high gain masthead amp or variable gain masthead amp ?

doney84

Hi,

Hoping someone with a bit of knowlegde on these things can help me here ...

My mate who lives about 15 miles outside Dundalk has a wideband aerial and he is picking up saorview no problem. We changed the polarization of his aerial to horizontal to try and pick up Divis. We weren't expecting much but to our surprise Mux C(ch 48) was coming in loud and clear but none of the other muxes which are in the lower frequencies were coming in.

So my mate wants to try a group A aerial to try for the muxes on the lower frequencies. He was looking at this areial http://www.tvtrade.ie/red-group-a-uhf-aerial.html and was unsure which masthead amp to use it with, this http://www.tvtrade.ie/high-gain-uhf-masthead-amplifier.html or this http://www.tvtrade.ie/variable-gain-uhf-masthead-amplifier.html.

There is a masthead on the aerial at the moment but we have know idea what type it is and were assuming it's quite old.

Could someone please point us in the right direction?

Many Thanks

Sponge Bob

Widebands amps could amplify spurious ****e like Tetra and 4g.

Best amplify narrow bands and then only if required..after power boosts in October 2012 from Divis.

zg3409

Signal's from the north will have their power turned up in October. It's easier to wait until then and the problem might fix itself.

Generally the fixed gain amps are better. However professionals will use special custom made amps that only amplify certain channels and block others. In this way you would only amplify the northern stations and not those from ROI. If you just hook an aerial to a high gain amp it may become overloaded and not work properly.

The variable gain amp may help or it may be worse. Ideally you would need to wait until November, then re-test the setup. If it is still no good then best setup would be an amplifier designed only to amplify the UK frequencies.

See here for what I mean:
http://www.fringeelectronics.co.uk/PDF/Masthead.pdf

and here for how to combine two aerials:
http://www.tvtrade.ie/how-to-combine-saorview-and-freeview-on-the-same-digital-receiver.html

Note the frequencies on the last page may be out of date/incorrect

Peter Rhea

doney84 wrote: »

He was looking at this areial http://www.tvtrade.ie/red-group-a-uhf-aerial.html

First of all, as already pointed out, wait for switchover (less than 3 months until start in NI), unless you really want to try for low-powered pre DSO Freeview before it's gone forever . . .

Secondly, if you need plenty of gain, get a decent grouped aerial rather than pairing that 10 element thing with an amplifier. An amplifier is no substitute for gain at the aerial itself.

doney84

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice on my query.

I have done a bit of research and found out that all grid aerials are widebands and that although they do the full frequency range (ch21 to ch68) they tend to perform better on frequencies from the high forties on ... So would my mate not be best putting up a group a aerial anyway due to the frequencies Divis will be using (21,23,24,26,27&29) post 24th of October???

Surely it would improve his chances of a more reliable freeview signal ???

Peter Rhea

What's the hurry? He'd be better off waiting to see how the full power signals fare with the grid aerial & work from there.

Ronnie Raygun

If he's already getting analogue from Kilkeel, he should get the PSB muxes from there after switchover, without changing anything. Having said that, it's definitely worth trying for the full Freeview service from Divis.