1 tv aerial into 3 places that want it

[directhex]

for my HTPC, i have an issue with aerials. as it is, the living room has a single aerial lead, which goes into the back of the tv. the htpc has two aerial inputs, and two outputs, so i can chain two cards together. with cables such as http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ldID=&doy=11m4. in theory, it could go

aerial -> card1 -> short passthrough cable -> card2 -> longer passthrough cable -> tv

however, two problems. first of all, i can't find any cables of a reasonable length for the 1 inch space between connectors

and i have no idea how badly it'd degrade image quality

any ideas?

[mike_w]

I think you can get boosters if you're worried about the signal quality - but I'd wait for somebody who knows what they're talking about to comment

[ikonia]

directhex, I'm in the middle of this debate as we speak

[directhex]

directhex, I'm in the middle of this debate as we speak

well boil it down to an outcome & get back to me

[Theo]

The missus and I both have TV cards in our pcs to save the space of having a tv on our desks. I think the missus bought a booster/splitter thing from dixons for about £20. It's an alright bit of kit - signal is lovely, and it splits the signal 5 ways if you need that many.

[Knoxville]

Splitting the signal like that shouldn't cause a problem at all, aerial signals only sart to degrade if they aren't boosted over olg distances of cable.

For example in our house we have 6 T.V's all around the house running off one aerial connection and the signal is only boosted once and then the difference was only slightly noticable. Does the Aerial connection go into a vcr before it goes to the t.v? If so then thats even better as most vcr's have built in signal boosters.

As for the lead other than custom making one they don't come any shorter than about 2 1/2 feet long (got several knocking around if you need) bit of a kick in the teeth if you don't need the extra cable tho tbh

[Howard]

If it's Freeview and the signal is strong enough then splitting will be fine.

[englishpremier]

In my student house there is a roof top arial that runs into the lounge. I added a 3-way splitter and put a 10m cable from it to my TV on the 1st floor. The signal was ok but not as good as a single TV being plugged in. furthermore when i added another 10m lead to the splitter to go into the room next to mine the signal was absolutly awfull. Is there any particular reason for this?

Right now i'm using an indoor ariel and the reception is utter rubbish. Back home in birmingham i can use anything, even a coat hanger and get a perfect picture, yet in the centre of Norwich an indoor arial is useless and even with an outdoor one i still can't get channel5.

[Knoxville]

Cable lengths like that without boosting isn't gonna give you the best quality, especially as its being split six ways.

[unrealrocks]

Well each device tends to use under 6db, the fact that comming through your ariel even in bad signal areas is over 45db - I wouldn't worry too much

[Legin76]

If you do need a booster / splitter this does the job nicely.

http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/d...r/display.html

[englishpremier]

are boosters all pretty much standard are some much better than others. Basiacally what should you be looking out for in selecting one?