Replacing old coaxial cable with Digital cable

[Cliffy]

I have a new Avtec LED TV which is great when my 2004 Autotrail Tracker is parked on the drive outside my house. It picks up all the chanels the house TV does, 103 in all, but when I am out and about at different campsites I usually only get BBC channels or ITV chanels or none at all.

It improves slightly if I plug the arial lead straight into the status amplifier by-passing the installed cable. I am thinking I should the built in cable which goes up inside the wall through the ceiling and into the wardrobe directly opposite where the amplifier if fitted. Is this a difficult operation to do. I don't fancy taking wall and ceiling panels off, will a new cable just pull through. Is it worth doing The existing cable is not digital cable but neither is the cable in my house and that works fine and it is a ten time longer run.

 

Is my old omni-directional status arial suitable for Digital TV or should I look a t changing that as well.

 

I get loads of grief from 'The Boss' when I get to a site and the TV starts playing up so I am hoping for some help here folks.

 

I have googled the problem to no avail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clive]

The technical specification for the coax cable for "digital" or "Analogue" is the same because the Radio frequencies used are the same. Most likely it is the additional length of coax in-line that causes the small reduction in signal strength. Having said that some coax cables are more lossy than others and van converters or people selling goodies to the aftermarket are unlikely to use the most expensive and least lossy cable as it costs lots more. You may achieve a small improvement by changing the cable, but you are more likely to improve the picture by minimising coax cable lengths and number of intermediate connections.

BUT

The transmitted power levels used for the Digital channels is much lower than that used for the old analogue signals. The reason is that they both share the same radio frequency bands and if the digital signals were comparable in magnitude to the existing analogue signals they would cause problems and interferance to them. Eventually, when we have all moved over to the digital channels the analogue transmissions will stop and the power of the digital channels will be significantly increased.

SO

1 Have a TV that works with both Analogue and Digital channels.

2 If you NEED reliable digital reception when out and about in the van then a uni-directional beam antenna with some gain is required, your omnidirectional is just not up to it with todays power levels.

 

Or

Go Satellite.

 

C.

.

 

[shirles]

I had similar problems to you, till I remembered I had left my local region (granada) so a quick retune sorted it. Terrestial tv is a pain sometimes so thinking about defecting to satellite tv.

[ham]

Be aware. In some areas of the UK Freeview is transmitted thro local repeater stations, these transmitters do not transmit the full list of channels. I live in a valley with one of these transmitters, 1 mile away and can get 11 channels when i point my Ariel at it, but if i turn my Ariel to The main transmitter outside Cardiff i get the lot. Apparently it is down to cost and there is no likely hood at they will upgrade these sites. I found this out after reading a complaint in the Western Mail. And then they ran a story on it. Very technical radio and broadband spectrum problems and to costly to upgrade all these sites in the UK. Was the companies defence…Phil

[Rayjsj]

I think your main problem lies with your 'Omni-directional' aerial, I have never rated them much (unless you are almost under the transmitter). I would change it for a 'directional' one (like a status 530) or similar, It means that it is best mounted over a cupoard to hide the short mast inside the van.

Had no problems with mine, Also got a 'Transmitter direction finder' quite cheap, a lot more precise than wandering around the site, to see which direction the site warden had his aerial pointing to.

Not saying that a change of cable won't help, but a change of aerial WILL DEFINATELY make a big differance. ;-) Ray

 

as an 'aside' At 'Home' i don't find Digital broadcasting the 'Big Advance' that they all suggest, even with a good signal we get 'Speech out of sync with motion' and occasionally picture ' blocking' or 'freezing'

and sometimes all 3. this is in West Wales where we have been completely Digital for over a year.

'Bring back Analogue'. and don't even THINK of killing Analogue radio !! >:-(

 

PPS mind you i also think that Steam Trains are perfectly good too. ??(does that make me a 'luddite' ?)

'If it ain't broken,don't try to fix it'

[nuevoboy]

Rayjsj - 2011-04-08 9:20 AM

 

 

as an 'aside' At 'Home' i don't find Digital broadcasting the 'Big Advance' that they all suggest, even with a good signal we get 'Speech out of sync with motion' and occasionally picture ' blocking' or 'freezing'

and sometimes all 3. this is in West Wales where we have been completely Digital for over a year.

'Bring back Analogue'. and don't even THINK of killing Analogue radio !! >:-(

 

PPS mind you i also think that Steam Trains are perfectly good too. ??(does that make me a 'luddite' ?)

'If it ain't broken,don't try to fix it'

 

Thank heavens it's not just me having the same problem even further west!

The one other thing I noticed once we'd had the digital switchover was that the sound quality was a hell of a lot worse than analogue. I've recently changed to a new TV to try and help, but the new ones not much better either.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ray about analogue radio too.

 

Has anyone still got a wind-up gramaphone in their motorhome by any chance?

Luddite, moi? ......Yup, and proud of it.

 

I'm also shocked to learn that you don't still have steam trains running to Fishguard, Ray. 8-) ;-)