[mythtvnz] Indoor DVB-T antennas.

[Nick Rout]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:21 PM, Michael West <michael at iposs.co.nz> wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote, On 23/01/15 14:33:
>>I just moved house and the Sky dish seems to be the only antenna brought out to a socket inside the house. The (fairly old looking) terrestrial antenna doesn't seem to be connected to anything. I have been resigned to using my old DVB-S cards as I can't screw about with the landlord's wiring. Obviously with freeview terrestrial is the preferred solution as it is h264 and some channels are HD.
>>
>>But I was in Bunnings today and they had a range of indoor antennas, which got me thinking about that as a solution. Between the place where the antenna would have to go and a clear view to Sugarloaf there are two internal walls and an external (timber framing/gib on internals and timber framing/oamaru stone on the outside.)
>>
>>Is it possible to say if this will work, or is the only solution to invest and try it?
>
> From my experience you will get fine reception with an indoor antenna if you test it assuming your house has good line of site and proximity to the station.  However most indoor antenna are largely omni directional which means they pick up and amplify the signal from all directions.  This means they pick up interference from a lot more sources than a directional roof mounted antenna.  The signal is also weaker so any interference causes more issues.   Indoor antenna's often have amplifiers built in but these don't help with this issue.  If a neighbour has a badly shielded device they turn on every night around the same time it would get kind of annoying.
>
> So I would say it would work fine at first if you test it but you are likely to get random times where it will lose signal and possibly kill your recordings.  How often this happens would depend on your signal strength and the antenna used.
>
> If you are going to be there long term I would just sort out the proper outdoor one even if you have to pay a little to get an installer onsite.
>
> http://www.dbh.govt.nz/digital-television-facilities  <-- useful info on some of your rights as a tenant.
>

Thanks to both of you for your instructive posts. On that latter
point, I am not gonna get all legal on my brother-in-law who is doing
us a bit of a favour!