Where to get Freeview Aerial installers

[jonathan_phang]

Hello all,

Just managed to get the last piece of my media PC puzzle, which is a Hauppauge WinTV nova 500. Installed it yesterday, and ran through all the configuration, but nothing getting picked up. After half a day of faffing about, I took it to my folks house and used the aerial there (As I know the signal works fine) and it worked buitifully.

So, I think that I need a new aerial and cabling in my house - even analogue reception isnt that good. So a couple of questions about this (And I have searched on this forum, but not got the answers I wanted...).

1) Where can I find offical CAI aerial installers? I searched on the web, but there is such a wealth of sites, and never sure if they are legit... Have those who have done this used yellow pages? Or is there an offical directory of certified engineers?

2) How much do you think I'd have to pay for a highgain aerial, cabling and installation all inclusive? Are we talking 100 or 300 quid here?

3) Another worry is that it may be to do with my houses' location (North hemel HP2). I get very little mobile reception as our cul-de-sac is at the bottom of a bowl. Is there anyway of finding out if i COULD get a good signal before commiting to buying. Theres no point if its just a geographical oddity rather than technical. Or do the engineers do a site visit and test before quoting.

4) Can you get your own aerial and just pay for install? Or does this usually just come as a package... Just want to make sure I get a good high gain aerial like:

Televes 1597 - DAT 75/DAT75 - 75 Element High Gain Wideband Television TV Digital Freeview Aerial

Any help would be great. If its going to cost waay too much then I'll just return the TV card. Which is a shame as it worked great and integrates well in Vista media center.

PS Mods - feel free to move this to the right section, wasnt sure where it should go...

JP

[vc54321]

A good place to look is maybe in a local newspaper there are normally alot of adverts there and you can call them up and ask to see if they are official

[Nick]

A decent aerial set up, including pole and cabling should be around £200, tops.

You may need a signal booster but this has to be carefully tuned by the installer.

If you just lob boosters on your cable you can over-boost the signal, which is as bad as a weak signal recpetion wise and even worse for your equipment as you can be boosting way too much power down the line.

There are filtered boosters which amplify only the selected frequencies but these come in VERY expensive, with the cheaper ones starting at about £100.

What you need is an installer with a signal meter checking it all along the way.

I'd personally go for one that's Sky approved too, so you know you're not getting some bloke with a ladder taking advantage of those not knowing what digi-TV is all about.

Other things you need to do are find out what transmitter you should be hitting, and the multiplex numbers for that. The installer should know but it handy when setting up TV within Media Centre as you'll be presented with a list of options.

And if you can. have the guy stay whilst you test media centre, a bit of tweaking might be needed, better to have him there while you do it and don;t think that PC based media stuff is a bit geeky for them, the guy that came around to reset my aerial wasn't phased in the slightest and reckoned that he gets loads of calls from people wanting a cable stuck in to hook up their lappys or PCs.

[merdat]

For Freeview , one of the best broadband aerials you can get is called VISION- costs about 32 quid and is very good . Got this info from a very good TV engineer recently. I intend to get one for my BT vision box but have not got round to it yet. If you are buying the stuff yourself get 'satelite quality 75 coax and use 'F' connectors (extremely good connectors for sat use )

[adam1701]

I paid £100 for an ariel suitable for freeview... full installed.

[Dareos]

the way thats sounding might mean that you are better off with Sky, can still get digital after your years contract iirc

[jonathan_phang]

I know - the overall cost seems to point towards getting a sky solution, but i dont think that i can just connect it to my media PC, as i want TV integrated to provide time shifting, EPG and recording functionality. I'm going to try and look at the local papers as suggested, and a friend of mine knows someone at the church he goes to (Mucst be trustworth then ) who can do aerial installations.

Need to weigh up the costs to see whether or not to proceed or to just return the RinTV card... which has to be be back by friday....