setting up saorview with attic aerial, beginner

kifi

Hi all
My mother lives in an area where saorview cannot be picked up with indoor aerial so i am hoping to install an aerial in the attic. I have bought the box and aerial for the attic. The house is relatively new. In the living room beside some sockets there is a blank panel which when i remove it reveals about 6 coax cables. Up in the attic, I'm not so sure of where i connect the aerial into these cables. It's difficult to pick out all the cabling as they run under the insulation quite a bit. I can however see one coax cable exposed. I was thinking that i could cut this and connect it to the aerial and then back down in the living room connect one of the 6 cables to the saorview box by trial and error?
Any advice on how to do this and what tools and materials would i need? Thanks

kifi

Just to add, I've been trying to get somebody to do this for me and i am getting quotes that are much too high and a couple of weeks wait!
thanks again

FREETV

kifi wrote: »

Just to add, I've been trying to get somebody to do this for me and i am getting quotes that are much too high and a couple of weeks wait!
thanks again

Hi, can you take several clear photos of the setup in the attic as regards the cables there, your new aerial; etc and we will hopefully be able to save you money and help you to do it yourself. What approximate area also are you in?

jeltz

Normally you would have a look at the aerials on neighbouring houses. Basically you want a size up to get over the losses caused by the slates. In most cases that means using an 18 element or a high gain x beam.

If you know the transmitter then you can easily find out which aerial group you need.

Since you probably have a wide band aerial it may take a bit more fiddling to get good results.

kifi

Im on carlow kilkenny border. Unfortunately i don't have the facility to upload pics. I'd guess that my aerial is a wideband one. I have cut the one thrice coax in the attic and while tin aerial is connected to one end and then the other, i connected my saorview box to each of the 7 cables that come out in the living room. No result.

jeltz

I wonder if it might be safer to get say 25m of double screened coax cable from a diy shop and use that instead.

It is a great help to have a portable tv and the saorview box in the attic as there may be a fair bit of waving around to find the best spot. It is easy if you can see the screen, or could take hours if you have to keep running up and down the stairs. If you can find out the transmitter you can normally put the box on the exact channel used which makes life much easier - check the instruction manual for how to do that.

Once you get the signal ok then you can think about getting the cable to the living room.

jeltz

Go here to find out your nearest transmitter and the channel it is broadcasting on.

Don't worry about the aerial, if it doesn't work too well you can always take it back then get another one. It may well turn out to be ok.

FREETV

jeltz wrote: »

I wonder if it might be safer to get say 25m of double screened coax cable from a diy shop and use that instead.

It is a great help to have a portable tv and the saorview box in the attic as there may be a fair bit of waving around to find the best spot. It is easy if you can see the screen, or could take hours if you have to keep running up and down the stairs. If you can find out the transmitter you can normally put the box on the exact channel used which makes life much easier - check the instruction manual for how to do that.

Once you get the signal ok then you can think about getting the cable to the living room.

Mount Leinster is the one for you on Channel 23 it seems. Wideband aerials work very poorly though unfortunately for a Group A transmitter.

jeltz

FREETV is absolutely right.

As ridiculous as it sounds, a small 10 element group A €10 aerial is better at E23 than a massive 1.8 meter long €60 wideband monster!

Its due to the laws of physics which cant be interfered with.

Still, with the huge amount of power Mount Leinster is putting out you may get lucky with the aerial you have.

dowtchaboy

kifi wrote: »

Im on carlow kilkenny border. Unfortunately i don't have the facility to upload pics. I'd guess that my aerial is a wideband one. I have cut the one thrice coax in the attic and while tin aerial is connected to one end and then the other, i connected my saorview box to each of the 7 cables that come out in the living room. No result.

If you are on the Carlow-Kilkenny border you should be able to pick up Mt Leinster on a "piece of wet string"! Suggest you bring the box to a neighbours place and using their aerial, tune it in - just to be sure your box is OK and you are tuning it properly before you go back to cutting coax cables at random!

Wonder what all the cables are for - are any Cat5 for Ethernet distribution, perhaps, or are they coax there to distribute TV around the house?

kifi

Think it's the location of the house, its down in a `hole`. Went up to the attic with my wideband aerial and can get a signal but the picture tends to freeze some times. Will try to get a group A aerial and see how i go. Are these aerials easy to find? Thanks again for your replies.

jeltz

Have a look at neighbours outdoor aerials. Are they big, do they have x shaped elements or are they grids?

CPC Farnell Ireland does the high gain Blake DMX10a which is a very safe bet, I have one.