Where to split/boost signal?

muffler

My setup at the moment is a Saorview rooftop aerial (picks up Freeview also) with the cable split 2 ways just behind the telly using one of those standard little triangular white splitters. One lead then goes to a Freeview set top box which is fine and the other lead going to a 3 way booster/splitter which sends the signal to 3 TVs around the house via standard coax cabling.

I know its not ideal having the signal split so many times and this is my problem in a way. A lot of times I loose the Saorview signal on all channels and other times I just loose the signal for RTE2, TV3, 3 etc with RTE1, Be3 and a couple of others being okay. Its odd though as I dont experience any loss of Freeview signal as the transmitter is about 12 miles from me yet the RTE transmitter is only a mile away and those are the channels Im having the issues with.

I have a feeling the 3 way splitter/booster I have is not working correctly which is no shame after 20+ years but my question is should I just replace it and hope that a new booster will will work or should I also use a 2 way splitter/booster where the coax cable is split in the first instance as described in the first paragraph above?

The ideal situation would be to have one 4-output distribution amp at the aerial's downlead and feed the outputs from there, but this would need rewiring work if the second lead from the splitter is going to another room. Failing that, replacing the simple splitter behind the TV with an amp should definitely help.

jonnygee

Ideally you would have seperate aerials for freeview and saorview. where are your signals coming from ? is it ballybofey and strabane. which one is your aerial pointing at? You want one diplexed lead coming in from the aerials (might be difficult if it is strabane and ballybofey as they are both mid 40,s vertical transmission). this single lead would go directly to the input of a distribution (booster) box and be distributed around the house. No splitters anywhere.

The Cush

Is the problem with all TVs or just the TVs forward of the booster?

Over-amplification of Irish channels due to the proximity of the Saorview transmitter?
What are the signal meters indicating?

George Sunsnow

It's possible that your tv has tuned in a far away saorview mux for the channels you are losing
Check them
Many TVs do need to have the automatically add new channels feature turned off as it causes these types of problems

Cush is right too in that the local saorview could be flooding your tv with signal but I reckon that would affect all channels and freeview

muffler

Karsini wrote: »

replacing the simple splitter behind the TV with an amp should definitely help.

That would be a lot handier than attempting rewiring again. Cheers

jonnygee wrote: »

Ideally you would have seperate aerials for freeview and saorview. where are your signals coming from ? is it ballybofey and strabane. which one is your aerial pointing at?

Yep, signals are coming from Ballybofey/Stranorlar and Strabane for the Freeview. The aerial is pointed at the Saorview transmitter.

The Cush wrote: »

Is the problem with all TVs or just the TVs forward of the booster?

Basically the TVs forward or after the the booster/splitter. Where the cable is first split one lead goes to a freeview recorder and in turn it is connected to a TV beside it by hdmi lead and most times I have no problems with the signal here. However there would be a very odd occasion where the signal appears "weak" with slight picture breakup but its not much and rarely happens.

The Cush wrote: »

What are the signal meters indicating?

You would need to pop round and bring your meter with you . Sorry, I havent had that checked out so I'll try to get my hands on the local lad who fitted the aerial 3 or 4 years ago.

The Cush

muffler wrote: »

You would need to pop round and bring your meter with you .

All the TVs/STB will have their own built in signal strength/quality meters, they'll give you a good basic signal indication at each point.

muffler

The Cush wrote: »

All the TVs/STB will have their own built in signal strength/quality meters, they'll give you a good basic signal indication at each point.

Never knew that. I know the Sky boxes do but didnt know that TVs had that facility.

From memory the main TV is LG42540V or maybe its 541V so how or where do I look to check the signal strength?

The Cush

muffler wrote: »

From memory the main TV is LG42540V or maybe its 541V so how or where do I look to check the signal strength?

I don't own an LG so can't advise but a bit of searching in the menu should find it.

Thurston?

jonnygee wrote: »

Ideally you would have seperate aerials for freeview and saorview ...

Without knowing where someone is located, you can't really offer that kind of advice. It could be that both transmitters are in the same general direction, or one or the other has a much stronger signal, & multiple aerials would be pointless. (And in this case it appears the problem channels are from the transmitter on which the aerial is actually aligned.)

jonnygee

Thurston? wrote: »

Without knowing where someone is located, you can't really offer that kind of advice. It could be that both transmitters are in the same general direction, or one or the other has a much stronger signal, & multiple aerials would be pointless. (And in this case it appears the problem channels are from the transmitter on which the aerial is actually aligned.)

