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indoor tv aerials


davidm

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hey guys

i'm away to buy a tv for my bedroom in the next couple of days and was wondering if anyone could give any particular recommendations for getting an indoor aerial?

thanks for any suggestions :)

Difficult business as the success you have with an aerial is more dependent on what the signal is like in your area than the type of indoor aerial. You can forget digital unless you get a particularly strong signal as well.

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Guest Gladstone
Get a Freeview box of some sort. Analogue TV signals are going to be switched off in Aberdeen(shire) in September this year so you're better off preparing for that now than getting a ye olde style indoor aerial.

He'll still need an aerial to pick up the signal to go into his freeview box though. A digital one at that.

No idea what's good though.

I tried a couple when the rooftop aerial fell off my flat a couple of years ago - I lived on King Street in a basement flat, and all indoor aerials were completely useless. I ended up getting hooked up with Sky TV.

Maybe look into FreeSat? Perhaps quite pricey though.

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Guest Gladstone
There is no such thing as a digital aerial. At the moment it's just a higher gain aerial. There's no reason why you can't pick up digital on a 40 year old aerial other than if the signal is too weak.

Really? I had no idea!!

What's the big deal with the digital changeover then? Is it just that you need a set-top box to view the channels?

And - what's the point of it all?

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Really? I had no idea!!

What's the big deal with the digital changeover then? Is it just that you need a set-top box to view the channels?

And - what's the point of it all?

Different method of signal transfer. The tuner system is different. It allows for more picture detail and audio information and more channels. The analogue systems struggles broadcasting 5 channels whereas there are 101 channels (tv/radio mix) currently broadcast in this area on the DVBT platform. The addition of DVBT2 will also allow people (with a different type of box) to recieve HD on freeview in this area from October onwards hopefully.

It's not a digital changeover, it's switching off an outdated and cumbersome system.

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Guest Gladstone
Different method of signal transfer. The tuner system is different. It allows for more picture detail and audio information and more channels. The analogue systems struggles broadcasting 5 channels whereas there are 101 channels (tv/radio mix) currently broadcast in this area on the DVBT platform. The addition of DVBT2 will also allow people (with a different type of box) to recieve HD on freeview in this area from October onwards hopefully.

It's not a digital changeover, it's switching off an outdated and cumbersome system.

I'm guessing that if you have a good aerial on your roof, wired straight into your TV without any set top box or anything like that, it just won't work?

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I got a 10-15 job from argos, and it looked a lot like this without the radio aerial style bits:

Buy Philex UHF Indoor Aerial. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

Or there's this one with a booster but I'm not sure if that's really a good idea with digital.

Buy Digi-Top Indoor Amplified Aerial. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

Anyway, I am on the top floor of a 4 storey tenement with the TV directly below a SSW facing window which gives me a rooftop aim of Durris. Therefore, your mileage may vary. I can get every Freeview channel with only very infrequent interference (probably due to weather) which I'm hoping will end when the switchover is completed.

Analogue look pish though, which is interesting o_O

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Different method of signal transfer. The tuner system is different. It allows for more picture detail and audio information and more channels. The analogue systems struggles broadcasting 5 channels whereas there are 101 channels (tv/radio mix) currently broadcast in this area on the DVBT platform. The addition of DVBT2 will also allow people (with a different type of box) to recieve HD on freeview in this area from October onwards hopefully.

It's not a digital changeover, it's switching off an outdated and cumbersome system.

So, this DVBT2... the built in Freeview on my Viera won't deal with it?

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I'm guessing that if you have a good aerial on your roof, wired straight into your TV without any set top box or anything like that, it just won't work?

Most modern TVs have an appropriate digital tuner built into them. If your TV doesn't then you would require an appropriate freeview digital tuner externally.

I got a 10-15 job from argos, and it looked a lot like this without the radio aerial style bits:

Buy Philex UHF Indoor Aerial. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

Or there's this one with a booster but I'm not sure if that's really a good idea with digital.

Buy Digi-Top Indoor Amplified Aerial. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

Anyway, I am on the top floor of a 4 storey tenement with the TV directly below a SSW facing window which gives me a rooftop aim of Durris. Therefore, your mileage may vary. I can get every Freeview channel with only very infrequent interference (probably due to weather) which I'm hoping will end when the switchover is completed.

Analogue look pish though, which is interesting o_O

My analogue signal is very "ghosty" whereas i get a very strong consistant digital signal. I've got Sky anyway so i tend to watch that more often than terrestrial digital broadcasts.

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Guest Gladstone
Most modern TVs have an appropriate digital tuner built into them. If your TV doesn't then you would require an appropriate freeview digital tuner externally.

My TVs are all quite old, and definitely don't have the built in tuner. I do however have Sky TV so this is all academic for me really, just curious really.

Here's another related TV query. My in-laws have Sky TV, and have the different aerial sockets hooked up together, so you can watch Sky TV in any room that has an aerial socket (on whatever channel Sky is tuned into - it's not "multi-room").

My mother-in-law got a new-fangled TV with the built in digital tuner thingy, and what this means is she can't tune it into watch whatever Sky channel is on through the house. She has to watch one of the digital channels. It's a bit shit because they live in the country, with a not-great TV signal, so although there are a few channels, it's nowhere near what Sky would have to offer. It doesn't seem to bother her much, but that would annoy me...

Any way round this?

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My TVs are all quite old, and definitely don't have the built in tuner. I do however have Sky TV so this is all academic for me really, just curious really.

Here's another related TV query. My in-laws have Sky TV, and have the different aerial sockets hooked up together, so you can watch Sky TV in any room that has an aerial socket (on whatever channel Sky is tuned into - it's not "multi-room").

My mother-in-law got a new-fangled TV with the built in digital tuner thingy, and what this means is she can't tune it into watch whatever Sky channel is on through the house. She has to watch one of the digital channels. It's a bit shit because they live in the country, with a not-great TV signal, so although there are a few channels, it's nowhere near what Sky would have to offer. It doesn't seem to bother her much, but that would annoy me...

Any way round this?

Yes, the TV will also have an analogue tuner so she will be able to tune in the RF feed from the Sky box in the same way that she used to. Usually people would tune it into CH6 on the Analogue tuner.

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