On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:46:55 GMT, dave wrote:

My daughter has a room in a student house in London that's surrounded by
concrete buildings - now there's surprise :-) She has a TV that only picks up
channel 5. There's no cable/aerial etc in the place apart from the one that came
with the TV and no amount of twiddling get a picture. Can someone recommend an
(inexpensive) aerial preamp that will boost the signal?
Thanks


It's a bit surprising that there is something from Channel 5 and not
the other channels, since this has a much lower signal level from the
transmitters.

Are you sure that she has tried tuning the set?

A Yagi type set top antenna (small version of an outside type
antenna), may give better results, especially if located upstairs, but
generally adding an antenna pre-amplifier won't do very much if there
is little signal in the first place, or if it has ghosting resulting
from the surrounding buildings.

You could always tell her that she should be getting on with studies,
but I don't suppose that that would be met with any better reception
than she's getting already.


--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:46:55 UTC, dave wrote:

My daughter has a room in a student house in London that's surrounded by
concrete buildings - now there's surprise :-) She has a TV that only picks up
channel 5. There's no cable/aerial etc in the place apart from the one that came
with the TV and no amount of twiddling get a picture. Can someone recommend an
(inexpensive) aerial preamp that will boost the signal?

And of course check she has a licence...they are very hot on student
houses...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://laminateflooring.oncloud8.com

"dave" wrote in message
...
My daughter has a room in a student house in London that's
surrounded by
concrete buildings - now there's surprise :-) She has a TV that only
picks up
channel 5. There's no cable/aerial etc in the place apart from the
one that came
with the TV and no amount of twiddling get a picture. Can someone
recommend an
(inexpensive) aerial preamp that will boost the signal?
Thanks


....mmmm ... if this TV has been moved from home to her digs then it's
probably come from an area where the channels are significantly
different tuning. MOST of London has quite good reception and is in
line of sight of the transmitters. I'd investigate tuning first. She
presumably only needs BBC2 anyway for the open university G

AWEM

So let me get this straight. You pay =A3120 for a TV license and you get
nothing for it. Come on now, that sort of thing only happens in the UK.

I did buy one of those 42 element aerials from B & Q, Maplins also do
them for about =A325. However I did have a loft to put it in.

What about a TV card for her computer. They have quite sensative front
ends in the receiver. Then you can record to hard disc.

Chris.

In article .com,
wrote:
So let me get this straight. You pay £120 for a TV license and you get
nothing for it. Come on now, that sort of thing only happens in the UK.

Compare UK TV with USA TV. The quality we get (across all channels) is driven
by the licence we pay. Cut out the licence and all you do is put (more) money
in the back pocket of Murdoch and dump the quality of TV for all of us - and
at far greater cost.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article , John Cartmell
wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
So let me get this straight. You pay £120 for a TV license and you get
nothing for it. Come on now, that sort of thing only happens in the UK.

Compare UK TV with USA TV. The quality we get (across all channels) is
driven by the licence we pay. Cut out the licence and all you do is put
(more) money in the back pocket of Murdoch and dump the quality of TV for
all of us - and at far greater cost.


And in case anyone is misled by your other comment - a TV card in a PC
requires a licence.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ,=20
says...
In article , John Cartmell
wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
So let me get this straight. You pay =A3120 for a TV license and you =
get
nothing for it. Come on now, that sort of thing only happens in the U=
K.
=20
Compare UK TV with USA TV. The quality we get (across all channels) is
driven by the licence we pay. Cut out the licence and all you do is put
(more) money in the back pocket of Murdoch and dump the quality of TV f=
or
all of us - and at far greater cost.
=20
=20
And in case anyone is misled by your other comment - a TV card in a PC
requires a licence.
=20
=20
Would a USB TV card running on a laptop on battery power be a special=20
case? I can't remember what difference it makes, but I remember there's=20
something about battery poweed TVs.

On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:31:54 +0100, John Cartmell
wrote:

Compare UK TV with USA TV. The quality we get (across all channels) is driven
by the licence we pay. Cut out the licence and all you do is put (more) money
in the back pocket of Murdoch and dump the quality of TV for all of us - and
at far greater cost.

How do you figure that one out?

You could argue that by dumping the licence fee the BBC will need to
make programmes that people actually want to watch in order to keep
advertisers happy, rather than the arty-farty stuff that is watched by
a couple of thousand people.

sponix

In article ,
(s--p--o--n--i--x) writes:
On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 11:31:54 +0100, John Cartmell
wrote:

Compare UK TV with USA TV. The quality we get (across all channels) is driven
by the licence we pay. Cut out the licence and all you do is put (more) money
in the back pocket of Murdoch and dump the quality of TV for all of us - and
at far greater cost.

How do you figure that one out?

You could argue that by dumping the licence fee the BBC will need to
make programmes that people actually want to watch in order to keep
advertisers happy

Just like on ITV? Marvellous.

rather than the arty-farty stuff that is watched by
a couple of thousand people.

Oh, right. And, like, there's just _loads_ of that. Every Saturday evening
you can't _move_ for arty-farty stuff on BBC1. Philistine.
--
SAm.

In article ,
s--p--o--n--i--x wrote:
You could argue that by dumping the licence fee the BBC will need to
make programmes that people actually want to watch in order to keep
advertisers happy, rather than the arty-farty stuff that is watched by
a couple of thousand people.

There's only a limited amount of advertising money in the pot, and not
enough to finance the BBC as we know it.

--
*Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

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

"s--p--o--n--i--x" wrote in message
...
snip

You could argue that by dumping the licence fee the BBC will need
to
make programmes that people actually want to watch in order to keep
advertisers happy, rather than the arty-farty stuff that is watched
by
a couple of thousand people.


Well considering that the BBC won the BBC1 vs. ITV1 rating war for
the first half on this year it would suggest that people are sick to
the back teeth of the stuff ITV has been churning out (not
withstanding a few notable exceptions)...

In article .com,
wrote:

So let me get this straight.

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?How_to_post


--
AJL

So let me get this straight. You pay =A3120 for a TV license and you get
nothing for it. Come on now, that sort of thing only happens in the UK.

I did buy one of those 42 element aerials from B & Q, Maplins also do
them for about =A325. However I did have a loft to put it in.

What about a TV card for her computer. They have quite sensative front
ends in the receiver. Then you can record to hard disc.

Chris.

dave wrote:
My daughter has a room in a student house in London that's surrounded by
concrete buildings - now there's surprise :-) She has a TV that only picks up
channel 5. There's no cable/aerial etc in the place apart from the one that came
with the TV and no amount of twiddling get a picture. Can someone recommend an
(inexpensive) aerial preamp that will boost the signal?
Thanks

Surely she can just watch the big screen in the students union bar or
whatever pub she happens to be in at the time!

My daughter has a room in a student house in London that's surrounded by
concrete buildings - now there's surprise :-) She has a TV that only picks
up
channel 5. There's no cable/aerial etc in the place apart from the one
that came
with the TV and no amount of twiddling get a picture. Can someone
recommend an
(inexpensive) aerial preamp that will boost the signal?

The preamp won't help if you're getting nothing at all.

Buy a huge multielement wideband aerial designed to mount on a roof. Plug
into the TV. Look up the frequencies of the BBC1 from all the local
transmitters (i.e. Crystal Palace etc). Tune the TV into those frequency.
Wave the aerial about until you get a signal, trying all the BBC1
frequencies. Hang the aerial from the ceiling in the best direction using
sellotape, string and ingenuity.

Christian.