Apartment Aerial Help!

tea and cake

Hi, my boyfriend and I have recently moved into an apartment and bought a smart tv...the smart part of the tv works perfectly with our broadband but the tv part not at all as there is no cable from the wall for tv aerial only cable for sky. We are not allowed to erect our own aerial due to apartment rules. We have tried old rabbit ears but no good. We have an old sky box and tech man for the apartment block said he will connect that for us for €60 or will sell us a free to air box for €220 or alternatively we could sign up to sky. We were lucky enough to get a monthly lease due to job situations so might only be here until Christmas so €220 is a lot of money for 4 months and sky sign you up for a 12 month contract so I suppose my question is if we pay the man €60 to hook up the old sky box will it just be free to air channels we will get or will we get saor view ones aswell? as all we really want are 1,2 and tv3 and the tv has saorview built in? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

St Senan

For €220 you could buy 4 or 5 Free To Air boxes. Even Xtravision sell them now.
Tell that TECH guy to take hike.
You would need to let people here know where you live as then you can be guided to where your nearest transmitter for saorview is.

tea and cake

Thanks for the reply Navarre Im located in the southeast suburbs of cork city. Yes would love to tell that tech guy to take a hike but we have already tried to plug in the old sky box using the satellite cable from the wall but no good, he needs to hook us up or so he says!

St Senan

Have a look here and type in your address to see what transmitter covers your area. http://www.saorview.ie/what-is-saorview/make-the-switch/coverage-map/

Regarding this TECH guy charging you for hooking up your Skybox for €60. This is some sort of agreement between either the management company/developers and the guy/company who fitted the TV system to the apartment block. I do know down this way in wexford that most of the management companies have pulled away from this sort of setup as its easy money for these TECH guys to disconnect a feed/signal to an apartment and then reconnect when some else moves in at a cost. Have a chat to whoever you are renting from as this is wrong IMO.

tea and cake

Thanks, do you think if we hook up the old sky box we would be able to receive the saorview channels through that as we have a saorview tv or is that completely separate?

St Senan

tea and cake wrote: »

Thanks, do you think if we hook up the old sky box we would be able to receive the saorview channels through that as we have a saorview tv or is that completely separate?

An old skybox wont give you saorview. Type your address into the saorview coverage checker it will tell you what transmitter you are on.
Plug in your aerial to your TV have the aerial pointing in the direction of the local transmitter then do an auto installation on your smart TV. If this all fails then have a chat to whoever you are renting from and tell them that you have no TV channels and this TECH guy is wanting money from you.

tea and cake

Thanks for your help!

The Cush

Maybe you could mount something like this discreetly - http://www.tvtrade.ie/digidome-tv-aerial.html

Peter Rhea

tea and cake wrote: »

Im located in the southeast suburbs of cork city.

Try your 'rabbit ears' near a west-facing window, if you have one.

winston_1

So called rabbits ears are VHF aerials and are not suitable for Saorviews UHF transmissions. The digidome aerial is pretty useless as well. It is omnidirectional and does not look as if the polarisation can be changed.

The Telecam TCE2000 is one of the best indoor aerials and even that cannot be guaranteed to work anywhere.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TELECAM-TCE2000-performance-indoor-aerial/dp/B000G73ZIQ

Don't be tempted to get an amplified version. Amplifiers don't work on indoor aerials.

bobjayhan

Hi - I know this thread is a bit old but anyone who contributed might have a minute and be able to help me out.

Just moved into rented apartment with UPS box installed, but don't want to sign up for them, would be happy with just saorview basic channels. The connection seems to have been turned off as when I connect the TV aerial cable & TV through scart/hdmi, it searches for but doesn't find the channels; and nobody will take responsibility to turn it back on - apartment management, UPC (only want to sell), landlord.

There seem to be aerials outside (no satellites) and it's not one of those blocks that UPC have corralled for themselves only (ethics of that tactic is another chat), so seems that the input signal is just switched off.

Would be grateful if anybody can help - tricks to get it back on or at least who would be in charge of it!

Thanks

Thurston?

As I mentioned in the other thread you posted in, UPC's cable won't have the Saorview signal on it, so no point trying to get Saorview from 1 of their outlets.

Must be a Saorview box you're connecting 'through scart/hdmi'?

winston_1

The satellites are there but as they are 23,000 miles away you can't see them.
If there are aerials there you need to get on to the landlord to ask where your aerial feed is. TV is virtually a right these days and if he/she won't provide it I would be looking to live elsewhere.

obezyana

winston_1 wrote: »

So called rabbits ears are VHF aerials and are not suitable for Saorviews UHF transmissions. The digidome aerial is pretty useless as well. It is omnidirectional and does not look as if the polarisation can be changed.

The Telecam TCE2000 is one of the best indoor aerials and even that cannot be guaranteed to work anywhere.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TELECAM-TCE2000-performance-indoor-aerial/dp/B000G73ZIQ

Don't be tempted to get an amplified version. Amplifiers don't work on indoor aerials.

I just seen this thread and i can tell you the Digidome works perfect for me in a residential area out on my back wall. So its not as useless as you might think.

winston_1

obezyana wrote: »

I just seen this thread and i can tell you the Digidome works perfect for me in a residential area out on my back wall. So its not as useless as you might think.

Yes, there is always someone for whom it will work. But the majority of people require a directional aerial.

Can you confirm if you can change the polarity or not?

Thurston?

obezyana wrote: »

... the Digidome works perfect for me in a residential area out on my back wall. So its not as useless as you might think.

If you're in the kind of good signal area where it works 'perfect', you can be pretty sure something a fraction of the price will work just as well.

obezyana

winston_1 wrote: »

Yes, there is always someone for whom it will work. But the majority of people require a directional aerial.

Can you confirm if you can change the polarity or not?

You called it useless...how can you say such a sweeping statement if you admit that it can work for people. There is 4g antennas, Sky dishes, Saorview aerials all around my house and my "useless" digidome works perfectly.

I chose to use it as i wanted something discreet in my backyard and it does that very well. As for the polarity you would be correct and that i don't dispute. I wouldnt be of the opinion that the digidome is the way to go for people wanting Saorview as i know its not the best in fact iv never mentioned it to anyone iv installed Saorview for but it works for me i knew what i was getting and iv not had a single problem with it.

obezyana

Thurston? wrote: »

If you're in the kind of good signal area where it works 'perfect', you can be pretty sure something a fraction of the price will work just as well.

Yes of course something cheaper would work if in a strong signal area. I got it for its asthethics and given i knew it would work i bought it and installed it in confidence, it even worked in my sitting room the night i got it. I hooked it up to the tv and tuned the channels so i could watch Champions league on TV3 and low and behold it worked...again perfectly. Its now sitting nice and discreetly on my back wall.