Help with freeview

carpmaster · 19 Jul 2007 at 18:16

I give up!

dbmzk1 · 20 Jul 2007 at 06:31

carpmaster said:
I give up!

There's a difference between getting a good service and getting a service which is better than what you need, which is what your offering. That's great and I can see you take great pride in the work you do, which is a rare thing these days.

But I know a lot of people who would be happy if it just worked for £80 rather than £150. The RX range might be cheaper, but they are not crap and generally will not fall apart. Using RG6 is fine 99% of the time. While I can see what your saying, I can see what rubin1961 is saying too. All in all at the end of the day the result is the same.

Tesla · 20 Jul 2007 at 09:15

dbmzk1 said:
There's a difference between getting a good service and getting a service which is better than what you need, which is what your offering. That's great and I can see you take great pride in the work you do, which is a rare thing these days.

But I know a lot of people who would be happy if it just worked for £80 rather than £150. The RX range might be cheaper, but they are not crap and generally will not fall apart. Using RG6 is fine 99% of the time. While I can see what your saying, I can see what rubin1961 is saying too. All in all at the end of the day the result is the same.

I think the main point to carpmaster's arguement was that rubin1961 is unable to tell if his installation is working faultlessly due to not having correct metering equipment.

carpmaster · 27 Jul 2007 at 21:16

dbmzk1 said:
There's a difference between getting a good service and getting a service which is better than what you need, which is what your offering. That's great and I can see you take great pride in the work you do, which is a rare thing these days.

But I know a lot of people who would be happy if it just worked for £80 rather than £150. The RX range might be cheaper, but they are not crap and generally will not fall apart. Using RG6 is fine 99% of the time. While I can see what your saying, I can see what rubin1961 is saying too. All in all at the end of the day the result is the same.

The result isn't the same though. If it was I'd be using cheaper parts and there would be no market for better quality ones so nobody in the trade would buy them and the manufacturers would stop manufacturing them.

I take your point that if it works, it works. However you really need to know how far away it is from not working......I simply don't believe he's had no problems with callbacks when he's no idea what the bit error rate is. I also don't believe that he's had no problems with inteference problems / glitches due to using poorly screened RG6. If this is true he's not been doing this for very long or has been unbelievably lucky.

rubin1961 · 28 Jul 2007 at 20:39

load off bull mate iv been installing for many years and the cable i use as you know is more than sufficent.
all you are doing is trying to justify ** prices.
i know all the transmitters i use and have no probs and even if i used parts you use it still would be half the price.
SO DONT TRY AND PUT ME DOWN.....
i have pride in my work and THATS why i get most work through recomendations.
i do comunial installs with no probs so in your eyes were iam wrong.
END.

Macro · 29 Jul 2007 at 13:55

carpmaster said:
The result isn't the same though. If it was I'd be using cheaper parts and there would be no market for better quality ones so nobody in the trade would buy them and the manufacturers would stop manufacturing them.

I'm about to get the ariel and cabling redone at home (Reading), we've used sky for years but i'm getting increasingly cheesed off with paying for 200 channels of rubbish and the odd good series. First step inthe anti sky rebellion is to switch to freeview.

I'd need three or four feeds from the ariel (split in the attic to living room, conservatory, kitchen and bedroom). It sounds like our local freeview mast is Crystal palace although we're actualy just about in the meridian area (rather than London). Being borderline between two areas means we tend to get crappy reception.

You've raised some really good points about a quality installation, and, to point I don't mind paying reasonable money to get a good quality result. Any suggestions on how to check before hand on getting a decent (honest!!!) firm to do the job?

carpmaster · 5 Aug 2007 at 19:42

rubin1961 said:
load off bull mate iv been installing for many years and the cable i use as you know is more than sufficent.
all you are doing is trying to justify ** prices.
i know all the transmitters i use and have no probs and even if i used parts you use it still would be half the price.
SO DONT TRY AND PUT ME DOWN.....
i have pride in my work and THATS why i get most work through recomendations.
i do comunial installs with no probs so in your eyes were iam wrong.
END.

I've already stated why I use the best parts available, and why RG6 & cheap wideband aerials just aren't good enough. I've seen countless installations where poor RF screening has caused severe problems.

That's why I use cable such as QF100 / WF100 / PF100 etc. It costs me three times as much as RG6 would & I'm not particularly fond of throwing money down the drain! What do you think the whole CAI benchmarking of cables is all about? RG6 isn't benchmarked! All the ones I mention are! Assuming you care about the standard of your installations (which you claim to & I have no doubt you have good intentions) then you should be using benchmarked cables as standard.

I don't doubt at all that you have pride in your work, but I'm putting across to you real world problems like cable crosstalk / BER / impulse inteference and as yet you haven't formulated a coherent reply, except by saying that RG6 is "fine" which doesn't mean a great deal in the grand scheme of things.

Talking about the CAI and regulations, the fact that you're doing lots of "comunial" installations means you'll know all about BS EN50083-2. How do you fulfil this requirement on your communal distribution systems?

Athanor said:
I'm about to get the ariel and cabling redone at home (Reading), we've used sky for years but i'm getting increasingly cheesed off with paying for 200 channels of rubbish and the odd good series. First step inthe anti sky rebellion is to switch to freeview.

I'd need three or four feeds from the ariel (split in the attic to living room, conservatory, kitchen and bedroom). It sounds like our local freeview mast is Crystal palace although we're actualy just about in the meridian area (rather than London). Being borderline between two areas means we tend to get crappy reception.

You've raised some really good points about a quality installation, and, to point I don't mind paying reasonable money to get a good quality result. Any suggestions on how to check before hand on getting a decent (honest!!!) firm to do the job?

Firstly I would avoid the large firms who have big adverts in the Yellow Pages etc. Most of them just subcontract the work out to anyone they can find, and cream a percentage off the top. This is bad because you won't know who the actual company are that comes to do the work, they almost certainly won't be local, you will pay more (subcontractor will charge what he wants & add % on top to cover the amount they have to hand up to the company) & they won't be employed directly so will tend to use poor quality parts and install badly / quickly.

I would just try and use someone who is local, but if possible just get them to pop round for a chat beforehand and see what they are like. Check what type of cable they use & what aerials etc.

If it's Crystal Palace ask them if they will use a grouped one or a wideband! If they are a bit cagey on the cable they use & they tell you a wideband is best for digital, send 'em packing! Oh and check they have valid public liability insurance with enough cover!