Need help with aerial

DigiMarc

Hey guys,

Hope this is the right place to ask this. I moved into a house a year back and was getting NTL for free until they and I realised. I thought we had been getting the reception from the aerial on the roof.

There is a box at the side of the house and I tried connecting the aerial to this. When I then took a cable from the tv point in the house to the TV there is no reception.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? Or alternatively does anyone know a business in the Wicklow area that could look into this for me?

Thanks,
Marc.

Well where in Wicklow are you?
I presume its an aerial on the roof you are hooking into now and not a cable box on the side of the house.
Doing the latter would be illegal.

Try any of your local tv outlets, they will reccomend someone.

DigiMarc

Yes it was the aerial and not cable I was plugging in. I am in Wicklow Town and to be honest the TV oulets in the town are pretty tiny. They only do rentals as far as I can see and they are not a very reputable make. Unfortunately I very much doubt that they would be of any use.

Antenna

NTL has no cable in Wicklow town - so how you were managing to get it for free for a year beats me!

Ulsterman 1690

Chorus have a franchise for Wicklow if I remember rightly

RE: the legalities of connecting into tap unit well in theory it is illegal but on the other hand Presumably the thing is on your property and nobody asked you if they could put it there....................

Failing that you will need

A VHF aerial pointed at Kippure (for RTE1 and 2)
A UHF aerial pointed at Kippure (for TV3 and 4)
A high gain UHF aerial (with booster) pointed at Wales (For BBC1 and 2/HTV/S4C and possibly Channel 5/Freeview)

Ulsterman 1690

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

A high gain UHF aerial (with booster) pointed at Wales (For BBC1 and 2/HTV/S4C and possibly Channel 5/Freeview)

Actually arfon is quite good in Wicklow especially if you can see the sea, so a simple vertically polarised grid aerial with an amp should do.
No ch5 on that though.
Presely is a bit hit and miss in Wicklow.

If you pm me I can sort you out with a few aerial installers.

Antenna

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Chorus have a franchise for Wicklow if I remember rightly

Yes but no cable in Wicklow town - see
http://www.chorus.ie/about/net_map.htm
(though that map could be incomplete)

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

RE: the legalities of connecting into tap unit well in theory it is illegal but on the other hand Presumably the thing is on your property and nobody asked you if they could put it there....................

They surely have wayleave to have it there. Streets in downtown areas and old terraced houses will also often have ESB and Eircom cables feeding neighbours going along the side of the house - same situation there - someone cutting in to a phone line on their property which supplies a neighbour and making expensive foreign calls in the middle of the night on the line - or stealing electricity from ESB cables going along the outside wall of the house will hardly get away by pleading to a judge "nobody asked if they could put it there".

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

A high gain UHF aerial (with booster) pointed at Wales (For BBC1 and 2/HTV/S4C and possibly Channel 5/Freeview)

Interestingly looks like Wales will have analogue switch-off in 2008 (3 years before NI is scheduled to!)
see
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/dsoind/smup/?a=87101

One wonders will the analogue transmitter powers be gradually reduced in the years leading up to switch-off to help nudge people to convert??? (as was done with the old 405 line TV system and also the RTE 2FM Mediumwave transmitters before they were closed)

Antenna

Antenna wrote:

Yes but no cable in Wicklow town - see
http://www.chorus.ie/about/net_map.htm
(though that map could be incomplete)

Oh they do have cable in Wicklow town and Arklow-its the old CMI rig and they havent done anything to improve it much.

That map is all over the place... I live near Ballyfad for instance and I can tell you Killkenny is 60 odd miles to the southwest of me and not to the north.
I dont think chorus have anything at Ballyfad either-theres an O2 and a Garda mast there allright.
The chorus equipment is at Slieve Bhuí which is near Carnew and in co wicklow.
Typically its a rather pathetic analogue mmds afaik... and I thought they had to have them all digital by now...

Ulsterman 1690

Public utilities (like the ESB/NIE) and formerly public utilities (like BT/Eircom)have the legaL right to run cables across ones property even if you dont want them

Cable companies have (contrary to popular misconception) no such legal right

Besides if people refused access to the ESB then the ESB would refuse to supply the individuals in question and few people would opt for this

DigiMarc

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the replies. Wasn't around yesterday to reply. Obviously you were right about NTL. I haven't had cable in years though so just thought it was them.

Marc.