New aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex

Posted by in Blog | May 6, 2013

New Aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex Www.andysaerials.com

New aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex

Friday 3rd May last call nice and local an annoying aerial installation?  When I arrived I was absolutely horrified to see the customer’s aerial clinging to their chimney stack by a plastic band, which was wonky and through the cement course of the bricks.  The excess of the plastic band was not cut off and left to rattle and rustle in the wind, annoying my customer and their neighbours.  My customer complained of poor pictures and was tired from being kept up at night, with the noise from the aerial installation; the aerial was on a 6ft ¾ steel mast and was not sufficient for a bungalow in Writtle which struggled for signal.  The aerial cable was thrown down the roof and even went across the customer’s window.  To add insult to injury the aerial cable was put through the double glazing!  Who drills through windows?  My customer produced their receipt for the installation and the engineer had written on it…  ARIEAL UPGRADE!   I went up the roof and cut off the excess plastic strap and resolved the noise issue immediately.  I told my customers there was no charge and gave them a discounted price for a new aerial installation with a guarantee.  I live locally and gave them what I believed to be the best option, and started packing away as I thought they would want some time to decide what to do.  My customers wanted to have the work carried out so I took my ladders off my van and made a start.  Once I had cut the aerial down I spotted the aerial coax cable where it fixed to the aerial dipole had been left unsealed as the engineer had forgot to put the plastic waterproof shield on.

New aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com

I did not want to use either a 12ft 2” or 10ft 1” ½ mast unless I had to so I put a Facarro Log-periodic w/b aerial on an  8ft 1” ½ alloy mast, and took some signal readings with my spectrum analyser to see if I could work with the signal on an 8ft mast.  The bottom digital mux’s were good, square and of a reasonable strength.  However the top 3 were weak and was awkward losing dB’s as I rotated the aerial trying to get the 3 digital mux’s straighter. With a workable signal I secured the aerial mast to the large 13” chimney cradle and cut the aerial cable just over a meter down mast ready to receive a masthead pre-amp to amplify the signal.

  New aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com

After some thought and a smoke I decided to use a Televe’s 5351 masthead pre-amp/diplexer which is a fantastic bit of kit, with a 29db gain and the ability to attenuate / reduce the amplification by 15db with a noise figure of 2.5db it was perfect for my customers.  I connected the aerial to the masthead and then connected the masthead to my spectrum analyser, using the spectrum to power the masthead with 12v I was able to reduce the amplification and reducing the noise levels to a minimum and keeping the amplification enough to bring in the top 3 digital mux’s in for a working level for my customer’s TV.

New aerial Writtle Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com

With the new aerial now balanced and a good working signal I removed the cable from the output side of the masthead connected to my spectrum and connected a new cable from the cable reel.  I neatly ran the cable down the roof, cutting up the left over from the lashing kit to put under the roof tiles, pinning my aerial cable to the roof preventing it from moving.  Funny enough I decided not to use the window to enter the aerial cable into the house, I drilled a new hole in the brickwork by my customer’s TV.  I put a rain loop in the aerial cable and sealed the 10mm hole with silicon sealer.  Once in the house I fitted a 12v 100m/a remote power supply unit and then made up a new fly-lead from the PU to the TV.  I re-tuned my customer’s TV and checked the pictures on most of the channels.  My customer was instantly delighted as the pictures were not pixelating and was watchable!  I only noticed at the end the engineer responsible for the disaster installation had wrote on my customer’s receipt signal from Crystal Palace and not Anglia lol!

If you enjoy my blog please click on the like buttons at the bottom, Thanks Andy

 

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