Digital TV Aerial

[Greg]

I currently have a package from Virgin that delivers my basic TV, landline phone and broadband service. I'm happy with the phone and broadband but the TV has broken down again twice in the last month requiring an engineers attention. I'm getting fed up with this and as we already use freeview elsewhere in the house which works well, I'm inclined to ditch the Virgin TV service.

We have a quality digital aerial in the loft that provides good signal for a Freeview TV in the bedroom and the kitchen on a basic twin splitter. The channels available on Freeview here are good and frankly are probably better than the basic service we get from Virgin.

Can I split the signal again from the digital aerial to provide a third feed to the main TV in the living room? If so, is it just a basic splitter or is something more required? Signal strength seems to be fine and I haven't identified a need to amplify the signal.

Thanks in anticipation

[Nick]

This would indicate not if you have enough signal to go round

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/ampsandspli ... OrSplitter

[JamesD]

it may be possible to add a splitter into one of your two feeds and still have enough signal to drive both TVs OK but it may reduce the signal enough to start causing intermittent problems. You probably know that you should use a balanced splitter to do this.

One way to check is to look at the signal strength as reported by the TV setup section. If it is less than about 80% then splitting it further is likely to be a problem. If it is the solution is simple - you need to add a booster/splitter to the feeds. Most of these have 4 outlets and provide between 6dB and 9db of signal amplification. They are mains powered.

Balanced splitter example: http://www.maplin.co.uk/uhf-tv-signal-splitter-955

Powered booster/splitter:http://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-vhf-u ... tput/59876

James

[Neal]

Yes, it will depend if you are in a high signal area or not Greg as to what splitter to go for. Its simple and cheap enough to buy a another basic passive splitter and run a test cable from the loft to the third TV. If you get blocking and audio dropouts then you probably need an active mast head amplifier....variable ones are good as too much gain will overload the TV input. Not sure what connectors you are using now but these splitters all tend to use F type connectors so you may need a few of them...

[ACPEN]

Hi,
Agee with all, but just to add that if you do add a diplexer splitter booster amplifier beware that you can actually have too much signal if your off aerial level is high enough. This can cause quite suprising effects!Obviously the levels can be adjusted at the amplifier splitter but it's a point often overlooked.

ATB,

David.