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What indoor (powered) aerial?
- Thread starter Ajaxx
- Start date
The reviews are all over the place because the results are so variable. One person can buy the cheapest indoor aerial and get fantastic results. Another can buy the most expensive and still get poor results.
About 90% of the performance of any indoor aerial is governed by location and signal strength. These are two things that have nothing to do with the quality or cost of the aerial. Best case scenario: You live on the 20th floor of a block of flats and the window of the room where you want to use the aerial has a clear view of the main transmitter. Worst case scenario: You have a ground floor room on the opposite side of the building to the transmitter.
The other fact about indoor aerials is that they have negative gain. Because of the small size of the receiving array they actually lose signal before it even reaches the amplifier.
Finally, the tolerance for signal loss with digital is much tighter than with the old analogue system. On the old system the picture would go snowy but you'd still have something. With digital if you don't get enough signal then it just won't work.
If you have absolutely no other option then go ahead and buy an indoor aerial. Just make sure though to buy from somewhere that accepts returns.
About 90% of the performance of any indoor aerial is governed by location and signal strength. These are two things that have nothing to do with the quality or cost of the aerial. Best case scenario: You live on the 20th floor of a block of flats and the window of the room where you want to use the aerial has a clear view of the main transmitter. Worst case scenario: You have a ground floor room on the opposite side of the building to the transmitter.
The other fact about indoor aerials is that they have negative gain. Because of the small size of the receiving array they actually lose signal before it even reaches the amplifier.
Finally, the tolerance for signal loss with digital is much tighter than with the old analogue system. On the old system the picture would go snowy but you'd still have something. With digital if you don't get enough signal then it just won't work.
If you have absolutely no other option then go ahead and buy an indoor aerial. Just make sure though to buy from somewhere that accepts returns.
I would agree with lucid there, location is the biggest governor of the performance of an indoor aerial. I tried using one for a Raspberry Pi PVR project, and as my flat faces the wrong way for the transmitter, even with a very good indoor aerial I couldn't get satisfactory performance. From a friends flat that is near a transmitter and faces the right way, a basic poundland aerial is good enough.
An indoor aerial will only really work in a location where your signal is so strong you could just leave the aerial cable hanging out the back of the TV and get a perfect signal that way.
Boosting the signal just boost the noise so it doesn't help. Are you 100% sure you can't fit an outdoor aerial?
Boosting the signal just boost the noise so it doesn't help. Are you 100% sure you can't fit an outdoor aerial?