wrightsaerials

How strange that my new Salvation Army CD was manufactured in Israel. Now that
statement betrays all sorts of cultural assumptions doesn't it? In any case the
recording is marvellously inspiring. And I'm an aetheist! Actually I'm a Bishop
in the Church of the United Aerialists. The Sally Army is not err. .
..affiliated to any particular religion . . . or is it? Are they specifically
Christian or just sort of general purpose religious? Can you be a Jewish
cornettist is the SA? Can you bang the big drum wearing a turban?

Anyway, I digress before I've even started, which even for me is a record! Now
today I went to see a man who wanted his Freeview box to work. He was in a good
reception area and I'd fitted the aerial 20 years ago. His ****ogue reception
was snowy and his digital non-existent. In the loft I found that someone had
fitted a two stage masthead amp on the incoming aerial feed, despite the
****ogue signals being +20dBmV. The amp fed a splitter, which fed one bedroom
and also a cheapo distribution amplifier. The latter fed all the other rooms.
Since the masthead was obviously into cross mod a 6dB attenuator had been
fitted on the incoming aerial feed. This not being enough to cure the crossmod
a strand of braid had been shorted to the inner at the masthead amp input. The
distribution amp was one of those beastly white plastic boxes that get
indigestion if the input signal is anything above about 3dBmV. So that was well
into crossmod as well. In the living room this horrible mix of noise and cross
mod was fed into a Labgear three set 'booster'. This fed a short length of coax
with those horrible plugs that short out (which one of them had) and then into
the VCR. From the VCR the signal passed to the Freeview box which just sort of
sat there looking stunned.
I set about with a vengeance hacking away at this jungle with the fervour of a
Victorian Salvationist facing the evil sink of nine****th century London
lowlife, and replaced the lot with a simple 8 outlet distribution amp of
reputable munufacture. The customer was stunned at the improvement in reception
in all rooms, having been told when he bought the house five years ago that 'it
was a bad reception area'.

Bill

Ageism damages our culture as much as racism.

dave fawthrop

| The Sally Army is not err. .
| .affiliated to any particular religion . . . or is it? Are they specifically
| Christian or just sort of general purpose religious?

Sally Ann are mainstream Christians.
Do *very* good work for the needy. --
Dave Fawthrop <dave@hyphenologist.co.uk>
Chair, Bradford Curry Project <bradfordcurryproject@hyphenologist.co.uk>
http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/bradfordcurryproject

dave fawthrop

| Anyway, I digress before I've even started, which even for me is a record! Now
| today I went to see a man who wanted his Freeview box to work. He was in a good
| reception area and I'd fitted the aerial 20 years ago. His ****ogue reception
| was snowy and his digital non-existent. In the loft I found that someone had
| fitted a two stage masthead amp on the incoming aerial feed, despite the
| ****ogue signals being +20dBmV. The amp fed a splitter, which fed one bedroom
| and also a cheapo distribution amplifier. The latter fed all the other rooms.
| Since the masthead was obviously into cross mod a 6dB attenuator had been
| fitted on the incoming aerial feed. This not being enough to cure the crossmod
| a strand of braid had been shorted to the inner at the masthead amp input. The
| distribution amp was one of those beastly white plastic boxes that get
| indigestion if the input signal is anything above about 3dBmV. So that was well
| into crossmod as well. In the living room this horrible mix of noise and cross
| mod was fed into a Labgear three set 'booster'. This fed a short length of coax
| with those horrible plugs that short out (which one of them had) and then into
| the VCR. From the VCR the signal passed to the Freeview box which just sort of
| sat there looking stunned.

Why do these amplifiers not have Automatic Gain Control? It has been on
radio sets, since they stopped using Crystal Sets. --
Dave Fawthrop <dave@hyphenologist.co.uk> Sick of Direct Marketing
telephone calls and silent calls? They use a computer which phones many
numbers, but talk to only one. Register your: real name, tel number,
snail mail address, with Telephone Preference Service, tps@dma.org.uk

john rumm

At risk of polluting everyone's enjoyment of one of Bill's ramblings
with a technical question...

One of the obvious first hurdles that many a would-be DIY aerial fiddler
will often fall at, is not knowing where you are starting from. This
often seems to lead to the "Amplifieritus" described, presumably on the
on the nieve assumption that "more" must be better.

As Bill demonstrates above, before being able to decide what needs to be
done on any given install, you need to see what sort of signal is coming
out of the aerial in the first place. To which application a spectrum
****yser would seem to be the ideal man for the job.

However, given that these are bit on the pricey side for the occasional
non pro, is there any other equipment that would be recommended that
would at least make a useful stab at measuring signal strength? (even if
it is not going to give you enough useful information for the more
complex problems)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

jpg

At the risk of sounding facetious how about a television set ... ?

(for about £180 you can get a little 9" colour Roadstar job that you can take
into the loft or up a ladder - I used a similar one in my loft - an old
Russian-built 7" B & W thing).

JPG

dave fawthrop

| (for about £180 you can get a little 9" colour Roadstar job that you can take
| into the loft or up a ladder - I used a similar one in my loft - an old
| Russian-built 7" B & W thing).

I use two mobile phones and a TV. Cost nothing, we already have them.
Me on top of the ladder swinging the aerial around, saying "how''s that?".
Clare watching TV saying "Signal ???? Quality ????" "It's gone again" :-(

Save F

john rumm

Not a daft idea! Although it has some limitations - not much use for DTV
as yet, (unless you take a set top box with it). Even then you only get
a go/nogo indication.

Also if you were planning a distributed whole house system, the TV
solution would not necessarily give you indication of when there is too
much signal in that it may give a nice picture while at the same time
there is enough signal to saturate the inputs on your distribution amp.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

jpg

I'm not sure but I think something like Picoscope, which you can connect to a
PC, may have a spectrum ****yser but I doubt it would cope with UHF.

JPG

orange

Although the SetPal Daewoo DTT receiver includes a very comprehensive
information menu on several screens, which displays the received mux's and
their channel numbers, the transmitter/s they are being received from (even
if there is more than one) signal strength and signal to noise ratio, all
this with the added bonus of 30 channels for around 69 quid, or even less!

Coupled with a small LCD display and modified to run on batteries, it would
make an ideal and very cheap ****yser for setting up digital aerials.

dave spam

Blimey ! this is almost an action replay of my mates house in the Fen's.
Add a knackered aerial that has been blown off beam and he was wondering
why reception was so poor !
Dave


--
My opinions are just that, check the facts carefully before
acting on my advice.
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