Not Receptive
- Thread starter Aikido
- Start date
i'm having reception problems in my unit at the moment. After two bad tenants I've decided to live in it myself for a while.
I have a telescopic aerial coming through the wall. The wire has come out of the black cabling and has been twisted around to meet up before being covered with the black cabling again.
I have to tape the aerial plug to the aerial socket on the back of my tv and fiddle around with it to get a half decent picture on 2 and 7 and 9. 10 and SBS is nonexistent.
I contacted an aerial guy who said it was a strata problem.
Then I contacted the strata managment co who look after the body corporate on Wednesday and I'm still waiting for their aerial man to contact me!
The other units don't seem to have a problem.
I know it's not my tv because it worked perfectly the week before when I was living at my mum's.
I have a telescopic aerial coming through the wall. The wire has come out of the black cabling and has been twisted around to meet up before being covered with the black cabling again.
I have to tape the aerial plug to the aerial socket on the back of my tv and fiddle around with it to get a half decent picture on 2 and 7 and 9. 10 and SBS is nonexistent.
I contacted an aerial guy who said it was a strata problem.
Then I contacted the strata managment co who look after the body corporate on Wednesday and I'm still waiting for their aerial man to contact me!
The other units don't seem to have a problem.
I know it's not my tv because it worked perfectly the week before when I was living at my mum's.
As a suggestion to correcting poor reception issues, has anyone considered using a digital set top box ? For those unaware, it's just an AV unit between your aerial connection from the wall plate, and your TV.
The idea is that it will enable any analog TV to operate like a digital TV, and the reception is generally excellent all over the metro area, regardless of whether your are in a valley or next to a recently constructed building
You can read more about them here.
You can generally pick up a set top box for around $100 on eBay :
http://search.ebay.com.au/Set-Top-Box_Electronics
I have set up a couple before (a fairly straightforward process) and there was a definate improvement in reception quality.
Anyway, just a thought
The idea is that it will enable any analog TV to operate like a digital TV, and the reception is generally excellent all over the metro area, regardless of whether your are in a valley or next to a recently constructed building
You can read more about them here.
You can generally pick up a set top box for around $100 on eBay :
http://search.ebay.com.au/Set-Top-Box_Electronics
I have set up a couple before (a fairly straightforward process) and there was a definate improvement in reception quality.
Anyway, just a thought
I do have a digital box myself, and for me, it's excellent.
On my normal TV set, the reception on ABC is unbearable. With the difital box it's great.
Two reservations though.
1. When it glitches (quite common) it shows up as annoying sound blips or picture freezes
2. You can't program a VCR to record on more than one channel ahead of time. That's not too much of a problem to me. I watch, but the last time I wanted to record a program I found that the VCR did not get that channel- that was 12 months ago.
On my normal TV set, the reception on ABC is unbearable. With the difital box it's great.
Two reservations though.
1. When it glitches (quite common) it shows up as annoying sound blips or picture freezes
2. You can't program a VCR to record on more than one channel ahead of time. That's not too much of a problem to me. I watch, but the last time I wanted to record a program I found that the VCR did not get that channel- that was 12 months ago.
geoffw said:
Ah, good point geoff ! The signal flow would be :
Aerial > Set top box > VCR > TV
So the input to the VCR would be the output of the STB, meaning that whatever station the STB is on when you set the VCR timer will be the only station that the VCR can tape.
Is that what you were getting at ?
Hi again geoff,
Given that the output of the STB is analog, and a video tape is also analog, your VCR is not recording a digital signal nor is it recording onto a digital media.
Therefore, to get around the problem of recording more than one channel in advance, I think you have 2 options :
1) Most STBs that I've seen include an "RF passthrough" capacity, with an RF adapter on the output of the STB which allows you to send the normal analog signal as received by your aerial straight to your VCR or TV (as you would normally connect it without an STB). In effect, this RF passthrough works like a splitter.
2) The second option would be to just connect an RF splitter outright between the aerial and the STB, so one feed would go from the spiltter to the STB (carrying the digital signal) and then to your TV, while the second feed would go from the splitter to the VCR (carrying the analog signal).
Make sense ? Hope I haven't confused you there...
Given that the output of the STB is analog, and a video tape is also analog, your VCR is not recording a digital signal nor is it recording onto a digital media.
Therefore, to get around the problem of recording more than one channel in advance, I think you have 2 options :
1) Most STBs that I've seen include an "RF passthrough" capacity, with an RF adapter on the output of the STB which allows you to send the normal analog signal as received by your aerial straight to your VCR or TV (as you would normally connect it without an STB). In effect, this RF passthrough works like a splitter.
