Question Freeview Aerial/coaxial cable problems.

steveyraff

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Hey guys,

I've been having very peculiar problems with the freeview reception in my house. I live in a semidetached house, in the countryside, and we have always had very strong signal quality. My grandfather lived in one side, my parents the other. When my grandfather passed away, I refurbished his side of the house and moved in there myself. I made his old bedroom into my living room and moved my TV in there (built-in Freeview). We have one big external aerial on the roof of the house. This was always divided 4 ways. One to my parents living room, one to their bedroom, one to my bedroom, and one to my living room.

When I first moved in, my signal was great. I got all channels available. However, in my living room, I noticed the coaxial cable at the back of the TV from the aerial was very sensitive. If I even touched it, sometimes I'd loose all signal. The coaxial cable from the outside aerial comes into my bedroom from the roofspace, and in my bedroom I have it running into an amplified splitter box to divide it to my bedroom TV and my living room TV.

Whatever happened, for reasons I can't think of, or can't remember, over time it got worse. Now I am down to about 10 channels or less. I just get BBC 1, 2, ITV, Channel 4 and a few plus ones.

I have an uncle who works with television repair and things like that. He had a very brief look at it and thought the cable going from my splitter box to my living room TV isn't right. He said it was poor quality and flimsy. So I went and bought high quality, shielded cable and a new, more expensive amplified splitter. When I first plugged this all in, whatever way it was sitting, I think I got almost all channels back bar a few. Now, it's back to being just the same. Presumably because the cable was moved slightly. I can't for the life of me get it back to how it was. I still only get these few basic channels. I even stopped splitting it with my upstairs bedroom TV (even though all of that used to work perfectly).

Heres another head scratcher. My Xbox One is connected to my living room TV via HDMI. It seems that when its left switched on, the signal is even poorer. Why would that be?!

You guys know better about this than me, should I re-tune the TV maybe? I was afraid to do this as my TV guide shows all the channels I used to get, as it once found every channel. I was afraid to re-tune it incase it lost these channels, meaning evening when I had the coaxial cable sitting correctly, it wouldn't work. If this makes sense? Like sometimes E4 is iffy, so I will put it to E4 and wiggle the coaxial cable at the back of the TV and it'll come back on sometimes. I thought if i retuned it I might loose this ability?

I'm probably making little to no sense. Sorry. All I know is, nothing was changed and all the stations I used to get disappeared. I have no idea what to do now. I was even wondering would a good quality in-door digital aerial dedicated to the living room TV be better?
 
Last edited:
Most probably do not retune.

Read this: Television Aerial Boosters / Amplifiers, Splitters, Diplexers & Triplexers and this: Satellite, Television, FM, DAB, Aerial, Coaxial Cable, Plugs, Sockets, Connectors & Leads

Depending on where you are (Location is important for the transmitter used and signal levels an aerial can 'see') you should not need the amplifier in the room to feed the two sockets in your half of the house if the original aerial -> 4-way split signal was done properly.

Amplification should be close to the aerial to make up for long cable feeds to the rooms and any signal splitting losses.

Check your parent's reception is good. Suspect the loft connections (and loft splitter ?? is it powered??). Check and remake any hand-made aerial plugs.

X-Box --- that's interference from the hdmi cable connection getting into the aerial cables.... Possibly due to poor signal levels but equally likely poor screening of the hdmi cable and/or TV leads. Try alternative hdmi cables (Pound store hdmi cables are suitable, don't spend £10s on gold-plated name-brands) and keep the two type as far apart as possible.

Finally room / set top aerials seldom work well. Aerials, TV Aerial and Digital Aerial
 

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