Aerial Direction for Saorview

Sam Russell wrote: »

What group aerial is it? 3 Rock is ch 30,33 Kippure is 54,58.

I don't know what you mean?
They look like this

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Just a thought. Assuming you are roughly in the Sandycove area they are aimed for the NI signals. You mention that it was a pre-existing setup. It's possible there is a booster amp on the mast that needs a power supply plugged in. At your range, 3Rock would nearly come in on a wet finger so you are probably getting it more by accident than anything else just now.

Yeah Dun Laoghaire area. That sounds right Gerry. I have been able to get saorview reception even when I plug the cable out of the wall socket, although lots of breaking up. I think the north-east facing antenna does improve the signal, but is, like you say, set up for UK reception.

So my TV is saorview compatible, but must not be UK Freeview compatible. It's DVB-T (not T2) http://www.whathifi.com/samsung/ue40d5000/specs

Pity about that. But that's great that I should be able to pick up a combo box, and add uk channels, assuming the reception is decent. Would I need a box with two separate inputs for each or could I combine them before going to the box?
There are 3 aerials all going the same direction, so I might move one over to three rock and leave the others.
Thanks for the help

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

A Saorview Tv will get the UK channels with a suitable aerial. The DVB-T2 is only for the HD versions, you would still get BBC etc in SD.
Most combo boxes (other than very basic) have 3 tuners/connections. 1 for terrestrial (Saorview/Freeview if in range) and 2 for satellite dish feeds. (1 to watch and 1 to record).
Your mention of 3 aerials sounds confusing. Could they be your neighbours also?

I know. I was surprised when I checked, especially since they're all in same direction. Confirmed over the weekend that the 3 antennae are feeding into my attic! There is a junction box in the attic then. I need to trace exactly what's happening with them then. I know there's a junction box up there too.
I can only see all the expected saorview channels when I let my TV autotune. I'll try again this eve, see if I can manually find anything else.

coylemj wrote: »

If you study the big aerials pointing north towards Howth, you'll see that the spikes on the long arm are vertical, that's the polarization and should match the transmitter signal. Here is an aerial with vertical alignment, the aerials pictured earlier in this thread are all aligned horizontally



If you can see 3Rock as you say then virtually anything will pick it up. Hardly anyone with one of those big aerials needs to bother with a separate SW pointing aerial for 3Rock, if they do it's usually overselling by the local TV installer. Take a look at the houses at the upper end of York Road and all around Whites Cross on the N11, they all have a big single aerial.

I get you now. Yes all vertical, including my own. I tried tuning in more stations but only got the Saorview ones. I switched the country on the Samsung TV to UK to see if that would have any affect, it detected about 70 channels but none displayed when I switched between them.

I'll try manually tuning them now.

There's one coax cable coming in the attic and it's attached to a junction box. The junction box has two cables feeding out of it, one of which is going to the Samsung downstairs.

The Cush wrote: »

When tuning in Saorview normally the TV will find 71 or 73 channels between the 2 Saorview muxes/frequencies, most of them blank and without a name. Does the epg display any of the UK channel names?

Yeah that was it. I only saw channel names for the Irish channels.
RTE2 on ch 866, 1 on 860
Channel range from 800 - 872 but most are 'Service not available' with no name.

There seems to be a number of boxes on the mast. Dusky pic attached, hopefully will give an idea.

The Cush wrote: »

OK you mentioned earlier you had 3 aerials on the mast, I assume they're all combined down to the attic on a single cable.

Perhaps someone will confirm this is a stacked aerial installation (phased array) used to increase overall antenna gain.

Doesn't appear to be doing what it was installed for but then again it was probably installed for analogue tv reception from NI.

Yes all combined to a single cable which feeds into the centre point of red box above.

With the samsung TV set to Ireland it only picks up saorview. When I set it to UK it tunes 70 channels including saorview. But everything else is blank. This post explains that it's an issue specific to Samsung TVs that are not Saorview approved. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=93364209&postcount=5

I think I'll need to get a combo box or different TV to test that I can receive the Freeview channels.

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

You only need a combo box if you intend connecting it to a satellite dish also. The fact that the spare blank Saorview channels are hidden when set to Ireland means it IS Saorview approved and working. When setting the TV as UK it sees all 70 Saorview channel holders as 'foreign' and places them in the 800s as it is meant to do.

OK so is there a way I can actually get the channels to display on the TV then?

I had a look in the attic and there are lots of cables, couldn't confirm for sure that there is power going to the mast. I would be guess that there is.