TV aerial gizmo

[mikehh]

Is there a gizmo which can connect to my living room wall TV aeria
socket which will send the TV signal to my bedroom TV"s whic
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want t
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV


--
mikehh

 

[Dave M]

mikehh wrote:

Is there a gizmo which can connect to my living room wall TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal to my bedroom TV"s which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want
to maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

If I understand your question correctly, the answer is "no". What you're
wanting to do is to rebroadcast the RF ssignal from your TV antenna. Not a
good idea, since the retransmitted signal would severely intefere with the
real broadcast signal, killing all reception.
What you need is a transmitter/receiver pair that translates the signal to a
much higher frequency than the TV signals. This avoids any interference
with the original broadcast signals. However, this approach requires that
you have a set-top box to convert the broadcast signals to video and audio,
retransmit them to a receiver at each TV set, where the video & audio are
demodulated and sent into the TVs. Look at the description at
http://pcpowerzone.com/howtochwitve.html to get more details. Google for
"wireless digital tv transmitter" and see the products available. Read
their capabilities carefully.

The best approach would be to connect your TV antenna to a distribution
amplifier, then run coax cables (RG-59) to all the TVs in your house. A
very good distribution amp is at
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?mc=03&p=CM3414&d=Channel-Master-CM3414-Distribution-Amplifier-(CM3414)&c=Amplifiers&sku=.
It works quite well in just about any environment, is very low noise, and
has connections for up to four TVs and a cable modem for your computer.
Avoid the cheapie amps such as you would get from Walmart.

--
David
dgminala at mediacombb dot net

 

[Dave Platt]

Is there a gizmo which can connect to my living room wall TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal to my bedroom TV"s which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

Well, yeah, sort-of, but it's a bad idea.

In order to do this, you'd need a broadband amplifier, and an indoor
antenna which would retransmit the whole TV spectrum.

The problem with this approach is that if you amplify the signal from
the aerial enough to reach the bedroom TVs with a useful strength,
there's a *very* good chance that it would be strong enough to reach
back up to the aeriel and be picked up again (mixing with the incoming
signal from the TV transmitters). At best, this would cause image
degradation and "ghosts" (if analog) or a higher bit-error rate with
video dropouts (if digital). If worse, it would create a horrendous
RF feedback problem which would obliterate television reception
throughout your house, and possibly affect nearby houses as well.

It's sort of the radio-frequency equivalent of using a PA system, with
the microphone too close to one of the speakers... it lets out a
terrible "howl" of feedback. This is not what you want.

Also, it's probably illegal to do this in your jurisdiction, since you
would in effect be creating an unlicensed over-the-air television
transmission system.

You're much better off using a "wired" signal distribution system...
typically, with 75-ohm coaxial cable... and running a coax to each
individual television set. You would need a signal splitter (passive),
or a powered "distribution amplifier" if your aerial signal isn't
strong enough.

You can (in almost all cases) disconnect the set-top aerial, and
connect the coax to the TV instead (some have 75-ohm coax inputs, and
others have a pair of screw terminals for a 300-ohm connection - you
would need a 75-to-300-ohm "balun" to make the connection).

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

 

[Winston]

mikehh wrote:

Is there a gizmo which can connect to my living room wall TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal to my bedroom TV"s which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

--Winston

 

[spamtrap1888]

On Aug 25, 6:31 am, mikehh <mikehh.89c0...@diybanter.com> wrote:

Is there a gizmo which  can connect to my living room wall  TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal  to my bedroom TV"s  which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

If you find running coax through your house unappealing enough that
you would settle for selecting a program in your living room and
watching it in another room, or rooms, a few companies sell a 2.4GHz
link for that purpose.

http://www.smarthome.com/7656L/Terk-LF-30S-Leapfrog-Wireless-Audio-Video-Transmitter-and-Receiver-System/p.aspx

 

[Dave U. Random]

Winston wrote in <news:j374fi02i6h@news1.newsguy.com>:

mikehh wrote:
Is there a gizmo which can connect to my living room wall TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal to my bedroom TV"s which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

Although if yer in a weak reception area, you may need an amplifier.
Splitting the signal makes it weaker for all the TVs.

