Electrical Wiring and TV
 

I am given an option for the TV wiring for my new built property. They are
installing the wiring and have asked whether I need Cable wiring or Standard
Antenna wiring.?

What would be better? Is there a difference?

Sidney

I am given an option for the TV wiring for my new built property. They
are
installing the wiring and have asked whether I need Cable wiring or
Standard
Antenna wiring.?

Well, are you going to have an aerial or are you going to have cable TV?

Christian.

"Christian McArdle" wrote Well, are
you going to have an aerial or are you going to have cable TV?

What is better in terms of choise/ cost? And Future proof? Is the cable
any different? I'like a cable that can take both?

Sidkney

What is better in terms of choise/ cost?

Terrestrial will be cheaper, as in free. Cable will cost a monthly fee, but
have a much larger range of channels.

Is the cable any different? I'like a cable that can take both?

Well, the cable for cable TV comes out of the ground. The cable for the
aerial goes to the roof. You're not going to be able to use one for the
other. I think you need to decide what sort of TV you will be having. You
could always ask for both systems to hedge your bets, although this will
cost more.

Look at:

www.freeview.co.uk (Terrestrial)
http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/home (Cable)
http://www.telewest.co.uk/ (Cable)

Put the postcode in to find if services are available in your area.

If you're going for cable, you need to decide if you will have a cable phone
or a BT phone. This may also determine which sort of broadband internet you
can choose from. ADSL requires a BT phone line, whilst a cable modem will
require you to have cable television.

Christian.

What type of property?

In article ,
Christian McArdle wrote:

If you're going for cable, you need to decide if you will have a cable phone
or a BT phone. This may also determine which sort of broadband internet you
can choose from. ADSL requires a BT phone line, whilst a cable modem will
require you to have cable television.

Just to be clear on this - a cable modem doesn't mean you have to have
a cable TV service. It does mean that you will have to have a cable out
of the ground in the same way as cable tv though (which is what I suspect
Christian was meaning).

I've got cable broadband with ntl and no TV or phone from them. Cable appears
out of the ground into a little box and then up the wall into the loft where
the cable modem is. You do however then have to put up with NTLs hard sell
on their other products (I think they have got the message from me finally :))

Darren

I've got cable broadband with ntl and no TV or phone from them. Cable
appears
out of the ground into a little box and then up the wall into the loft
where
the cable modem is.

Ah, they've changed their policy, then. When I got the cable originally,
there was a policy that you had to have TV as well, but could go for the
minimum package. Otherwise you had to pay an additional fee, which was equal
to the cost of the cheapest TV package.

Christian.

SidKnee wrote:
"Christian McArdle" wrote Well, are
you going to have an aerial or are you going to have cable TV?

What is better in terms of choise/ cost? And Future proof? Is the cable
any different? I'like a cable that can take both?

Sidkney

To future proof you should get both - this will allow you to have normal
analogue terrestrial, digital terrestrial (in the form of Freeview via a
set top box/DVB capable TV) or you may decide to pay for a cable TV
subscription in the future.

www.freeview.co.uk (Terrestrial)
http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/home (Cable)
http://www.telewest.co.uk/ (Cable)

Put the postcode in to find if services are available in your area.

P.S. They are often quite pessimistic. NTL insisted that they couldn't
provide service to my house and wouldn't accept that they did until I asked
whether that meant they wouldn't be picking up the previous resident's set
top boxes.

The freeview predictor claims that I can't get digital terrestrial either.
They appear to have failed to tell my set top box, though, which gets all
the multiplexes.

Christian.

"TheScullster" wrote in What type of property?

Bungalow, 4 bedroom with a granny annex, 1 room

Sidney

SidKnee wrote:
I am given an option for the TV wiring for my new built property. They are
installing the wiring and have asked whether I need Cable wiring or Standard
Antenna wiring.?
What would be better? Is there a difference?

It would be better to get someone who knows about TV aerial installation
to do the job as you want it done, with outlets where you want them. Do
you want terrestrial TV, satellite TV, cable, FM, DAB? Do you want
separate digiboxes in each room or the output from one digibox piped
round the house? Do you want VCR/CCTV/Tivo/Skyplus? ...

Those are meaningless terms from a price list.

Owain

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:51:21 UTC, "Christian McArdle"
wrote:

www.freeview.co.uk (Terrestrial)
http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/home (Cable)
http://www.telewest.co.uk/ (Cable)

Put the postcode in to find if services are available in your area.

P.S. They are often quite pessimistic. NTL insisted that they couldn't
provide service to my house and wouldn't accept that they did until I asked
whether that meant they wouldn't be picking up the previous resident's set
top boxes.

