dmpoole said:
1 - I had to have the least amount of cables going on the outside of the house.
Running six coaxes around the house or internally was not going to happen.
That's totally understandable, and due to this the cabling couldn't really be done as it would normally be done which will limit your options in the future. Of course it's irrelevent if you only intend to carry the existing signals.
dmpoole said:
2 - I already had a pre-conceived idea about how I was going to do it but didn't tell the aeriel fitter until he got there. I told him where I lived and said I wanted the best "money no object" and he said because of how close to the transmitter I was, it would be a waste of money and said the 80p aeriels would do.
I think he's missed the point. When a customer says they want the best, it's not about using a large fancy expensive aerial. It's about using good quality materials, benchmarked cables and aerials (with baluns!), hot dipped galvanised brackets, decent diameter low gauge aluminium masts and good installation planning. An 80p aerial is an 80p aerial. It's made as cheaply as is humanly possible and if you've ever compared one with a good quality aerial, you'll see the difference clearly. The aluminium is paper thin on contract aerials, the supports are woefully inadequate, and those damn pressed chimney brackets should be melted down and used to form a large hammer to pulverise any installer that's tight enough to use them.
dmpoole said:
3 - When I told him what I wanted doing he was exactly like you and said it wouldn't work properly because he's obviously an expert. I told him that his job was to cable the two upstairs TV's in, get an excellent picture on them and I would worry about the rest but he was worried about his reputation.
The customer is (usually) always right, so he's done what you asked for which is fine.
dmpoole said:
5 - He then came in to check my work and was gobsmacked at the picture on all 3 TV's but there was a bit of ghosting so into his toolbox he went and bought out a handful of attenuators and tried different sizes until the picture was excellent. He then helped me with the back and said that it wasn't correct but its given him another way of doing things because he has been asked for similar.
This is a bit strange. The level of ghosting is dependant on the ratio between the ghost signal and the direct signal from the transmitter. Fitting attenuators isn't the answer, unless the problem wasn't ghosting in the first place. Also you shouldn't need to test out different values of attenuator. When you need to use one you'll know exactly the value you need because you'll have measured the signal previously.
dmpoole said:
6 - He went away happy knowing he'd done a good job, all my family were happy because they've had to put up with portable aeriels for years and I'm happy that it works.
This is the main point. Your happy and that's what he gets paid for ultimately.
dmpoole said:
HOWEVER, can you explain what you mean when you said this -
You're going to struggle if you ever wanted to add FM or DAB or send any other signals (Sky / CCTV) to the rooms.
Imagine if you wanted FM or DAB (or both) in each room. You'll have to refit a whole new lashing and bracket as yours isn't strong enough. Then you've got two feeds on the roof to contend with rather than one. You'll have to diplex then split the new signals so each feed get's a signal. That's half the signal gone before you've started. Then you'll have to bolt on a diplexer to your new cable runs which isn't going to be neat. This is assuming the amps you have will accept an input in the VHF range as well as UHF.
Then what if you want Sky feed to all the rooms? You're going to have to feed the Sky output into a 2 way amp which passes the RF voltage (for changing channel in any room). These outputs will have to run all the way to the two amps you installed previously. Then these two amps will need to be changed so they pass the RF voltage too. What tends to happens on houses wired like yours, is they get patched up and added to over the years until it's a total nighmare to go any further, then the whole lots has to be ripped out and done properly.
The best way is always one amp feeding all rooms. Anything can be fed into it easily (FM / DAB / SKY / CCTV images etc) and all rooms will have virtually identical signal levels. Agreed though that your invisible cabling stipulation makes this impossible unless you had the wires run down in the cavity walls. You can usually take a small part of the floorboards up and use rods to bring cables from the loft.
Anyway, this is all rather pointless now. You've got what you wanted and you're happy with it. Job done.
