins Barracks, i.e. just west of my south - you can see the on it at night-time.

Does this make sense

enrique66_35

Thanks for the detailed response WHL.
Yeah that all makes perfect sense to me and also makes me think my suspicion that I need an amplifier is becoming justified. Disappointing as that is I'm gonna experiment with varying length cable runs and aerial positions tonight to see how far I can push it before I have to amplify the signal. I have a good view over the city from my landing window so I'll have to try and pick out Collins Barracks when it gets dark later to aid my direction finding with the aerial. Thanks for the tip.

I'll report back when I've done more exhaustive testing. Really appreciate all the feedback and advice lads.

WHL

I am wrong. I had a look tonight and I can NOT see the Collins Barracks transmitter in the dark - I am sure that I could in the past. Anyway it is high up not far from Dillons Cross so I would think that it is roughly in the middle of the northside, i.e. aim for the middle of the lights on top of the hill. You should be able to see the spire on top of the Elysium - this is probably the right general direction from Donnybrook Hill

I also re-scanned the TV. It picked up the analog channels from Collins Barracks but also picked up the digital channels from Mullanghanish. The digital is honestly easier to pick up - it might be worth your while getting that amplifier

Peter Rhea

enrique66_35 wrote: »

The wall plate is labelled TV and FM (two connections on the back mounted on small circuit board).

Some of those wall plates are very poor wrt signal loss. I'm assuming it's also devoid of any kind of screening to guard against interference ingress.

You'd be better off removing the circuit board & just pulling the cable through the hole.

If you want to keep the wall connections as is, here are some examples of screened wall plates & how to wire them up. Also shows the correct procedure for dealing with the unscreened ones . . .

MikeSat

They have built a new tv mast in collins barracks cork in the last few months so the mast is now in a different position in the field.Standing at the top of patrick street cork, looking up patricks hill on the right at the top of hill is collins barracks tv mast.

Peter Rhea

enrique66_35 wrote: »

. . . the best signal in the attic is from Collins Barracks

How do you know where the signal is coming from? The aerial won't ignore Mullaghanish just because it's set up for Collins Barracks.

but when I connect the aerial in the sitting room (using my test cable) I can pick up and tune in a solid signal from Mullaghanish (or at least it shows up on Channel 21) but I can't stand in the window holding a large grid aerial every time I want to watch RTE!

When the aerial is in the attic & directed at Mullaghanish, what is it 'looking' through? The roof? A wall or water tank?

This is a very powerful transmitter on a high site & the 30 odd miles between you & it will pose no problems provided there are no signal-killing obstructions.

Ronnie Raygun

enrique66_35 wrote: »

I'll report back when I've done more exhaustive testing ...

Just to reiterate what others have posted, don't get sidetracked by irrelevant details. Replace or eliminate the cheap wallplates & determine if your attic is constructed from RF-unfriendly materials.

Never mind amplifiers (if only 1 tv point is involved) or trying to precisely aim your aerial at Collins Barracks.

SalteeDog

Another +1 from me for that suggestion. Bypass the wallplates altogether and for what it's worth use a length of RG6 instead of skinny TV co-ax to connect from the wall to the telly. Do that before trying an amplifier.

enrique66_35

Success!
Turns out the wallplate was killing the signal so when I bypassed that voila only slight signal loss due to the length of the cable run. +1 to Watty for the original suggestion and many thanks to all who contributed.

Collins Barracks was a bit of a red herring in so far as it's been picked up with a manual tuning(channel 50) but the TV opts for Mullaghanish when Auto-tuned, suggesting a stronger signal (or due to the differing polarization) but to be honest as long as it works it could be getting the signal from the Moon for all I care!

Thanks to Peter Rhea for the link re screened wall plates. Disappointed the electricians used such crappy wall plates to begin with as every other aspect of their work was excellent. Thanks again to everyone, just have to get a quality screened wall plate as the missus isn't too keen on the current cable dangling out of the wall setup!

Nothingbetter2d

enrique66_35 wrote: »

Forgot to mention I tried an indoor whip aerial in the window beforehand and picked up all the channels but was very weak and pixelated after a very short time. Can't even get that with the attic setup!

i use an AMPLIFIED indoor ariel i bought in DID electrical......... with the amp turned up full i get perfect reception.