Aerial trouble, any advice?

On my house near Listowel, Co. Kerry we had two aerials. One was a VHF aerial pointed towards Mullaghanish for RTÉ, the other a UHF wideband grid aerial for TV3 from Maghera. But the VHF array was falling apart so I decided to replace it with a UHF array, I bought a group C/D aerial since the Listowel relay is on channels 53, 57 and 63. I also bought a dual UHF diplexer to merge the signals.
TV3 is coming in almost perfectly on channel 66 from Maghera, I've little to complain about it. But all of the RTÉ channels from the Listowel relay have horizontal lines scrolling through them. No matter what I do I can't clear these lines. I tried swapping the aerials around, put the grid on RTÉ and the C/D array on TV3 - same result.

I live about 5 miles west of Listowel town, my only UHF option for RTÉ is the Listowel relay. For TV3 I'm in an overlap area and can pick up Maghera on 66 or Mullaghanish on 27.

Can anyone please advise me on what I could do to solve the RTÉ reception problems?

I haven't done anything about it today - wasn't gonna go up on the roof on a rainy day, lol. But I did get some advice and it seems my problem is co-channel interference. The Listowel relay uses the same channels as the Knockmoyle relay in Tralee (but Knockmoyle is vertically polarised). But my aerial is picking up Knockmoyle also and causing the interference.

I'm wondering whether to try going for Knockmoyle instead of Listowel, but then I'll probably get CCI from Listowel. If that's the case then VHF is my only option.

Is it actually possible to get a good picture on VHF? I've just had nothing but bad experiences with it.

Mossy Monk

i have RTÉ on VHF here in Waterford and the picture is perfect

Ulsterman 1690

Is it actually possible to get a good picture on VHF?

Of course It is
although on the other hand Ive heard that a lot of RTE's VHF transmitters are literally falling to bits so maybe not in your case ???

lawhec

Is it actually possible to get a good picture on VHF? I've just had nothing but bad experiences with it.

I've VHF from Truskmore, granted that it isn't perfect but then as I'm outside the service area and a local hill obstructs my path, therefore I accept what I have. However perfectly good pictures from VHF transmitters are perfectly possible. Indeed if TV3 from Maghera and Mullaghanish are coming in good VHF (with the right aerial) shouldn't be much of a problem.

Ok, I tried Knockmoyle like I mentioned above, but I did get co-channel interference from Listowel. So I bought an Antiference LP7 VHF aerial and pointed it towards Maghera. Seemed a slight bit weak so I tried Mullaghanish - perfect!

Problem solved.