You may remember I was waffling on about bad reception on the higher
channels off Sudbury.


Anyway since this is a loft installation, with a modest gain in the
distribution amp I went for a 40 element log periodic. Cheapest I could
find online was about £25 delivered. Arrived an hour ago.

Installation was a puzzle, till I realised that you actually terminate
at the 'sharp' end of the aerial, feeding the cable down one of the
tubes . Fortunately there was enough slack in the existing cable to
reach the far end, and the diagram was just sufficient to connect it all up.

It bolted straight onto the existing pole, which had an aerial worse
than I remembered on it. Ho hum.

Anyway fired it all up and had a look at the diagnostics on the sony
STB's - 50% signal level on the worst channel. 100% good signal quality
on all channels.

Oddly the worst mux is now in a completely different place. Used to be
the ITV2 mux, now its film 4. AHA. that's only 1.5KW along with the
radio stations. The rest are 7.5-8KW.

I know its no substitute for proper testing, but pixellation starts when
'signal quality' drops to '50%' whatever that means.

I used to get at best 75% quality on some muxes, so it looks good already.

I didn't bother to align it more than 'within 5 degrees' of the
transmitter.


Ok, so what can I say to summarise?

1/. Its pretty much done what the figures from
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/ said it would. Given me even response all
across the channels I need.

2/. It has (as expected) lost a little gain from the channels the
original (analogue) aerial was tuned to.

3/. However, compared with an X beam or modified Yagi wideband its MUCH
neater and smaller. I would definitely say this is a good choice for
lofts and outdoors if you are not marginal on signal strength.

4/. Its only slightly trickier than the average aerial to install.

Only time will tell if its cured the occasional pixellation stuff.
however it looks like it has more than adequate quality margin.

In short a good risk/cost choice for me. It already looks better on the
crude diagnostics I have, and it didn't cost a packet.

I wonder if it can pick up any other stations? I used to get Sandy
Heath..weakly..

Nope. Not a hint of it. THAT is a good sign because its about 100
degrees off beam....

So no nasty sidelobes to have to deal with.

I think that's it,.
Pip pip!

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I went for a 40 element log periodic.

I wonder if it can pick up any other stations? I used to get Sandy
Heath..weakly..
Nope. Not a hint of it.

My LP is pointed at Waltham. From here, Belton is almost straight on and
three times as far away, but every few nights the TV manages to catch
enough of the distant signal to find duplicate channels which it stuffs
into the 800's, once in a blue moon they're almost watchable.