Mailing List Archive

On 23/01/15 14:33, Nick Rout wrote:
> I just moved house and the Sky dish seems to be the only antenna
> brought out to a socket inside the house. The (fairly old looking)
> terrestrial antenna doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I have
> been resigned to using my old DVB-S cards as I can't screw about with
> the landlord's wiring. Obviously with freeview terrestrial is the
> preferred solution as it is h264 and some channels are HD.
>
> But I was in Bunnings today and they had a range of indoor antennas,
> which got me thinking about that as a solution. Between the place
> where the antenna would have to go and a clear view to Sugarloaf there
> are two internal walls and an external (timber framing/gib on
> internals and timber framing/oamaru stone on the outside.)
>
> Is it possible to say if this will work, or is the only solution to
> invest and try it?
>
I reckon you might have to try it if the antennas are cheap enough. I
bought a cheap supposed indoor antenna from Dick Smith a few years ago.
It's a mini-Yagi on a stand which looks about right for ~600 MHz but
also has rabbit ears. Turned out that the Yagi is useless and I got the
best signal by telescoping the rabbit ears to their minimum length and
adjusting the angle just right. So I'm somewhat skeptical about cheap
indoor antennas.

Maybe just make some rabbit ears from some wire or ribbon cable and try
it? Length approx 150 mm seems to work for me. I originally had an old
FM radio ribbon cable antenna working reasonably well too for HD TV.

I am shooting through an outer brick wall and have direct line-of-sight
to Waiatarua (Auck) from maybe 15 km. I get full signal strength and
very good S/N according to my Panasonic TV and I have a splitter between
the TV and Myth box.

One thing I found was it doesn't take much metal to completely kill the
signal so I guess you're out of luck if there is any foil in the walls
or if Oamaru stone has a high conductive content.

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Nick Rout wrote, On 23/01/15 14:33:
>I just moved house and the Sky dish seems to be the only antenna brought out to a socket inside the house. The (fairly old looking) terrestrial antenna doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I have been resigned to using my old DVB-S cards as I can't screw about with the landlord's wiring. Obviously with freeview terrestrial is the preferred solution as it is h264 and some channels are HD.
>
>But I was in Bunnings today and they had a range of indoor antennas, which got me thinking about that as a solution. Between the place where the antenna would have to go and a clear view to Sugarloaf there are two internal walls and an external (timber framing/gib on internals and timber framing/oamaru stone on the outside.)
>
>Is it possible to say if this will work, or is the only solution to invest and try it?

From my experience you will get fine reception with an indoor antenna if you test it assuming your house has good line of site and proximity to the station. However most indoor antenna are largely omni directional which means they pick up and amplify the signal from all directions. This means they pick up interference from a lot more sources than a directional roof mounted antenna. The signal is also weaker so any interference causes more issues. Indoor antenna's often have amplifiers built in but these don't help with this issue. If a neighbour has a badly shielded device they turn on every night around the same time it would get kind of annoying.

So I would say it would work fine at first if you test it but you are likely to get random times where it will lose signal and possibly kill your recordings. How often this happens would depend on your signal strength and the antenna used.

If you are going to be there long term I would just sort out the proper outdoor one even if you have to pay a little to get an installer onsite.

http://www.dbh.govt.nz/digital-television-facilities <-- useful info on some of your rights as a tenant.






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On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:21 PM, Michael West <michael@iposs.co.nz> wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote, On 23/01/15 14:33:
>>I just moved house and the Sky dish seems to be the only antenna brought out to a socket inside the house. The (fairly old looking) terrestrial antenna doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I have been resigned to using my old DVB-S cards as I can't screw about with the landlord's wiring. Obviously with freeview terrestrial is the preferred solution as it is h264 and some channels are HD.
>>
>>But I was in Bunnings today and they had a range of indoor antennas, which got me thinking about that as a solution. Between the place where the antenna would have to go and a clear view to Sugarloaf there are two internal walls and an external (timber framing/gib on internals and timber framing/oamaru stone on the outside.)
>>
>>Is it possible to say if this will work, or is the only solution to invest and try it?
>
> From my experience you will get fine reception with an indoor antenna if you test it assuming your house has good line of site and proximity to the station. However most indoor antenna are largely omni directional which means they pick up and amplify the signal from all directions. This means they pick up interference from a lot more sources than a directional roof mounted antenna. The signal is also weaker so any interference causes more issues. Indoor antenna's often have amplifiers built in but these don't help with this issue. If a neighbour has a badly shielded device they turn on every night around the same time it would get kind of annoying.
>
> So I would say it would work fine at first if you test it but you are likely to get random times where it will lose signal and possibly kill your recordings. How often this happens would depend on your signal strength and the antenna used.
>
> If you are going to be there long term I would just sort out the proper outdoor one even if you have to pay a little to get an installer onsite.
>
> http://www.dbh.govt.nz/digital-television-facilities <-- useful info on some of your rights as a tenant.
>

Thanks to both of you for your instructive posts. On that latter
point, I am not gonna get all legal on my brother-in-law who is doing
us a bit of a favour!

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On 23/01/2015 2:33 p.m., Nick Rout wrote:

> But I was in Bunnings today and they had a range of indoor antennas,
> which got me thinking about that as a solution. Between the place
> where the antenna would have to go and a clear view to Sugarloaf there
> are two internal walls and an external (timber framing/gib on
> internals and timber framing/oamaru stone on the outside.)
>
> Is it possible to say if this will work, or is the only solution to
> invest and try it?

Ahh the marketing paradigms that constrain ones thinking.....

I've mounted an external DVB-T antenna in a roof cavity (Under plywood
and tarry tiles) and it works flawlessly. No technical reason not to use
an exterior antenna internally, and it will last much longer as a bonus!
The vertical panel arrays might be more friendly to mount inside, some
WAF might also "interfere". Directionality will remain critical.


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