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UK diy (uk.d-i-y) For the discussion of all topics related to diy (do-it-yourself) in the UK. All levels of experience and proficency are welcome to join in to ask questions or offer solutions. |
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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 |
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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. |
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"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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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"TheScullster" wrote in What type of property? Bungalow, 4 bedroom with a granny annex, 1 room Sidney |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
#14
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. -- The information contained in this post is copyright the poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by http://www.diybanter.com |
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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. |
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