Help - How do I get terrestrial channels in new house

[CotswoldSteve]

Moved into a new house and not sure how to get terrestrial TV. Thinking the previous owners had Sky maybe? Tried traditional antenna aerial but the TV won’t tune any channels. There are satellite (?) ports in the wall, can I get TV through these? Do I just need a satellite cable? Or a Freesat box? Would be happy with terrestrial/Freeview channels. Photos show various outlets/ports in living room and the ports in back of Samsung TV. Sorry if this is super obvious, I’ve never had cable TV or Sky before.

 

[logiciel]

Explain “tried traditional antenna aerial” please.

 

[winston2010]

Moved into a new house and not sure how to get terrestrial TV. Thinking the previous owners had Sky maybe? Tried traditional antenna aerial but the TV won’t tune any channels. There are satellite (?) ports in the wall, can I get TV through these? Do I just need a satellite cable? Or a Freesat box? Would be happy with terrestrial/Freeview channels. Photos show various outlets/ports in living room and the ports in back of Samsung TV. Sorry if this is super obvious, I’ve never had cable TV or Sky before.

The first picture is two terminals, looks like for a speaker fed from elsewhere, the second is a standard coax socket usually from an antenna, however it could be an FM antenna as it is near a speaker socket. Worth trying it though. I can't see a satellite socket anywhere.

 

[CotswoldSteve]

Thanks for identifying those as speaker ports. Makes sense given there is an HDMI cable right beside that used to connect to projector in the ceiling. Ok, so when I moved in, we originally tried with the TV set up in a different room. Based on past experience, I expected to just plug in aerial cable and auto-tune, voila. I plugged in standard coax cable (image 3) into wall and tried auto-tuning. No channels. That different room had several unidentified cables (image 1) and an unidentified box (image 2) on the wall. These led a friend to suggest the problem could be related to a previous Sky connection and maybe that is how former residents got TV (that’s where I got “satellite” from). I also tried an indoor aerial and got zero channels. Very odd as the indoor aerial was recommend by Which?. Starting to wonder if the TV might be the culprit. Any reason why a TV would find zero channels when auto-tuning? It’s a Samsung UE43NU7400. Works perfectly otherwise and got TV fine in my old place. I am apparently in a good signal area. I welcome any suggestions on finding the root cause!

 

[CotswoldSteve]

Explain “tried traditional antenna aerial” please.

Plugged male coax cable into wall socket and AIR/CABLE port in TV. Went through auto tuning process. Zero channels. Photo of cable and port attached.

 

[winston2010]

Thanks for identifying those as speaker ports. Makes sense given there is an HDMI cable right beside that used to connect to projector in the ceiling. Ok, so when I moved in, we originally tried with the TV set up in a different room. Based on past experience, I expected to just plug in aerial cable and auto-tune, voila. I plugged in standard coax cable (image 3) into wall and tried auto-tuning. No channels. That different room had several unidentified cables (image 1) and an unidentified box (image 2) on the wall. These led a friend to suggest the problem could be related to a previous Sky connection and maybe that is how former residents got TV (that’s where I got “satellite” from). I also tried an indoor aerial and got zero channels. Very odd as the indoor aerial was recommend by Which?. Starting to wonder if the TV might be the culprit. Any reason why a TV would find zero channels when auto-tuning? It’s a Samsung UE43NU7400. Works perfectly otherwise and got TV fine in my old place. I am apparently in a good signal area. I welcome any suggestions on finding the root cause!

OK first picture shows F type cables from a dish. If you plug one of them to the sat socket on the TV and do a sat tune you may get all the channels, but if the previous owners had sky Q you only get a very few.

The second picture shows a power supply for a mast head amplifier. If you connect a coax cable from the TV socket on that to the TV and do a scan it will hopefully find all trhe channels.

If you are in a good signal area one wonders why a mast head amplifier is there.

Indoor aerials only work in exceptionally strong signal areas with a clear line of site to the transmitter. The Which recommendation is wrong.

 

[CotswoldSteve]

Thanks. I will test out the TV with those F type cables. I previously tried a coax cable from the mast head amplifier without success. Problem is all those connections are in a different room from where I want the TV. I had previously thought there were satellite connection in our preferred TV room but as you explained they are speaker ports.

 

[logiciel]

Plugged male coax cable into wall socket and AIR/CABLE port in TV. Went through auto tuning process. Zero channels. Photo of cable and port attached.

 

[logiciel]

Which wall socket? What is connected to that socket from outdoors?

 

[CotswoldSteve]

Which wall socket? What is connected to that socket from outdoors?

This wall socket. No idea what is connected from outside, sorry. Any suggestions on how to identify?

 

[winston2010]

When doing the scan you did se t the TV to 'air' not 'cable' didn't ypu?

 

[CotswoldSteve]

When doing the scan you did se t the TV to 'air' not 'cable' didn't ypu?

Yes. I tried the following configurations:

• "Aerial or Dish = Terrestrial"; "Channel Type = Digital"
• "Aerial or Dish = Terrestrial"; "Channel Type = Digital & Analogue"
• Manual tuning using info from Freeview website, using frequency numbers from multiple nearby towers.
• Based on suggestion I found on a different forum, I tried doing an auto-tune without coax plugged in to "reset" channels, then tried the above again witrh aerial plugged in.

Always same result: zero channels (TV, radio)

 

[logiciel]

This wall socket. No idea what is connected from outside, sorry. Any suggestions on how to identify?

You need to know at least whether you have a TV aerial - take a look!

 

[CotswoldSteve]

You need to know at least whether you have a TV aerial - take a look!

Sorry, I wasn’t being very helpful. Yes we have an antenna on the roof (image 1). There is a cable running down the front of the house that enters front of building at ground level roughly same spot as aerial port.

We also have a satellite dish on the back of the house (image 2). The cable runs down and enters at ground level at same place as those satellite cables (image 3)

 

[TJT1]

It is pretty glaringly obvious that your TV is not connected to an aerial.

Which of those aerials is yours? The on on the right has a masthead amp and you have a masthead amp power supply. Where does the brown cable plugged into the "IN" socked go to/come from? (from the aerial, I bet). Last try. Have you tried plugging the TV into the TV socket on that Labgear antenna amp PSU?

And why is this lot being discussed in the sat section anyway?

PS. I see that "right hand aerial" is ambiguous. I was talking about the right hand one when viewed from the solar panel side.
The cables in your hand in the third pic are satellite cables.