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Monthly Archives: February 2013
New aerial installation Shenfield Brentwood Essex www.andysaerials.com
Posted by andysaerials in Blog | February 16, 2013New aerial installation Shenfield Brentwood Essex
As you can see from the picture this was fairly late on Saturday evening, as the day was incredibly busy, which we like. After testing my customer’s aerial signal I suggested taking down their 2 aerials (London & Anglia) and putting up on good quality aerial, replacing the aerial coax to their distribution amplifier.
New aerial installation Springfield Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Posted by andysaerials in Blog | February 16, 2013New aerial installation Springfield Chelmsfor Essex www.andysaerials.com
Saturday 16th February 2013 and what a beautiful day, a clear blue sky and at last not cold! Parking was an issue here, but luckily there was a public car park at the back of my customer’s house and I just played feed the parking meter. And my customer’s kindly made us pancakes which we have to say were amazing!
New aerial installation Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Posted by andysaerials in Blog | February 6, 2013Neaerialinstallation Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Wednesday morning first call for a new aerial installation Chelmsford Essex, nice and local and traffic not too bad, just wish the sun would shine. I arrived at my customer’s house and looked at their aerial system and I was horrified to see such a poor installation, by the company who installed the aerial a couple of years ago. Firstly the chimney cradle kit was one of those ratchet strap devices for those who can not lash a stack, it was thrown on and the chimney cradle did not fit the chimney stack. The plastic strap went up the chimney stack by 3ft as opposed to being level, and was tightened around the cement course and not the brick course causing unnecessary damage to the chimney stack. The ¾ mast was steel and a contract 10 element aerial. The aerial coax cable was thrown across a flat roof and dangled down the side of the house. I counted only 1 tack securing the aerial cable. Just to add insult to injury the aerial cable was not one piece and had a join in, and no effort had been made to seal it, knowing it would let water in.
New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Posted by andysaerials in Blog | February 5, 2013New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
1st Call on a cold morning New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex andysaerials.com. On arrival the temperature was cold, very cold! Getting on the roof was a challenge itself, as the front roof section of the house was covered with my favourite solar panels. We set up at the back of the house and carried our ladders and roof climbing ladders to the back garden.
New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Once on the roof I lashed the chimney stack and fitted a 13” 5 brick course chimney cradle and then straight down to the ground as I could no longer feel my fingers! A cup of tea and a serendipity Kit-Kat from my kind customer did the trick and back to the van to assemble the Blake DMX10 w/b ultra high gain aerial. I put together the aerial and fixed it to an 8ft 1” ½ alloy mast and left enough cable to reach the TV in the sitting room on the ground floor.
New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
I aligned the Blake DMX10 w/b aerial with my spectrum analyser and was very happy with the signal strength and format. I ran the aerial cable down the roof and then under the guttering and down a drainpipe so the cable could not be seen. No need to drill a hole for the cable to enter the house as the Sky man had drilled a hole big enough to fit 4 cables through. I connected my aerial cable to my customer’s Sky+ box and set up their digital tv.
New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Returning back up my ladders I run a 2nd cable back to the loft from the Sky+ box (up-link, this carries my digital signal from my aerial and Sky analogue signal too). Once in the loft I plugged in an Antiference 8way ir distribution amp and started changing the connections in the loft from coax to F.
New aerial installation Gallywood Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
After the loft work had been completed we closed the loft hatch and re-tuned all the TV’s in the house and replacing any damaged fly leads. As always my customer was delighted with andysaerials.com work, price and picture quality. We cleared up, and put all the packaging neatly in the box the aerial came in. Wrote the bill and set off to our next job.
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Posted by andysaerials in Blog | February 4, 2013Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex andysaerials.com
As you will see from the picture this is not one of my aerials. It’s a Televes dat45 which looks the part but is a heavy head and not designed for a ¾ mast, which they are often fitted to. The aerial had twisted the flimsy 6” chimney cradle and came crashing down.
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
Me being me I decided not to have a join in the cable and brought the aerial down to re-cable it. Once on the ground I removed the old aerial cable and re-connected new cable and opted for an 8ft 1” ½ alloy mast which would happily support the aerial. Having heavy duty mast requires heavy duty support at the chimney stack, so I fitted my favourite 13” 5 brick course large chimney cradle.
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
When I went to lash the stack I was applauded with the installation! The more I looked the further I was disgusted. The chimney corners were stuck to the stack with glue? And the lashing wire was not wrapped around the j’ bolts enough to hold the lashing wire around the stack yet alone tighten. The aerial cable was not tacked to the stack the whole job was an amateur bodge.
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
My customer shouted to me tea and biscuits were served, I went down and explained how terrible the job was and told him I had repaired the roof where the aerial had struck and he told me he had fitted the aerial a week or two ago. I was surprized it had stayed up for 2wks!
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
He was a nice guy and made a lovely cup of tea and very generous with the biscuits, so I put his DIY right and aligned his aerial to Sudbury. His signal was marginal just sitting on 35db and could have done with a mast head pre-amp but didn’t have the budget for that and was happy with his pictures,
Digital aerial repair Chelmsford Essex www.andysaerials.com
I fitted his chimney cowl to prevent the birds falling down his chimney, then put my ladders away wrote a bill and set off home.