The freeview predictor claims that I can't get digital terrestrial either.
They appear to have failed to tell my set top box, though, which gets all
the multiplexes.

Same here. It turns out that they recommend transmitter A, which is
roughly west of here, at a distance of 40 miles, with intervening
'stuff'.

I use transmitter B (not mentioned), which is south east of here,
nearer, and is on a taller mast.

I can see that part of our town can't 'see' B at all; thus the
generalisation. The only real way is to suck it and see. We got an
almost acceptable signal with a grotty old antenna; much improved with a
new one!

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

In article , Bob Eager
writes
On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:51:21 UTC, "Christian McArdle"
wrote:

www.freeview.co.uk (Terrestrial)
http://www.home.ntl.com/icat/home (Cable)
http://www.telewest.co.uk/ (Cable)

Put the postcode in to find if services are available in your area.

P.S. They are often quite pessimistic. NTL insisted that they couldn't
provide service to my house and wouldn't accept that they did until I asked
whether that meant they wouldn't be picking up the previous resident's set
top boxes.

The freeview predictor claims that I can't get digital terrestrial either.
They appear to have failed to tell my set top box, though, which gets all
the multiplexes.

Same here. It turns out that they recommend transmitter A, which is
roughly west of here, at a distance of 40 miles, with intervening
'stuff'.

I use transmitter B (not mentioned), which is south east of here,
nearer, and is on a taller mast.

I can see that part of our town can't 'see' B at all; thus the
generalisation. The only real way is to suck it and see. We got an
almost acceptable signal with a grotty old antenna; much improved with a
new one!

Those predictors are just that, a prediction, and they are very general.
We use similar software and that will give far more accurate predictions
but there is no reasonable way that you can take a postcode area and
cover every location in that, hence the generalisation!.

They cannot take into account local obstructions like buildings and
other obstructions other than adding in an "urban clutter" factor which
can be very variable!...
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
SidKnee wrote:
I am given an option for the TV wiring for my new built property. They
are installing the wiring and have asked whether I need Cable wiring or
Standard Antenna wiring.?

What would be better? Is there a difference?

Have it done in good quality satellite co-ax. This will be fine for either
UHF or cable.

--
*If I worked as much as others, I would do as little as they *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

tony sayer wrote:

They cannot take into account local obstructions like buildings and
other obstructions other than adding in an "urban clutter" factor which
can be very variable!...

Oh yes they can. The UK planning model for DTT uses real clutter data -
see for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp048.shtml

"The paper outlines the approach for predicting received field strength
with particular discussion of profile extraction, radial prediction and
the use of clutter data to take into account the effect of buildings and
trees."

--
Andy

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 23:50:43 UTC, Andy Wade
wrote:

tony sayer wrote:

They cannot take into account local obstructions like buildings and
other obstructions other than adding in an "urban clutter" factor which
can be very variable!...

Oh yes they can. The UK planning model for DTT uses real clutter data -
see for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp048.shtml

"The paper outlines the approach for predicting received field strength
with particular discussion of profile extraction, radial prediction and
the use of clutter data to take into account the effect of buildings and
trees."

My original point was that they had apparently taken a fixed point of
reference for my postcode area (rather than postcode). And that area
extends from here (about 25m a.s.l.) down to sea level. Houses at sea
level can't 'see' the transmitter to the south-east, so they gave data
for the transmitter that *can* be seen (lower power, lower antenna,
further away) to the west.

The clutter factor didn't enter into it for me; just contours.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Bob Eager wrote:

My original point was that they had apparently taken a fixed point of
reference for my postcode area (rather than postcode). And that area
extends from here (about 25m a.s.l.) down to sea level. Houses at sea
level can't 'see' the transmitter to the south-east, so they gave data
for the transmitter that *can* be seen (lower power, lower antenna,
further away) to the west.

The clutter factor didn't enter into it for me; just contours.

I was just responding to Tony's more general point about the use/non-use
of clutter data. Whether it's used in the public postcode predictor I'm
not sure, but that does tend to err on the pessimistic side, to avoid
disappointment due to marginal reception. As you say postcodes can be
too coarse a granularity - the % population served predictions are done
on the basis of 100m squares, IIRC, and they're working toward getting
that down to 50m. There might be other reasons why it doesn't offer TX
B as an option for you, such as not being free from excessive co-channel
or adjacent channel interference for =99% of the time.

It would be nice if there were a Web-based predictor that accepted an
NGR and RX antenna height and returned predicted field strengths for
candidate TXs together with a list of potential interferers and their
directions, etc. - but with all the spectrum planning people busy on the
Great Switch-over Plan, that won't happen.

--
Andy

In article , Andy Wade
writes
tony sayer wrote:

They cannot take into account local obstructions like buildings and
other obstructions other than adding in an "urban clutter" factor which
can be very variable!...

