Lawnmowers are wrecking my head...& my signal!

Mr Keek

Folks,

What can I do to stop lawnmowers from breaking up my signal on Saorview, they make all TV's in the house, all fairly new, the oldest being 18 months old unwatchable.

Our Aerial is a small 10 element job as seen here. Would a different aerial help?

Our cable which I suspect is the most likely culprit is about 20 years old, the Brown Co-Axle stuff. Would rewiring with better insulation help?

If it's any help, our FreeSat which I did myself is not effected, it has fairly new non expensive black Sat/CoAxle cable, but perhaps better insulation?

What do ye think? How would I sort this out?

SalteeDog

Before you incur too much expense, check if you have crappy unshielded wallplates and if so then get rid of them (either replace with shielded version, or direct connect cables with F-connectors). It may or may not make enough of a difference to be effective in your case but is worth doing anyway.

Ronnie Raygun

Is your aerial fitted with a balun? Is the aerial in the attic or outdoors? If all the mower interference is coming from 1 general direction, you could try resiting the aerial, maybe use part of the house as a screen.

Better cable might help, you could try a single run to 1 tv before ripping everything out. Satellite IF doesn't seem to be affected by this kind of interference, so I wouldn't make comparisons there.

Mr Keek

Aerial is on the roof, outside and it has a Balun fitted. The Aerial was out old TG4 aerial, about 14 years old, and working perfect. The Aerial is connected to the cable via the old type Co Axle plugs.

The Aerial functions perfectly, signal strength is usually in the 93% range and signal quality is always 100%. The interference is comming from all directions.

Ronnie Raygun

You can't tell if it has a balun unless you look inside the connection box.

Mr Keek

Cheers, I thought the connection box was the a balaun, ill check it out, thanks for the input

winston_1

That looks like a contract aerial so it almost certainly won't have a balun. However I think the old cable is most likely the problem. You need satellite grade cable with better screening (not insulation).

If this aerial is feeding all the TVs in the house how it it being split? If you have cheap plastic splitters these should be replaced with screened metal types as well.

Mr Keek

winston_1 wrote: »

That looks like a contract aerial so it almost certainly won't have a balun. However I think the old cable is most likely the problem. You need satellite grade cable with better screening (not insulation).

If this aerial is feeding all the TVs in the house how it it being split? If you have cheap plastic splitters these should be replaced with screened metal types as well.

TVs are fed with a fairly good distribution box so I don't thing it's tht to be honest.

I'll change the Aerial and the cable tht connects it into the distribution box, and update it to F Connectors on the outside and leave the old wiring from the distribution box into the TVs and wall plates alone, hopefully that'll sort it. It was never an issue with the analogue signal. That should be low cost, I can do that myself.

If not, I'll update all the internal cable from the distribution box to the TVs and wall plates then.

Thanks for the help lads.