Reception rotten lately. Which transmitter are we pointing to?

brcwatters

Hi there, complete newbie here with all this tv stuff so small words please

We're in North Meath, near Kells. Before saorview we got spillover from the North, since Saorview we get more, everything was fine up till a month or so ago. Well sometimes it would break up on good weather or windy weather or whatever but we thought that was normal. When saorview came we just got a new telly, needed one anyway, and continued on as normal.

Now we often don't have RTE 1 and sometimes have hardly any channels. This has been going on a month or so and getting worse. Himself reckons we need a new aerial. However in researching all this I've been on the coverage checker and it looks like we're pointing completely the wrong direction. We should be pointing NE towards Clermont Carn? But we're pointing SW? So are our neighbours - but then they might have just copied us, new build a few years ago! I wonder if we have been pointing the wrong way the whole time and that's why the reception was dodgy sometimes?

Can the tv tell me what transmitter we're getting signal from? Could we be getting it all the way from Maghera? If we are getting signal from somewhere further south, how are we getting the channels from the North?

And one last question, sorry, himself is looking at getting a One for All aerial - http://www.freetv.ie/amplified-tv-aerial.html, rather than a traditional type one. Would this be enough for us to keep the British channels too?

If you've read all this thanks! Sorry for all the daft questions. Have searched here but can't find how to find what transmitter we're actually using, but maybe I don't know the right terminology.

Thurston?

Do you know which is actually the 'pointy' end of an aerial? It isn't the direction the 'arrowhead' of a v-shaped reflector points in, if that's what you're thinking.

In the pic. I've attached, the aerial at the top is pointing to the right, & the bottom one is pointing left.

You would probably be best served by getting a decent aerial installer out for a look, certainly that yoke you linked to wouldn't be on my radar at all with regard to solving reception problems.

brcwatters

Ah that's brilliant - thanks a million, told you I knew nothing Bit embarrassing really!!

That makes more sense, plus it's good in that we have lots of trees in the wrong direction and none in the right, so all the better.

swoofer

Its probably a case that your existing aerial is badly aligned but if it was used for TV3 analaogue then its fine for saorview. Also the connections may be badly made up, the outer braid may be touching the inner braid. And if you are using old coax cable it may have rotted at the aerial end. Aerial may be loose. If you could post a pic it would be a great help.

Say make of tv and I can do a search for manual, but if you go to menu, set up, manual scan, you should find a signal meter, then for you the channels are 52 and 56. So put in 52 wait a little and signal should show up. do same for 56. You are a long way from clermount 54km = 35 miles. But if no signal then you can try a few others. go to this map

http://www.saorview.ie/get-saorview/make-the-switch/coverage-map/

put in kells meath, then zoom out and you will see the other transmitters, click on them and it will show the channels numbers for you to try, when you get a signal you will know which transmitter but as you are getting freeview I am pretty sure its pointing to clermont.

the aerial you need is this one

http://www.freetv.ie/black-wide-band-uhf-aerial.html

post back

Thurston?

brcwatters wrote: »

... That makes more sense, plus it's good in that we have lots of trees in the wrong direction and none in the right, so all the better.

I edited my post with a picture before I seen your reply, but you seem to have got it just from the words.

You probably actually have 2 aerials? 1 horizontally polarised for Freeview, & another vertically polarised for Saorview, with the Freeview one most likely being the larger of the 2, both pointing roughly the same direction.

The Cush

brcwatters wrote: »

We're in North Meath, near Kells. Before saorview we got spillover from the North, since Saorview we get more, everything was fine up till a month or so ago. Well sometimes it would break up on good weather or windy weather or whatever but we thought that was normal. When saorview came we just got a new telly, needed one anyway, and continued on as normal.

Now we often don't have RTE 1 and sometimes have hardly any channels. This has been going on a month or so and getting worse. Himself reckons we need a new aerial.

