coax cable with freeview

[Brendetta]

Hi well my tv has built in freeview so I got a new wideband ariel to put in the loft and a then I got a 15m tv arial extention kit. I'm not sure if the cables any good but it says on the packaging digital ready and that the cables foam core construction for outstanding cable durability.

Well I managed to receive 88 channels but the picture is abit blocky even with a signal strengh of around 85 but it usually drops to around 30 on some channels. Also what dose bit error level mean. At the minute its 0.

Could this be because of my set up or is freeview nothing special anyway.

 

[Chris Muriel]

BER indicates the number of digital reception errors seen by the device's COFDM demodulator. Obviously the lower it is the better (fewer errors).
"Digital Ready" is a marketing term as far as coaxial cables go - but it sounds like it should be reasonable quality cable ; to assess that further I would need to know the attenuation of the cable at various frequencies -usually in dB (decibels) per unit length, e.g. 3dB per 20 metres at 1000 MHz.
Is the picture blocky on all channels or just some of them ?
You could just be noticing compression or MPEG decoding artefacts.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

 

[Brendetta]

Hi well I cant tell you attenuation of the cable at various frequencies as I wouldnt know were to find that info out. On the cable it says "coaxial cable rg6/75". Its a tv aerial extention kit I got it for £10 from maplin. Its not always blocky but on some channels its worse than others. Right now all the channels I've checked seem ok. But before Some was stutterying and flickering and the sound was pausing etc with a bit error level of 4. Sometimes this freeview service seems to be slow with chaning channels aswell. I wonder ifits cars and motorbikes causing problems. My friends say when peds/motorbikes go by it makes there freeview mess up.

My aerials in the loft but directly infront of my aerial is a wooden beam going across the front of my aerial about 3 inches away from the tip on my aerial. The beams about 3 feet long and a good 8 inches wide n prob 2 inches thick do you think this would cause any problems.

Also I'm just sitting about 2 feet away from my tv as its on my desk in my bedroom so I'm prob just noticing things you wouldnt normally notice sitting further back as I do in the living room but I have sky in the living room so thats prob a better picture anyway.

 

[Chris Muriel]

It would be worth experimenting with resiting the aerial (if only by a foot or so).
The Maplins kits are ok.
It is possible for vehicles and other local external sources to cause problems ; it is also possible to get interference from other relatively distant channels during this hot weather (extended tropospheric propagation due to temperature inversions). If it disapears when the weather finally normalises you will see better results then.
Oh - and yes , you're too close to the screen for comfort by the sounds of it.

Chris Muriel, Manchester