Growing up, we wired each room for TV. Since we were in a remote area,
we only got three channels, and all of them were weak.

We had a huge TV antenna on a 100' crank-up tower (75' of tower, 25'
of drilling rig pipe at the top), with a pre-amp at the antenna
(voltage to run it was injected into the coax leading to the antenna
by the distribution amp), and a distribution amp down at the living
room TV, where all the other TVs were fed from.

Even with all that, we still had to rotate the antenna to get a better
signal. My dad bought a surplus prop-pitch motor off a WWII airplane,
wired it up so it could be controlled from the living room, lowered
the tower, tilted it over, mounted the prop-pitch motor, and it worked
a treat.

Then we got satellite... a big 10' dish.

It's so much easier nowadays.
..

 

[spamtrap1888]

On Aug 25, 11:06 pm, Dave U. Random <anonym...@anonymitaet-im-
inter.net> wrote:

Growing up, we wired each room for TV. Since we were in a remote area,
we only got three channels, and all of them were weak.

We had a huge TV antenna on a 100' crank-up tower (75' of tower, 25'
of drilling rig pipe at the top), with a pre-amp at the antenna
(voltage to run it was injected into the coax leading to the antenna
by the distribution amp), and a distribution amp down at the living
room TV, where all the other TVs were fed from.

Even with all that, we still had to rotate the antenna to get a better
signal. My dad bought a surplus prop-pitch motor off a WWII airplane,
wired it up so it could be controlled from the living room, lowered
the tower, tilted it over, mounted the prop-pitch motor, and it worked
a treat.

Then we got satellite... a big 10' dish.

It's so much easier nowadays.
.

A friend of my grandparents lived in Kitchener, Ontario. The first TV
signals in their area came from Buffalo, New York, but he was eager to
see the modern miracle. I forget the height of the tower he put in his
backyard -- it was still there when we visited them in my youth -- but
if memory serves it was fifty feet high.

You should have lived in the central US. Friends who farmed out by
Peoria needed only a six-foot dish, mounted on the ground. When they
wanted to change satellites they just walked outside and handcranked
it.

 

[hrhofmann@att.net]

On Aug 26, 1:06 am, Dave U. Random <anonym...@anonymitaet-im-
inter.net> wrote:

Winston wrote in <news:j374fi02i6h@news1.newsguy.com>:

mikehh wrote:
Is there a gizmo which  can connect to my living room wall  TV aerial
socket which will send the TV signal  to my bedroom TV"s  which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still want to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

Although if yer in a weak reception area, you may need an amplifier.
Splitting the signal makes it weaker for all the TVs.

Growing up, we wired each room for TV. Since we were in a remote area,
we only got three channels, and all of them were weak.

We had a huge TV antenna on a 100' crank-up tower (75' of tower, 25'
of drilling rig pipe at the top), with a pre-amp at the antenna
(voltage to run it was injected into the coax leading to the antenna
by the distribution amp), and a distribution amp down at the living
room TV, where all the other TVs were fed from.

Even with all that, we still had to rotate the antenna to get a better
signal. My dad bought a surplus prop-pitch motor off a WWII airplane,
wired it up so it could be controlled from the living room, lowered
the tower, tilted it over, mounted the prop-pitch motor, and it worked
a treat.

Then we got satellite... a big 10' dish.

It's so much easier nowadays.
.

I lved in Florida on the east coast, Fort Pierce. Worked in a tv
store summers home from college. In 1953, tv transmitters were only
in Miami and Jacksonville, 135 and 225 miles away. We used crank-up
and tilt-over towers 40' tall to get Miami, with vacuum tube preamps
on the towers and 300 ohm twinlead to the sets. When lightning hit,
as it frequently did, we got fried tuners and amplifiers and melted
downlead. We could only work on antennas in the mornings due to
lightning danger from noon onwatrds. When West Palm Beach got tv, it
was great, only 50 miles to the nearest station, we didn't have to use
amplifiers on the 40' towers.