However in researching all this I've been on the coverage checker and it looks like we're pointing completely the wrong direction. We should be pointing NE towards Clermont Carn? But we're pointing SW? So are our neighbours - but then they might have just copied us, new build a few years ago! I wonder if we have been pointing the wrong way the whole time and that's why the reception was dodgy sometimes?And one last question, sorry, himself is looking at getting a One for All aerial - http://www.freetv.ie/amplified-tv-aerial.html, rather than a traditional type one. Would this be enough for us to keep the British channels too?

If everything was working OK up until a month or so ago with the aerial pointing in the "wrong direction" then most likely it's an aerial or cabling or cable to aerial connection problem.

The coverage checker will only indicate coverage from 1 transmitter even if reception is possible from other transmitters so the direction your aerial is pointing could be as equally good as the other.

If yourself or himself don't feel competent up on the roof checking the aerial then I'd go with Thurston?'s suggestion and go for an aerial installer to check it out ... and also his other suggestion - avoid the other yoke, especially if you want the Freeview channels from NI.

brcwatters wrote: »

Can the tv tell me what transmitter we're getting signal from? Could we be getting it all the way from Maghera? If we are getting signal from somewhere further south, how are we getting the channels from the North?

The TV may indicate the frequency or UHF channel no. of the 2 Saorview multiplexes/frequencies received, where to find it depends on the TV. Sometimes on the info banner if you press the "i" button, maybe in the tuning menu, hard to tell without knowing the TV make/model. If you do find them use the attached Saorview frequency list to match with a transmitter.

As regards receiving the UK channels with an aerial pointing in the wrong direction, if the signal is strong enough even an incorrectly oriented aerial will pick it up.

brcwatters

Thanks for all the replies. We've established that the aerial is in fact pointing in the right direction - well, as far as we can tell by looking at it - so that's cool. The aerial is fairly old so it could a problem with it, cabling etc. TV is a Samsung something or other, will look it up later and root out the manual. Like I say, I think I'm happy enough now that we are pointing to the nearest mast but would like to see how it is shown on the tv, for future reference. Thanks for the pdf file The Cush.

Thurston you were right, we do have 2 aerials, vertically and horizontally polarised, we didn't know what the smaller one was for. Himself was up there at the weekend and disconnected it, nothing changed. We didn't have RTE 1 anyway, but RTE2, TV3 etc still showed after he disconnected it. When he disconnected the bigger one, all channels stopped. There are 2 little boxes up there too - one with two ins, one from each aerial, and an out, and then another one which has a light on inside it - some sort of booster? We often don't have much of any channels at the moment, except for some reason Film4, that seems to be a hardy one, so it's either a problem with both aerials or one of those boxes up there. Or the Saorview aerial and one of the boxes.

Husband replaced his folks' aerial a while back and theirs works fine now. He's fairly handy, in that he built our extension, he'll look stuff up and give it a go - it was just the whole "which way is the relevant way" thing that was throwing me, but once I look at it in terms of like a satellite dish it makes sense. So anyway, he's going to go into Wesco today and talk to them. If we can't figure it out we'll get an aerial guy, but himself is one of those who likes to do things himself! Thanks for all the help.

The Cush

brcwatters wrote: »

When he disconnected the bigger one, all channels stopped. There are 2 little boxes up there too - one with two ins, one from each aerial, and an out, and then another one which has a light on inside it - some sort of booster?

One of the boxes could be a combiner to combine the feeds from the 2 aerials and the other a masthead amplifier connected to a power supply wherever the cable enters the house, near the TV/attic etc. By the sounds of it, it could do with a bit of tidying up. A proper masthead amp setup will combine and feed the 2 aerials to the TV point(s).

Also no RTÉ1 could indicate a misaligned aerial.

brcwatters

Both are actually on the mast - yes, we figured one has two feeds coming in and one going out - and the other some sort of amplifier. He thought the combiner one looked fairly old and corroded so the problem could be there - or as you say, multifold, combiner and misalignment.