I do know where Muffler is located!

muffler

The Cush wrote: »

All the TVs/STB will have their own built in signal strength/quality meters

muffler wrote: »

how or where do I look to check the signal strength?

The Cush wrote: »

a bit of searching in the menu should find it.

I have went through the TV menu and the Freeview box menu and cant see anything that gives an indication of signal strength or quality.

The Cush

muffler wrote: »

I have went through the TV menu and the Freeview box menu and cant see anything that gives an indication of signal strength or quality.

My brother has an LG and IIRC the meter is in the install section of the menu, might be different for yours.

George Sunsnow

It will be a screen with two bars one for quality,the other for strength usually in a set up menu often well hidden

Is any house near you having the same issue?

Do a channel scan on the mux with the channels that drop out too

jonnygee

Press settings.
press the red button
use the down button to select signal test
Press ok

muffler

The Cush wrote: »

My brother has an LG and IIRC the meter is in the install section of the menu, might be different for yours.

Thanks. I looked at that last night (I think) and didnt see it but will have a closer look again now at lunch time.

Just for clarity, although I think everyone who has replied understood the set up, Im posting a quick and rough freehand sketch of the arrangement as it currently stands. Im leaning with the idea of of removing the first little triangular splitter and replacing with an amplified booster/splitter.

Also I checked the channels this morning and RTE1, be3 and RTE jnr are the only Saorview channels showing on the TVs. However all Saorview channels can be viewed via the Freeview box and just to be sure I removed the main input cable from the splitter and put it directly into the TV in sitting room and all saorview channels are perfect. So thats telling me that the problem is with the signal weakening with the splitting.

From the sketch you will see that the main TV has input both from the Freeview box by HDMI cable and also a fly lead from the last amplified splitter. Currently Saorview channels are fine via the box but not from the amplified splitter.

jonnygee

You are showing two feeds going to the main tv.
One from the splitter to freeview box and one from distribution box to main tv.
Remove the splitter, connect the incoming feed and the one going to distribution box together with a connector (f type).
Take out the lead that is currently going in to the main tv from the distribution box and connect it to the freeview box.
Run an rf lead from the freeview box to the tv if neccesary

muffler

jonnygee wrote: »

You are showing two feeds going to the main tv.
One from the splitter to freeview box and one from distribution box to main tv.
Remove the splitter, connect the incoming feed and the one going to distribution box together with a connector (f type).
Take out the lead that is currently going in to the main tv from the distribution box and connect it to the freeview box.
Run an rf lead from the freeview box to the tv if neccesary

Apologies as I should have mentioned this before but the Freeview box is a HD+ recorder so would that make a difference to the arrangement you've mentioned?

muffler

Ran the signal test and pics as follows

1st pic is with signal through splitter and distribution box
2nd pic is signal going straight from aerial directly to TV (possibly may have been through freeview box??)
3rd pic is channel 47 details (appears to be the weakest) and signal is straight from aerial to TV
4th pic is of channel 47 with signal through splitter and distribution box.

When checking channel 47 details the on screen channel is showing up as Oirechtais TV which isnt currently picked up via the splitters but is showing by connecting the aerial lead directly to the TV. I have no idea why it reverted to this channel on both occasions that I checked.

jonnygee

What i would try next is,
take away the splitter.
put the aerial feed directly into the freeview hd box (rf in)
put the lead going to the distribution box into the rf out socket of the freeview hd box.
have freeeview box powered on and
check signal levels again.

If the freeview box is working fine and the others are not then the problem is probably with the coax ,connectors or distribution box itself.

If everything works ok then the splitter is to blame.

Thurston?

muffler wrote: »

So thats telling me that the problem is with the signal weakening with the splitting.

Well, yeah, each splitter output will receive less than half the input signal level, with the 'less than' factor varying in accordance with splitter quality.

If you need to use the splitter to get enough feeds, at least put it on one of the amplifier outputs.

muffler

jonnygee wrote: »

What i would try next is,
take away the splitter.
put the aerial feed directly into the freeview hd box (rf in)
put the lead going to the distribution box into the rf out socket of the freeview hd box.
have freeeview box powered on and
check signal levels again.

If the freeview box is working fine and the others are not then the problem is probably with the coax ,connectors or distribution box itself.

