Quick (maybe silly) Question about TV arial

[htid]

As I said in the title, this may be a silly question. There's a small box in our living room about 7cm x 7cm and says London Cable on it. It has 2 metal things coming out which look like the connections I use to attach the freesat box to the dish, but they aren't used. Inside the box (if I take this metal connection thing off) there is a thick cable ending in a narrow copper wire. I just want to know if this is safe to leave free (I want to remove this white box as it's in the way, however I can't remove this copper wire so it would be unprotected in mid air). I don't know if it's safe to touch or not. Also, can someone explain to me why when I touch it with a piece of metal, the picture on the TV goes, even though I'm only using the freeview box atm which is attached to the roof arial, nothing to do with the dish :S

Cheers

[j1979]

London Cable, is now owned by Virgin media! the cable you speak of should... be a copper wire connecting to virgins Analogue service. If the Analogue TV service has not already been disconnected in your area it will soon. The voltage running down these cables are tiny.. but from your description i cant tell for sure if it is a Virgin media legacy cable. As there are so many different standards used across the country. But from what you say it should be fine.. but to be sure test it with a Multimeter

hope this helps

[htid]

Well after reading what you said, I tested it and it was OK, thanks

[peterb]

Given that the ditribution is at RF voltages, a multimeter is unlikely to be of much use - however the power of these distribution systems is low, so there will be no danger.

However, I am at a loss to explain why touching the centre conductor should affect the TV picure on an ostensibly unrelated system. A tentative guess would be that there is some strange RF earth loop, but without a lot of work investigating it, it is difficult to be certain.

[Rave]

Do you live in a block of flats or your own house? If you live in a block, read on, otherwise ignore.

In my old block of flats there was no roof aerial AFAIK, only a cable connection (NTL, as it was at the time). This provided cable to anyone who subscribed (which I did as soon as I moved in, as I wanted broadband) but also an analogue TV signal for channels 1-5. It may be that the cable in the box and your 'roof aerial' come from the same source, hence why shorting it cocks up the signal. It may be mucking up the signal for everyone else in the block as well, so be careful.

As others have said the voltage should be negligible, but my old cable connection was capable of giving you a bit of a nip in the finger- I'm pretty sure nothing of mine had a dodgy earth, so I reckon the cable might have been running 30-50 volts or something, maybe someone else in the block had dodgy equipment hooked up.

[j1979]

Do you live in a block of flats or your own house? If you live in a block, read on, otherwise ignore

In my old block of flats there was no roof aerial AFAIK, only a cable connection (NTL, as it was at the time). This provided cable to anyone who subscribed (which I did as soon as I moved in, as I wanted broadband) but also an analogue TV signal for channels 1-5. It may be that the cable in the box and your 'roof aerial' come from the same source, hence why shorting it cocks up the signal. It may be mucking up the signal for everyone else in the block as well, so be careful.

As others have said the voltage should be negligible, but my old cable connection was capable of giving you a bit of a nip in the finger- I'm pretty sure nothing of mine had a dodgy earth, so I reckon the cable might have been running 30-50 volts or something, maybe someone else in the block had dodgy equipment hooked up.

I think the subscription, is still Analogue, just pay analogue, NLT ( base pack ). They are stopping all these broadcasts. not the same as virgin digital TV.. if you call the Virgin call centre you can get a free install for digital TV (being a Analogue migration customer) , but you will need to subscribe to the lowest package which is now M+ at £5.50 and you will need a virgin land line at £11. they have now stopped the free tv service for new customers

But like Rave says i would check this if you live in a block.

Virgin digital TV is IP based and runs on Fibre optic, this is only to the Tee outside your house, and copper is used to connect to the properties. So this is not much help in discovering. To be 100% call virgin they will be able to tell you if Digital has ever been installed at your address. 0845 4541111