 

[Anonymous Remailer (austr]

hrhofmann@att.net wrote in
<news:3554c399-3f60-49fb-9bfe-ca8120d4f977@q12g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>:

On Aug 26, 1:06=A0am, Dave U. Random <anonym...@anonymitaet-im-
inter.net> wrote:
Winston wrote in <news:j374fi02i6h@news1.newsguy.com>:

mikehh wrote:
Is there a gizmo which =A0can connect to my living room wall =A0TV a=
erial
socket which will send the TV signal =A0to my bedroom TV"s =A0which
presently have set top aerials on them. At the same time I still wan=
t to
maintain the lead from the walll socket to my living room TV?

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

Although if yer in a weak reception area, you may need an amplifier.
Splitting the signal makes it weaker for all the TVs.

Growing up, we wired each room for TV. Since we were in a remote area,
we only got three channels, and all of them were weak.

We had a huge TV antenna on a 100' crank-up tower (75' of tower, 25'
of drilling rig pipe at the top), with a pre-amp at the antenna
(voltage to run it was injected into the coax leading to the antenna
by the distribution amp), and a distribution amp down at the living
room TV, where all the other TVs were fed from.

Even with all that, we still had to rotate the antenna to get a better
signal. My dad bought a surplus prop-pitch motor off a WWII airplane,
wired it up so it could be controlled from the living room, lowered
the tower, tilted it over, mounted the prop-pitch motor, and it worked
a treat.

Then we got satellite... a big 10' dish.

It's so much easier nowadays.
.
=20
I lved in Florida on the east coast, Fort Pierce. Worked in a tv
store summers home from college. In 1953, tv transmitters were only
in Miami and Jacksonville, 135 and 225 miles away. We used crank-up
and tilt-over towers 40' tall to get Miami, with vacuum tube preamps
on the towers and 300 ohm twinlead to the sets. When lightning hit,
as it frequently did, we got fried tuners and amplifiers and melted
downlead. We could only work on antennas in the mornings due to
lightning danger from noon onwatrds. When West Palm Beach got tv, it
was great, only 50 miles to the nearest station, we didn't have to use
amplifiers on the 40' towers.

My dad was a big believer in proper grounding.

We had a half-mile long-wire antenna that seemed to drain off most
static buildup before it got to the point of a lightning strike. On
each pole supporting the long-wire antenna, there were big lightning
rods that we took great pains to sharpen to a needle-point. These ran
into 6' x 6' x 1" copper plates, buried 10 feet in the ground at the
base of each pole. I think he got the copper plates from military
surplus.

The long wire antenna was almost always charged with static... there
were times when it would jump a 12" spark during heavy snow storms or
high winds. We kept it grounded to the same ground as the TV antenna
tower was grounded to, except when Dad was using it to transmit, or we
lost power, then we hooked up a 40 watt fluorescent light to it so we
could see.

The TV antenna tower also had lightning rods spaced at 25 feet
intervals up its height, grounded through a braided copper line about
half the size of my arm that was buried 10 feet down around the
perimeter of the house then run to a 10' x 10' x 1" copper plate
buried 20 feet in the ground, right above the water table.

The lightning rods on the roof (spaced every 10 feet, along the peak
of the roof, and along the perimeter, along with 4 lightning rods on
the chimney) also went into that same ground.

We had quite a few direct hits... never blew out any electronics,
though.

 

[Winston]

Dave U. Random wrote:

Winston wrote in<news:j374fi02i6h@news1.newsguy.com>:

(...)

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

Although if yer in a weak reception area, you may need an amplifier.
Splitting the signal makes it weaker for all the TVs.

