Hillsborough
Sheffield
S6 2LL
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Aerial Reports (Also see Testimonials)
With our old loop aerial with amplifier the analogue BBC 1 & 2 are poor, ITV and Ch.4 are watchable, just, and 5 is there in sound but with little picture. On Digital we get BBC 1& 2 OK but no signal on 3, 4 or any ITV. This does not enthuse my telly addict crew to boating and if she who must be obeyed is not happy…..
Just back from fitting the new aerial and pleased to say the improvement is amazing, particularly as I only have it on the short section of the caravan pole at the moment. The previous aerial was fitted on the roof on a short copper pipe about a foot long which the caravan pole sleeves over nicely without swinging around. I reckon it would take the short section plus one or even two of the longer ones without needing a stay. On digital it has picked up nearly all channels with a good, steady picture and those that are missing are not important e.g. channel 8 which in Scotland is a Gaelic language channel. On analogue BBC1 & 2 and ITV are good, however Channels 4 and 5 have no signal and probably need the aerial raised a bit more. Some of my neighbours are now jealous. Many thanks for your prompt attention and advice. All I need to do now is get the Lat and Long of the various transmitters and enter them into the GPS as waypoints to help align the aerial when in “foreign parts” and we should be good.
On our first long trip on our narrowboat the DM Log aerial proved very successful.
What an improvement on our old 'Flying Saucer' ! With the addition of a signal strength
indicator when other aerials were not in sight we had Freeview all the way from
Anderton to the Ashby and then back via the Staffs & Worcs and Shroppie. Mostly
with one extension pole, once with two. Many thanks for your help when deciding what
to go for.
C Leach Bluebell Hill Transmitter
Just a note to say thank you for an A1 service,including advice and your website. I installed all the kit I bought from you and I now have a perfect picture and a sound / good quality setup. many Thanks. Highly recommended.
Log Periodic Aerial Reports
I`m very interested to hear how well our aerials work, particularly when compared to another antenna (e.g. your old one) and I feel this is also of interest to others, so here are reports [mainly from our customers] filed by model of aerial.
If you`ve purchased an aerial from us and would like to add one please contact us.
I Harris Bilsdale Transmitter
Your reply was waiting for me when I got home from work on the evening of Monday 5th. I placed the order online the same evening. Aerial was dispatched on the 6th. Aerial arrived at home on the 7th. I arrived home from work at 6pm, had tea and fitted aerial in loft as planned. I used a good old fashioned compass to get the alignment right, wired it up and turned the TV on. Instantly had a great picture, but things improved further when I managed to tune the TV Freeview into digital ! Even better as we only get a weak digital signal at present (Not due to 'go digital' until 2012). Sat down with well earned glass of wine and watched Lara Croft on BBC3. Thanks for you help. Your website is extremely informative and your advice spot on. I have no hesitation in recommending your service to anyone and everyone.
K Crawford Bilsdale Transmitter
Whilst looking for information regarding aerial installers in my area I stumbled across your website. I found it to be one of the most informative websites I have ever visited. The website persuaded me that I could actually do the installation myself. The quality of all of the products I ordered was exceptional and very good value also. I have now installed the Log 40 aerial with the 4 way masthead amplifier and the picture on all 4 TVs is as good as I have ever seen. The speed of delivery was great also, despite the Easter holidays. Thanks for an excellent service, I can't recommend you highly enough.
Mr Richardson Bilsdale Transmitter
I replaced a small B&Q wideband aerial with the Log40. My old aerial gave unacceptable digital break up but the new one works much better and the signal is fine now
Been telling you porkies, my other aerial is actually a Televes V not a Televes DAT. Here’s the info anyway, so here goes. V aerial is fed into 2 TVs via a 2 way Masthead, the Log 40 into 4 TV’s via a 4 way Masthead. Bit Error details come from a Sony Bravia LCD TV on each aerial respectively, averaged across the range of Freeview channels, but all are very similar anyway. Signal level on both is high 10/10, solid green. Visually, with digital there appears to be no difference when things are good, the difference seems to be Sunday evenings around 8PM the V aerial will cause the TV to glitch occasionally or if weather conditions deteriorate where the Log 40 is OK. Analogue on the Bravia TV’s isn’t great so it hard to be really critical. Watching the kids CRT tellies though reveals no ghosting on analogue via the Log 40 aerial there is a slight trace of it on the V aerial.
In a nutshell the log 40 on my installation seems more tolerant of reduced signal or worsening weather conditions.
C Noble FM Half Wave Dipole
I had an FM omni before but its performance wasn`t as good as I wanted. I swapped it for a half wave dipole and it definitely works better. It has got rid of most of the FM “hiss” which the old aerial suffered from.
I Dawson Durris Transmitter
Thank you for the Log 40 aerial. I am receiving from
the Durris transmitter (grp K at the moment but will revert to grp A in Sept 2010).
It`s only about 20 miles away but through loads of trees. The original aerial was
an Italian FR 8 element aerial (470-
P Hoare FM Half Wave Dipole and DAB Dipole
The site is a fairly poor reception area for both FM and DAB. We originally had one of those
round FM Omni aerials which we fed into our amplifier then split back into TV and FM/DAB
with a diplexer. This set up gave mediocre reception on FM but when we tried a DAB tuner we didn`t get anything at all. It subsequently transpired that the diplexer would not pass the DAB frequencies and changing it for a DAB compatible type resulted in a signal, but the quality left much to be desired. We then swapped the Omni aerial for a vertically polarised FM half wave dipole and the signal quality on both FM and DAB was significantly better.