Oh yes they can. The UK planning model for DTT uses real clutter data -
see for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp048.shtml

"The paper outlines the approach for predicting received field strength
with particular discussion of profile extraction, radial prediction and
the use of clutter data to take into account the effect of buildings and
trees."

Yes, but we were talking about the postcode predictor were we not?, and
that is inherently inaccurate because a postcode can cover quite a large
area. So much so that the elevation could vary by a very significant
amount in the given area, so you have to take a mean value hence the
inaccuracies of this method.

In practice however its just an indication and nothing more, and perhaps
better then the more conventional maps that are used such as coverage
maps from the BBC for example.....
--
Tony Sayer

Yes, but we were talking about the postcode predictor were we not?, and
that is inherently inaccurate because a postcode can cover quite a large
area.

Hmmm. I suspect it is rare for a postcode to cover more than a small street
or a row of houses on a large one. I would think it particularly unusual to
cover a wide range of elevations, unless the street is extremely steep.

Christian.

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 12:46:23 UTC, "Christian McArdle"
wrote:

Yes, but we were talking about the postcode predictor were we not?, and
that is inherently inaccurate because a postcode can cover quite a large
area.

Hmmm. I suspect it is rare for a postcode to cover more than a small street
or a row of houses on a large one. I would think it particularly unusual to
cover a wide range of elevations, unless the street is extremely steep.

I agree. However, I wonder if they actually 'group' postcodes. My street
is pretty well flat, and yet the DTG predictor definitely 'chooses' the
wrong transmitter; I'm pretty sure that it's considering a lot of
adjacent postcodes too.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

I agree. However, I wonder if they actually 'group' postcodes. My street
is pretty well flat, and yet the DTG predictor definitely 'chooses' the
wrong transmitter; I'm pretty sure that it's considering a lot of
adjacent postcodes too.

That is certainly very likely. However, the point is (which I presume you
agree with) that postcodes have quite enough geographical precision for the
task. The predictors probably just look at the first part of the postcode.

Christian.

Christian McArdle wrote:

That is certainly very likely. However, the point is (which I presume you
agree with) that postcodes have quite enough geographical precision for the
task. The predictors probably just look at the first part of the postcode.

I'm pretty sure the DTG one[*] uses the full postcode, not just the
postcode sector, which would be much too coarse.
[*] http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/coverage.html

--
Andy

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:12:39 UTC, "Christian McArdle"
wrote:

I agree. However, I wonder if they actually 'group' postcodes. My street
is pretty well flat, and yet the DTG predictor definitely 'chooses' the
wrong transmitter; I'm pretty sure that it's considering a lot of
adjacent postcodes too.

That is certainly very likely. However, the point is (which I presume you
agree with) that postcodes have quite enough geographical precision for the
task. The predictors probably just look at the first part of the postcode.

I'm pretty sure that's waht they do (or perhaps a bit more than the
first part). I tried putting just the first part in, and it was rejected
(gives the appearance of precision, if no more!)

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:47:44 UTC, Andy Wade
wrote:

Christian McArdle wrote:

That is certainly very likely. However, the point is (which I presume you
agree with) that postcodes have quite enough geographical precision for the
task. The predictors probably just look at the first part of the postcode.

I'm pretty sure the DTG one[*] uses the full postcode, not just the
postcode sector, which would be much too coarse.

[*] http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/coverage.html

As I said elsewhere, it certainly wants all of it. However, the result
it gives seems to indicate otherwise.

--
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poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

I'm pretty sure that's waht they do (or perhaps a bit more than the
first part). I tried putting just the first part in, and it was rejected
(gives the appearance of precision, if no more!)

Actually, I've tried a few postcodes and it certainly does seem to look at
the full postcode. It just gets odd results.

However, it seems inordinately sensitive to them. All the postcodes are
within an ant's walking distance during the ad break, apart from RG6 7BA,
which is a good 5-10 minutes walk away. The actual reception gets all
Hannington multiplexes on a crappy old contract aerial with wonky directors
that hadn't been used for many years fed by several pieces of old style 3p/m
coaxial cable spliced together using 10A mains junction boxes and insulation
tape. As a general rule, Hannington used to get slightly better reception
than CP on analogue throughout most of Reading.

RG6 7BA:
Crystal Palace: 12ABD (91o 60km)
Hannington: All (235o 25km)

RG6 7BD:
Crystal Palace: ALL (92o 59km)
Hannington: Not suggested.

RG6 7BH:
Crystal Palace: 12ABD (92o 59km)
Hannington: Not suggested.

RG6 7BP:
Crystal Palace: 1B (92o 60km)
Hannington: 1BD (235o 26km)

Christian.