Freeview Indoor Aerial

[SimpleSimon]

Background.

Daughter has moved to Acton, West London and has now decided she wants her Sony LCD TV with built-in freeview in her bedroom. The previous girl had a CRT TV with an indoor aerial so I can only assume at this time that there are no wall mounted aerial sockets that lead to an external aerial.

Question.

After looking at the Wolfbane website it appears that the Crystal Palace transmitter is the nearest at 10 miles and suggests a log periodic aerial. I also believe that her bedroom faces almost due south.

Now assuming that she can only use an indoor aerial would this item be OK http://www.maplin.co.uk/slx-amplified-digital-indoor-aerial-506686 or can anybody suggest any alternatives.


I have noticed that the Crystal Palace transmitter gets switched over to fully digital starting 4/4 and finishing on 18/4 so I assume that after this date the digital signal will be boosted.

[Kymmy]

Any indoor antenna is going to be severely attenuated by the walls of the house and may/may not work (only way of telling would be to try it..) . Can she perhaps have a small outdoor antenna attached just outside of the window which feeds an amplifier?

If not then that same antenna is £14.99 in argos which with it's 16 day money back promise you can buy to try..

[nodrogd]

As Kymmy says, it's a case of try it and see. If the aerial can be placed in a window facing the correct direction it would help. The other problem is reflected signals. While digital is more robust than analogue, people moving about in the house can cause problems. Opt for an indoor aerial with a decent length of cable so you can test in different positions.

[Dai]

I have a couple of bedroom freeview tvs that work very well on cheap aerials from the poundshop. That may be worth a try initially. I suspect mine work because I'm lucky enough to be on a hilltop with a fairly open view towards the signal source but it might be worth investing a quid to try it out.

[SimpleSimon]

Thanks for the guidance people, I will wait until I go down with the TV and buy an aerial on the day and if it doesn't work then I can take it back on the same day.

[SimpleSimon]

This is an update to my original post.

I went ahead and bought the aerial I mentioned from Argos as it was only £14.99 (good spot there Kymmy - thanks).

I have been down to my daughters this weekend and managed to use this aerial and get a total of 125 channels tuned in without too much hassle. I just plugged it in set it on the floor with the aerial pointing in the same direction as all the aerials on the roofs of houses nearby and did an auto tune of the Sony TV. The only thing I needed to do was to place the aerial higher off the floor.

So once again thanks for the advice.

[Kymmy]

Glad it worked :tu: