Signal Booster Problem

toshiba

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I live in a ground floor flat and i'm having trouble figuring out what I need to do.
I have 2 bedrooms that i'm hoping to get a decent signal in. At the minute my Freeview reception in the lounge is spot on, but the reception in both bedrooms is almost non existent. I have wall plates in all 3 rooms, and i'm trying to figure out how to get the decent signal that's in my lounge, to both my bedrooms, without running cables through the house.

Please help as i'm having trouble figuring out where to boost the signal

:lease:
 
You first need to find the end of the cables which might not be terminated. Do you have a riser cupboard that contains services or access to the loft space. You could try following the existing aerial cable in the hope that you find a bundle of cables. Might be that the two bedrooms are already fed by a booster which is no longer switched on.
 
we had some work done recently which included removing the cables running around the flat and installing wall plates, so they must be terminated. When I told the electrician about the bad signal in the bedrooms, he said that he thought the reception would be OK, but because it's not I should get a booster. However, I dont know where to boost the signal from, or what to use
 
So let me get this straight, the electrician has removed the existing coax cables which were surface run and replaced them with cables that are buried in the walls. Have you taken off the face plate and made sure he has actually terminated them? Has he made the mistake of feeding one bedroom via the other bedroom? What I mean by that is that one face plate has two cables terminated on it via a bodge. Did he run the cables up the wall or down under the floorboards? Can you ask him where and how they were terminated? If you can’t find any of the information then try plugging in a booster at the wall plate via a flying lead. If it works you will need two boosters, one for each bedroom. If you can find the other end of the cables you would only need 1 booster with two outputs.
 
I've just checked everything and found that all plates are terminated and that he has bodged between bedrooms. Checked the picture for the first time in ages and found it to be better than almost non existant, but still awful. The picture in the bedroom that he has bodged to is worse. Am I right in thinking that this is because it's further down the cable?
I'm almost positive that the cable's run beneath the floorboards, but i don't know anything about how they are terminated.
 
Change the first bedroom plate for a double plate and a return. Loop one of the outputs to the return and then connect the cable from the 2nd bedroom to the return plate. If the pictures still bad in bedroom 2 then loop it through a booster before the return.
 
The problem is that the electrician has treated the aerial cable as though he was wiring a ring main which you can't do. You need to separate the 2 cables and terminate one on the existing outlet plate. If you don't get a picture try the other cable as one cable is just a link to the other bedroom. See what sort of picture you get. If it is OK or semi good then get a double outlet and terminate both cables. From the good socket run a flying lead into the input of a 2 port signal booster. From the output run one flying lead into the back of the TV and from the other output a flying lead into the other socket which will feed the second bedroom.

What worries me is how he has terminated the new coax to the existing aerial cable?
 
The problem is that the electrician has treated the aerial cable as though he was wiring a ring main which you can’t do. You need to separate the 2 cables and terminate one on the existing outlet plate. If you don’t get a picture try the other cable as one cable is just a link to the other bedroom. See what sort of picture you get. If it is OK or semi good then get a double outlet and terminate both cables. From the good socket run a flying lead into the input of a 2 port signal booster. From the output run one flying lead into the back of the TV and from the other output a flying lead into the other socket which will feed the second bedroom.

What worries me is how he has terminated the new coax to the existing aerial cable?

The amount of call outs I've had to redo sockets done by sparkys on 2nd fix isnt even funny.
 
It'd do a job yes.
 
do you think it would be worth spending more on something better that you could recommend?
 
I'd concentrate on making sure the cables are terminated properly before anything else.
 
Before you buy anything see what sort of picture you get by separating the cables. A booster can only do so much. Have you actually tried connecting a freeview source to the cable? Poor analogue will give you snow, poor digital will give you nothing but could also give you a perfect picture on some channels due to how digital works.
 
I've bought a booster and split the cables. Splitting the cables definitely helped the signal. The analogue picture is good, although channel 5 isn't found. With freeview, the BBC, Sky, Dave channels etc are found but are only average. All ITV, Channel 4, Film 4 etc are found but will not display, and channel 5 again isn't even found.
For the channels that work, the signal is at about 30%, and for the ones that don't it's at about 15%, hence no picture.
Like I said before, my main TV is perfect accross the board. What should I be doing next?
 
You need to find where the electrician has connected the new coax to the existing coax. Once you have found that you can report back here on how he has done the connection. Can't you just follow the coax from the back of the main TV and see where it goes? At some point there must be a joint. Actually are you sure the new cable is joined to the old cable seeing that the main TV is showing a good picture? I would have thought that the picture should have gone down hill as well. The bedrooms might has a separate crapy aerial.

It's starting to look like you need to call in a professional and abandon your nice new hidden cables for some new surface cable.
 

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