Monthly Archives: August 2013


New TV Aerial Brentwood Essex

Posted by in Blog | August 25, 2013

New TV Aerial Brentwood Essex  

New Tv Aerial Www.andysaerials.com

Quality Workmanship, Sensible Prices
Andy’s Aerials Essex & Herts

 

Our afternoon call is a new TV aerial Brentwood Essex and when we arrived, at first we were pleased to see the property we were attending was a bungalow, but once we saw the high poles and mastheads on the surrounding houses, we were worried we would struggle getting our customer a quality digital signal.  After chatting with our customer, I wanted to run on the roof with our test aerial and take some readings and look at the line of sight where the aerial could be mounted.  There was a chimney stack and a gable end we couldn’t be sure which one to choose until we took readings from all the possible fixing locations, the chimney stack was our winner as there was a break in the surrounding trees and the signal strengths were good for me to work with so I decided to use an Antiference XG10, which is an ultra-high gain aerial and would grab extra dB for me to work with.  The XG10 is a heavy head and needs to go on an 1” ½ minimum and if customers have the budget 2”.  I do not like using 16ft and have never used a 20ft mast, I always try to get maximum signal which can be amplified with a quality masthead pre-amp, I do carry a 12ft 2” alloy mast on my van and of course if the property has to have one I use it and always ensure its fixings are generous and can easily support it.  The new TV aerial Brentwood Essex installation I took my reading with an 8ft 1” ½ and knew I the signals would be good enough to amplify.

Satellite Dish

Posted by in Blog | August 20, 2013

Satellite Dish http://andysaerial.wpengine.com/blog

Satellite Dish Www.andysaerials.com

 

Still enjoying this lovely and we are called to a customer who is suffering with their satellite pictures, their pictures come and go, freeze and display the message no satellite signal being received, their satellite dish we think was 13years old which is absolutely outstanding, when you think of the baking sunlight in the summer and the freezing temperatures in the winter, as you can probable guess the plastic on the satellite dish and L.N.B has a life expectancy and although this satellite dish was working on and off it had well and truly expired.  Our customer’s roof was rather challenging as its pitch was longer than my roof climbing ladder, and the house was rather high.  With effort we managed to over reach at the top of the ladder and get the roof climbing ladder hooked over the top of the roof, and we then had a 4ft ish gap from the ladder going up to the roof and the roof climbing ladder.  we got to the top of the roof and shuffled across to the chimney stack where the old satellite dish was situated, the dish was round and I hadn’t seen one that old for years, I took the dish down and looked at the line of sight as there was tall trees and I wanted to check my new satellite dish would have a fantastic signal.  Much to my horror there was tree shading about a 1/8 of the dish and there was nowhere else to site the dish.

Satellite dish www.andysaeriasl.com

TV Aerial Brentwood

Posted by in Blog | August 17, 2013

TV Aerial Brentwood

Tv Aerial Brentwood Www.andysaerials.com

Quality Workmanship At Sensible Prices

Saturday and it’s the end of a fabulous week and it’s the last job of the day.  I had visited my customer on Thursday and looked at replacing their TV aerial and gave a price and booked it in for Saturday as I couldn’t do it before.  When we arrived I expected to site the new TV aerial on the rear stack of the building as I had disused with my customers, however when I got my ladders off of the van and climbed up on the roof to the chimney stack I found the neighbour’s chimney cradle had been lashed through my customer’s chimney bracket, which meant I couldn’t cut down my customer’s bracket.  I tried my chimney cradle on the rear corner of the chimney stack but I was far from happy how I was seated over the neighbour’s lashing wire.  The only alternative was the humungast chimney stack at the top of the roof, which we decide to try.  With it still being summer it was lovely and dry and enabled us to try and lash the huge front stack, the roof tiles were slate and would have been incredibly difficult if they were wet or icy.  We joined two lashing kits together and climbed up the other roof towards the front chimney stack, and started lashing the stack, we managed to get the lashing wire around the large chimney stack and even managed to the all chimney corners on comfortably, but once we had attached the lashing wire to the J bolt tightening the lashing wire was awkward, as I tightened the J bolts tightening the lashing wire was challenging keeping a good footing on the slate roof.  I managed to tighten the lashing wire until I was happy and using the new chimney cradle to assist my climb back up to the roof it snapped in half.  In nearly 20yrs of rigging and installing new TV aerials I have never experienced a chimney cradle breaking.