2) The second option would be to just connect an RF splitter outright between the aerial and the STB, so one feed would go from the spiltter to the STB (carrying the digital signal) and then to your TV, while the second feed would go from the splitter to the VCR (carrying the analog signal).
Make sense ? Hope I haven't confused you there...
Hello,
Geoffw, do you still have the recording? Actually before I ask whether you have put it up on the Forum, should I ask whether it was property related?
Regards,
Kenny
PS. Sorry Off topic.
Geoffw, do you still have the recording? Actually before I ask whether you have put it up on the Forum, should I ask whether it was property related?
Regards,
Kenny
PS. Sorry Off topic.
geoffw said:That's it Tandella.
Though, as I say, the quality if what you wish to record is marginal.
The only time I wished to record a program in the last 3 years was one I appeared in. The reason I wanted to record was therefore nothing to do with quality
Actually, I only found out on that evening that the VCR (which I'd had for three years) did not pick up that channelKenny said:Geoffw, do you still have the recording? Actually before I ask whether you have put it up on the Forum, should I ask whether it was property related?
And it was property related- http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9791
crest133 said:
Crest 133,
If you were to install a power point in the roofspace, is it feasible to install the masthead amp power pack up in the roofspace instead? The only things that would be a negative I think would be cost of the extra powerpoint, plus the possibility of the plug pack failing and starting a fire. That said, I've never had a low current plug pack fail that way and other devices such as heating units are placed in roofspaces which are probably a bigger risk. So the fire risk would have to be negligible
Given the amp is then placed at the signal source rather than the output of the coax at the TV, the effect of the amplification should be better anyway, just have to turn down the gain a little I would expect.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
JMF
Aikido said:Hi all,
Got someone to go out and have a look at the problem. The outlet turns out to be for pay tv. Could I argue I will get the socket fixed if it doesn't work when the tenant connects to pay tv
The previous owner could get free to air and pay tv on the one cable so did not connect that outlet to the external antenna. Understandable, just inconvenient for me.
Thanks for all the suggestions
Dear Aikido,
Thought I would share a couple of little 'gotchas' I have come across re cable TV installations. One of my tenants asked permission to install cable TV (at their expense of course) and I said ok but told the agent that I insisted that Foxtel not disconnect nor remove the main antenna. I said I wanted my antenna connector retained on the wallplate.
Foxtel will often just leave the old antenna cable coiled up behind the wall plate and not connect it. This means that when the tenant moved out I would have to go back in and reconnect it if the new tenant didn't want cable. PITA.
The little trap that happened to me was that when the tenant with cable moved out, they duly ceased their subscriptions although Foxtel elected to leave everything still installed (no problem). I checked that my TV antenna was still connected, by noting that there was a separate plate on the wall marked "FTA" (Free To Air) adjacent to the cable connection wallplate. Ok I thought, but didn't look closely enough to spot that they had changed the socket type from the standard antenna socket that we are all familiar with, to an "F-Type" connector (the same type of connector used in the Cable TV wallplate), which is not compatible with the typical antenna cables everyone expects to use. Now this is not a huge issue in a technical sense, but it was an inconvenience to my next tenants who told me that there was no antenna socket and the ones that were there didn't work.
When I visited them (fortunately I live not far away and did not have to call out a technician) I realised that the although the antenna was actually connected to this "FTA" wall connector, the connector itself was broken (F-Type connectors are not very robust - the centre conductor had broken off, probably when the tenants had tried to plug in the standard antenna cable). Anyway, it is a easy fix, which I could do myself, just replace the wallplate with a standard TV antenna socket type wallplate available in Dick Smith/Jaycar etc.
By the way, the reason I think the Foxtel installer changed the connector type was to make it the same as the cable TV connector, so if there was a cable TV outage, you could just unplug from the cable TV connector on the wall and plug it back into your own antenna conection without needing an adaptor and unplugging the set-top box etc etc which might be more confusing. He probably thought he was doing me a favour!
But the lesson to landlords here is to also specify that they retain your original standard antenna connector type - if you do that on the cable TV order then perhaps you may have some call on the installer to return to fix it if they change it like they did to me. If you want the best of both worlds, you could install a splitter and have two connectors (one F-Type the other standard antenna type) both connected to your old antenna.
Alternatively, at least you know that it is an inexpensive fix, so you don't get misled by unscrupulous repairers. It should only cost the call out fee plus parts (antenna wallplate, which is around $10 retail) and take no more than 15 minutes. Might take an extra 15 minutes if you want both types of connectors on your antenna.
Regards
JMF
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