But if yer in a strong reception area, you've
solved the problem for ~$20. If signal strength
is insufficient, yer money's not wasted because
you can insert yer distribution amp between
the antenna and the input of the splitter.

(...)

It's so much easier nowadays.

And watching the shows from 'way back is pretty
painful now because most of the magic was in
the experience of watching a real television
rather than the quality of the production.



--Winston <--- Yabba Dabba Do!

 

[Winston]

Anonymous wrote:

Winston wrote in<news:j39b6b01b7t@news3.newsguy.com>:

(...)

And watching the shows from 'way back is pretty
painful now because most of the magic was in
the experience of watching a real television
rather than the quality of the production.

Too true.

Case in point, "My Mother The Car", starring Dick Van Dyke's brother,
Jerry.

Just watched several seconds of that on Youtube.

My EYES! Argh!

--Winston

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Anonymous wrote:

Too true.

Case in point, "My Mother The Car", starring Dick Van Dyke's brother,
Jerry.

Loved that show, watched every episode, hated that it only ran one
year... but I was young and stupid, I guess. Supposedly it's been
deemed the second-worst show of all time, right behind the Jerry
Springer Show (Really? A family-oriented, fun show about a talking car
is only barely better than _Springer_, evil-incarnate himself? Really?

Jerry Van Dyke was never the Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

 

Winston wrote in <news:j39b6b01b7t@news3.newsguy.com>:

Dave U. Random wrote:
Winston wrote in<news:j374fi02i6h@news1.newsguy.com>:

(...)

Sure!
It is called a splitter.
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/1079229.html

Insert it between your antenna and your living room
TV and run coax from it's other outputs to the
cable inputs of your other TVs.

Although if yer in a weak reception area, you may need an amplifier.
Splitting the signal makes it weaker for all the TVs.

But if yer in a strong reception area, you've
solved the problem for ~$20. If signal strength
is insufficient, yer money's not wasted because
you can insert yer distribution amp between
the antenna and the input of the splitter.

(...)

It's so much easier nowadays.

And watching the shows from 'way back is pretty
painful now because most of the magic was in
the experience of watching a real television
rather than the quality of the production.

Too true.

Case in point, "My Mother The Car", starring Dick Van Dyke's brother,
Jerry.

Loved that show, watched every episode, hated that it only ran one
year... but I was young and stupid, I guess. Supposedly it's been
deemed the second-worst show of all time, right behind the Jerry
Springer Show (Really? A family-oriented, fun show about a talking car
is only barely better than _Springer_, evil-incarnate himself? Really?
And Knight Rider, another talking-car show, scored better than that?!
Really?! Unfair!).

Still want a car that looks like a 1928 Porter (even if the actual car
was a 1924 Ford), though.

 

[Dave U. Random]

Winston wrote in <news:j39ub201hf5@news1.newsguy.com>:

Anonymous wrote:
Winston wrote in<news:j39b6b01b7t@news3.newsguy.com>:

(...)

And watching the shows from 'way back is pretty
painful now because most of the magic was in
the experience of watching a real television
rather than the quality of the production.

Too true.

Case in point, "My Mother The Car", starring Dick Van Dyke's brother,
Jerry.

Just watched several seconds of that on Youtube.

My EYES! Argh!

You can watch all the episodes on Hulu.com, if you're into pain.
..

 

[William Sommerwerck]

It's called "twinlead" or "coax".

Buy a splitter and some cable.

 

[Winston]

Dave U. Random wrote:

Winston wrote in<news:j39ub201hf5@news1.newsguy.com>:

Anonymous wrote:

(...)

Case in point, "My Mother The Car", starring Dick Van Dyke's brother,
Jerry.

Just watched several seconds of that on Youtube.

My EYES! Argh!

You can watch all the episodes on Hulu.com, if you're into pain.

I found a 2 x 4 with a nail in it.
Think I'll just bash myself with that for a while, instead.



--Winston