TV Aerial

Posted by in Blog | August 16, 2013

TV Aerial

Tv Aerial Www.andysaerials.com

Quality Workmanship At Sensible Prices
Andy’s Aerials Essex & Herts

 

What a fantastic day, our 2nd call was a new build in Billericay Essex and the house was in need of a new aerial.  The chimney stack was rather awkward to get to but once we had our ladders over the fence into next doors path, it was easy to get the roof climbing ladder onto the roof so I could get to the chimney stack.  The problem being now the house’s chimney stack was at the rear of the house and wasn’t too high, the apex of an adjoining roof was in the signal line and I did not want to go too high with an aerial to go over the roof line.  I decided my best choice of TV aerial would be an Antiference XG10 w/b and if I ran in to any signal issues I could change the TV aerial to an Antiference XG10 A group.  As it happens the signal was good, a little weak but all six digital mux’s equal and a good strength to amp a little just to ensure the signal arrives at the distribution amp at a good strength before being distributed.  As there was no ideal side of the chimney stack to site the new TV aerial I decided to place the aerial where it could be least seen and keeping bird poo over the roof.

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TV Aerial

New TV Aerial Chelmsford

Posted by in Blog | August 16, 2013

New TV Aerial Chelmsford

Thursday before the V weekend, and I wanted to get all my Chelmsford work done before Friday as getting around Chelmsford was going to be difficult.  I received a call in the morning from a customer wanting a new TV aerial Chelmsford so I made sure I could get there the same day, when I arrived the weather was cooler and I appreciated the breeze, but still very muggy and humid.  I looked at my customer’s roof and chimney stack, and was delighted with the position of their chimney stack, as their front room was below, a nice straight cable run down the roof to the sitting room.  We agreed a price and I went up and lashed their chimney stack using a large heavy duty 5 brick course chimney cradle and fitted a log-periodic w/b aerial onto an 8ft 1” ½ alloy mast read to take up with my meter.  When I fitted the aerial and mast into the chimney cradle, I connected my spectrum analyser and rotated the aerial 360degrees looking at all available signals, Anglia was very weak and London was weak too but the best choice of the two.

Aerial installer Essex

Posted by in Blog | August 15, 2013

Aerial installer Essex

Wednesday and it’s a fairly long drive to my 1st call of the day, a

n aerial install Essex.  When I arrived I looked at the low chimney stack and wondered if I would get a signal as the bungalow was surrounded by trees.  I rang my customer’s door bell and chatted to them, my customers were aware they were in a poor signal area and understood the problem with the trees.  I asked if I could make up a test aerial and go on their roof for some signal readings which would enable me to know what signal strengths were and which aerial and mast to choose for the best signal for my customers, this also enabled me to give an accurate price on the new aerial installation

 

Aerial installer Essex

After taking signal readings I quoted my customer for an Antiference XG10 ultra high gain w/b aerial on a 12ft 2” mast with a good masthead pre-amp.  My customer accepted my price so I went to the van to assemble the XG10; the XG10 in my opinion is an outstanding aerial extremely well-constructed and a fantastic performer.  I need to achieve some height to give the XG10 a chance of getting a good signal so I mounted it on a 12ft 2” alloy mast, tall but not silly tall and with a 2” diameter extremely strong.  I lashed the chimney stack using a 13” heavy duty chimney cradle knowing it would comfortably support the aerial and 12ft mast.  I climbed back up the roof with the aerial and dropped it into the chimney cradle and attached my spectrum analyser to electronically align the aerial having chosen the best corner of the chimney stack for line of sight of the aerial.  I was pleasantly surprized with the incoming signal, just one digital mux being awkward, I balanced the other 5 digital mux’s for the best results of the 6th awkward one, once I was happy with the signal I locked down the aerial and went back to my van to choose a suitable masthead pre-amp with the signal readings from the aerial.  I chose a low noise masthead with not too much of a kick and went back up to aerial to connect it to the aerial and have a look at the signal again with my spectrum analyser.  Perfect I was completely happy with the signal so I disconnected my meter and connected the new cable, which was to be run to the TV point.