If everything works ok then the splitter is to blame.

Did the above and all is working well now. Went into the channel 47 test and the strength/quality are around 66% - 74% just now but were around 68/87 a little earlier.

Thanks to everyone for their help. Much appreciated.

jonnygee

ok Muffler, You should be able to get those levels up a bit more though, usually connections would be as mentioned in post#17 above. An rf lead from freeview box to tv would be normal.
check all aerial connections and keep the aerial feed to the distribution box as far away from any other leads at the back of the tv as you can, as interference can sometimes get into the system there.

muffler

thanks jonny. I'll rearrange the cables later to see if it improves things but its fairly good at the moment anyhow. I'll also need to get an f connector as the only thing I have to join the 2 leads is a little basic connector as shown in the pic below. Might even work!

jonnygee

that connector will be fine. a new direct lead with no joints would be better. but probably not by enough to justify rewiring.
and also just in case the freeview box does not allow the aerial signal to pass through to the tv via the rf out when in standby, you will need to turn that option on in the freeview box settings.

muffler

I took the main aerial input lead and connected it straight into the distributor and ran a lead from it to the freeview box and in turn a lead from that box to the main TV. I then ran the signal test and there was a slight improvement compared to the previous setup. That was on Tuesday afternoon but later that night there was a wee bit of breaking up of picture on the Saorview channels with the usual RTE1, RTE1+1, RTE Jnr and be3 being ok - I think Im right in saying that those channels are all on in the same group while the remaining Saorview channels are in a different group / different frequency.

Its odd considering that I'm just less than a mile from the Saorview transmitter with clear line of sight. I'm beginning to think now that there may possibly be something wrong with the actual aerial or the lead coming from same. But overall its not bad now as I have all the channels which is more than what I had last weekend.

The freeview box definitely has to be on (not standby) to view the channels so Im wondering what, if any, setting can be changed to allow the signal pass through when in standby?

jonnygee

You could not pick a worse time for testing.
we had no saorview from the fanad transmitter at all here on Tuesday night and some breakup last night, this is due to the weather and the current high pressure over Ireland. See how it goes over the weekend.

What type of freeview box is it , the setting you need will be called "power saving in standby" or something similar. it will be in power management menu or "eco" or something. post the model type.

The worst scenario would be that the Strabane transmitter is causing your problem. It,s 4 times as powerful as ballybofey and channels are very close to ballybofey ones.

Thurston?

muffler wrote: »

... later that night there was a wee bit of breaking up of picture on the Saorview channels

... I'm just less than a mile from the Saorview transmitter with clear line of sight. I'm beginning to think now that there may possibly be something wrong with the actual aerial or the lead coming from same. But overall its not bad now as I have all the channels which is more than what I had last weekend.

So all that's 'upstream' is the aerial & downlead, with the amplifier you already mentioned being the only one?

I would find even a 'wee bit' of breakup unacceptable, particularly when there doesn't seem to be any kind of challenging reception conditions.

jonnygee wrote: »

... The worst scenario would be that the Strabane transmitter is causing your problem. It,s 4 times as powerful as ballybofey and channels are very close to ballybofey ones.

It isn't Strabane causing the problem.

muffler

jonnygee wrote: »

You could not pick a worse time for testing.
we had no saorview from the fanad transmitter at all here on Tuesday night and some breakup last night, this is due to the weather and the current high pressure over Ireland. See how it goes over the weekend.

What type of freeview box is it , the setting you need will be called "power saving in standby" or something similar. it will be in power management menu or "eco" or something. post the model type.

The worst scenario would be that the Strabane transmitter is causing your problem. It,s 4 times as powerful as ballybofey and channels are very close to ballybofey ones.

Thanks. The box is a Hitachi model as linked to in my last post. I'll have a root around the power settings to see what I can find

muffler

Thurston? wrote: »

So all that's 'upstream' is the aerial & downlead, with the amplifier you already mentioned being the only one?

Yeah, its a more simplified layout now. The rooftop aerial is connected directly to the distributor / amplifier. Then there are 4 "out" leads (only ever 2 used), one goes to the Freeview box, one to a kitchen and 2 going to 2 bedrooms which are the 2 that are not used are at least very seldom.

I then have a lead from the Freeview box going into the main telly.

jonnygee

I see your link now.

Press Main Menu
then setup
then configuration
go down to Low Power and set it to No

You can set the auto standby to off in this menu as well, if you want.