Hello all, i am looking for a little help/advice with regard to the Freeview set up at home, first a little background:

When we moved in last winter, the aerial cabling setup was a nightmare, as the previous owner appeared to have had a sky multi-room setup in each room and had neglected all the old aerial cable setup. We found several runs of knackered old el-cheapo co-ax cables, which had been bodged together at sockets with adaptor fixings etc, running up to a tiny wee loft aerial.

At this time, we only had one TV in the front room so I set about simplifying the setup, and bought some high quality foam insulated cable and ran it direct from the loft aerial, out and down the wall back into the front room, voila Freeview signal! The only issue with this was that the loft aerial provided quite a weak signal and would struggle in bad weather etc. as such I replaced the loft aerial with a high gain one from B and Q, which made a massive difference and all was well, all channels working, no issues.

A few weeks ago we bought a second telly for the master bedroom. I fitted this last night, running some medium quality B and Q co-axial from it up into the loft, I have then cut the preexisting cable from the aerial to the downstairs a few inches from the aerial and stuck an old metal shielded 2-way splitter I found lying around in at this point. I have then plumbed everything in.

At first, everything seemed okay, both TV's picking up Freeview signal, no interference. However upon closer inspection, the upstairs TV hadn't picked up any of the Mux2 channels (ITV, ITV2, Channel 4, Channel 5, E4 etc), whilst although the downstairs TV was still showing them in the programme guide, there was actually no viewable signal on the channel at all.

I've spent much of today faffing on with the setup. I initially removed the feed to the bedroom from the splitter and Voila the channels are now back in full working order on the downstairs TV.

I have also gone to the trouble of refitting the original small aerial into the loft and running both aerials each feeding a seperate TV. Again, the downstairs TV is fully working, however upstairs TV is missing channels.

I know the upstairs TV doesnt have an issue with the tuner etc. as it was the original downstairs TV and has always worked okay until now.

I'm heading back up to the loft now to try reattach the bedroom TV to the splitter on its own and see if that brings up all of the channels, I shall report back.

In the meantime and thoughts/advice would be appreciated.

Well reconnecting the upstairs TV to the splitter on its own has brought all of the channels back, however the signal strength is very poor (constantly breaking up), compared to on the downstairs TV.

I'm beginning to think that the signal on Mux2 is too weak to be properly split to both sets of cabling, which seems to be backed up by the fact the image is pretty poor on the lower quality internal cabling, vs. the higher quality cable that runs outside of the house to the downstairs telly.

In the circumstances, would a powered booster placed near to the aerial before the splitter assist any? Only issue i would have with this is that the nearest power socket is on the landing below the loft :( - any recommendations welcome.

Cheers

Fit a mast head amplifer on the aerial and the power supply splitter can be fitted in a room. Alternatively put the power supply splitter in the loft if you can run a power supply up there. Then connect the tv's with some quality coax with as few connections as possible.

Yep, been having a quick look online, going to run a cheap extension cable up from the landing power point to the loft (will come in useful for other stuff I've got up there) and then use that to power a plug in type booster/splitter, then run the two telly's into that. That way there are as few connections as possible (only one 2-into-1 at the booster) throughout the system

Cheers

A small amp could easily be wired into the lighting circuit as it wouldn't take much current!

Haven't even got any lighting up in the loft unfortunately (use a car inspection lamp on a git big extension cable when I go up there), plus it would only end in tears with my mastery of electronics

I've ordered a masthead 1-to-4 amplifier, should hopefully do the trick and allow for further expansions in the future. I bought a stud detector from B&Q when mounting the new telly, biggest waste of £26 ever - didn't detect Jack - so I'll be taking that back tomorrow, the refund will pay for the new amplifier and still have change

Will report back with the results

Haven't even got any lighting up in the loft unfortunately (use a car inspection lamp on a git big extension cable when I go up there), plus it would only end in tears with my mastery of electronics

As it's in the loft, you could pick up a feed from the 1st floor lighting.

First - get the signal level up BEFORE distribution - that way the signal to noise ratio is a lot higher .You don't want to amplify a low level signal +noise - both get amplified equally . Nowadays ,with digital signals - once passed the accepted level ,you can pass them roubd the house . But any drop in level will lead to pixaulation and loss of signal .