Aerial installer Essex

I secured the masthead with double cable ties and as always taped the masthead to the mast ensuring it can’t come loose, turn upside down and let in water.  I neatly run the new cable down the roof and tacked towards my customer’s sitting room, once I was outside where their TV was situated I went inside and drilled a 10mm hole for the aerial coax cable to enter, if ensured I had a good rain loop in my cable and sealed the hole into the house using brown silicon sealer.  Once inside I fitted the 12v 100m/a remote power supply and made a new fly lead from the power unit to the TV.  I re-tuned my customers TV and checked my signal again just to be 100% everything was perfect for them, which it was.  I made my bill and my customers were oven the moon with my work and delighted with their perfect pictures.

Aerial Installer Essex Www.andysaerials.com

Aerial Installer Chelmsford

Posted by in Blog | August 13, 2013

Aerial Installer Chelmsford

Aerial Installer Chelmsford Www.andysaerials.com

Today I am an aerial installer Chelmsford, I had previously been to the property and gave a quote to install a new aerial and run a couple of new TV points, my customers were happy with my quote and we arranged a convenient day for me to do the work, as with most of the summer it was hot and sticky, not looking forward to the winter but getting fed-up with the heat and humidity.  My customer’s roof was an incredible steep angle and so long my roof climbing ladder would not reach from the top of the roof to the guttering, after a lot of difficulty I managed to hook the roof climber on the top ride and used another route to the ridge with my other ladders, knowing my roof climber was in place by the chimney stack when I lashed it.

Aerial Installer Chelmsford

Aerial Installer Ingatestone Essex

Posted by in Blog | August 12, 2013

Aerial Installer Ingatestone Essex

Aerial Installer Ingatestone Essex Www.andysaerials.com

Quality Workmanship At Sensible Prices

Another glorious sunny day and our next call we are off to be an aerial installer Ingatestone Essex, my home village.  When we arrived I looked at my customer’s roof and spotted a chimney stack on the top and another one much lower down the roof, with an extremely old Yagi aerial on falling to bits, and looking like it had been there over 40yrs.  Once I had my ladders in place I climbed up my customer’s roof to inspect the higher chimney stack as being higher it would get a better signal, but unfortunately the dormer extension had been built right up to it and no way could it be lashed.  I made my way back down the roof to the lower chimney stack and cut down the old Yagi aerial and took it down with me.  I out a log-periodic w/b aerial on an 8ft mast and didn’t tape it down, I just wanted to check my signals before lashing the lower chimney stack as I might be struggling for signal.

Aerial Installer Ingatestone Essex

FreeSat dish installation

Posted by in Blog | August 8, 2013

Free Sat dish installation

 

Yet another fantastic summer’s day, temp just lovely and a nice breeze just to make the day perfect, while working in Billericay Essex, I received a call from a customer enquiring whether we could get to them today for a Free sat dish installation Billericay Essex, I explained we were working just around the corner and gave our caller an estimate and they wanted us to go ahead with the quoted and install them a free sat dish for their new Humax PVR.  When we arrived we chatted to our customer and agreed a location to site the free sat dish and an entry point for the twin satellite cable to enter their home and get to their Humax PVR.  Our biggest problem was getting our triple ladders around the back of the building, luckily our customer’s lounge was facing south, we went to our van and I collected my ladders and carried them through a part of the building so I could access the rear of the building where the free sat dish was to be fixed.

Freesat Dish Installation Www.andysaerials.com

Satellite Dish Installation

Posted by in Blog | August 7, 2013

Satellite Dish Installation

Still summer and were now enjoying sunny days but much cooler, perfect weather for a satellite dish installation.  My customer’s had enormous difficulties in getting Sky; other companies had told them a satellite signal was not possible including Sky’s own engineers.  The last Sky engineer gave my new customer’s my telephone number and recommended me as he knew I had succeeded in the past installing a satellite dish and getting a good signal where he thought was not possible.  The house was a listed building and due to restrictions with the grade listed building a dish could not be fitted to the house, the garden was full of trees and the garden rose high making a satellite signal extremely difficult.