Unfortunately the DAB still gave problems at certain times of the day so about a year later we added a DAB dipole diplexed with the FM dipole. Finally we got decent FM and DAB !
D Smedley Bilsdale Transmitter
We moved to this house in 1981 and brought our
(almost new) aerial with us but it was too large to fit in the loft (development
site regs, all indoors), but as it was of the two-
G White Durris Transmitter
I just fitted a Log 40 you supplied. Build quality seems good. Picture quality on analogue and digital good. Now pick up more digital channels with a clearer picture and get C5 on analogue which I didn't before. Old aerial was a contract cheapy although the analogue channels were fine. Thanks for advise and the informative website
Analogue C5 off Durris is on CH67, which indicates that the previous aerial was an A group because it didn`t pick it up. It also explains why the original aerial failed to receive all the digital MUXES, see Digital Nationwide : Durris. This report backs up our tests that a Log40 works about as well as a decent Contract 10A, or better than a poor Contract 10A !
J Nadin Belmont Transmitter
Our transmitter is Belmont, 26 miles as crow fly's, dead inline with Humberside Airport ?
The aerial was a Log 40, recommended by yourselves on the phone, was a 100% success,
eleven years of four and half channels ! ! Log 40 was the right one, great reception
and less wind problems as we are prone to high winds. Comparison with old aerial
? No comparison. Aerial quality, I would say it is neigh on bomb proof. I would like
to congratulate you on your customer relations and lightening delivery service, (ordered
12-
S Hart Crystal Palace Transmitter
The aerial is pointed at Crystal Palace. Performance is fine. The signal strength
is around
65% and 70%. My previous aerial was in the loft and connected to a high
gain mast head amp. The new aerial means that I have had to drop the amp down to
mid-
amplified -
Your web site is a BIG help and I feel that
it really helped me to get the job done right. The only extra information that
would have been useful on the web site is a few tips on getting the job done safely.
I considered doing the job from a ladder (my chimney stack is on the end of the roof)
but bottled out once I'd got up there ! I used a tower in the end but I still had
to do a bit of pondering to sort out how best to keep the steel brackets in place
while I positioned the lashing wire. Got it all sorted in the end but a few tricks
of the trade would have probably helped. All in all though very good product and
very helpful web site.
All the best. Cheers.
The best way to put up the lash kit is to loosely (but not too loosely ! ) assemble the wire round the stack with the bracket on the corner of the chimney then push the 3 corner pieces into place, before fully tightening the lash wire. One of our customers had the idea of using silicone (or similar) to hold the corner pieces in place whilst assembling the lash.
The old aerial installed on the chimney of our house when we moved here 20 years
ago worked perfectly with the Humax set top box we bought when Freeview first started
transmitting, even though it was badly bent and had one of the directors missing.
However, towards the end of last year the picture began to degrade to the extent
that all channels were virtually unwatchable. Time to check the aerial.ow it managed
to work OK for so long was a mystery. The plastic cover over the cable connections
was virtually non-
It is hard to believe that lowering the aerial by 30 cm and moving it 60 cm further south can make such an astounding difference.
Aerial positioning, it really can make a big difference.
A Jackson Sandy Transmitter
We had a Contract aerial in the loft and we`ve also got trees in the way. We suffered from
annoying picture breakup which my kids gave me grief about when it affected CBeebies.
So I got a local installer to come round and he quoted me a large amount to fit a Tri Boom type
aerial mounted on a 12ft pole on the chimney "to clear the trees". The thing is even with a 12ft
pole it still wouldn`t have cleared the trees !
After reading your website I decided to have a go myself and ended up fitting a Log40 on a 9ft
cranked pole on the side of the house. In this position it just managed to avoid having to face
through the trees. I also added a masthead amp.
Due to time shortage I initially just fitted the aerial without the MH amp and it worked pretty well,
much better than the Contract aerial in the loft, but it still suffered intermittent blocking,
particularly on BBC1. Once I`d fitted the masthead amp it was fine though. Analogue is good but
not perfect. All in all very satisfied, particularly at sorting it out without handing over large amounts
of cash to an aerial installer, and having a 12ft pole on my chimney !
Incidentally my Freeview box has its own volume control and I found the sound quality was better
if I turned it up on the set top box and down on the actual TV ! ? !
A Turner FM Half Wave Dipole v FM Omni
I had an FM Omni on the same pole as the TV aerial mounted on the chimney but I was keen to
see if I could improve the signal to my Denon 1800 DAB/FM tuner and Fatboy valve amplifier.
All cabling is satellite quality, and the site is SW Nottingham.
I installed the Half Wave dipole on the side of the house and then compared the signal to the
Omni, which was higher up on the roof and also had an all round view.
On FM I chose six channels and gave them marks out of ten, 0 for nothing to 10 for perfect.
The Omni averaged 5.6 out of 10 and the FM Half wave 7.7, which is a significant improvement.
On DAB I compared the Bit Error Rates given on the tuner. Of the six channels I tested the Omni
gave no signal on two of the programmes and BER between 250 and 4000 on the others.
The Half Wave gave perfect BER readings (i.e 00000) on four out of the six. On the two that the
Omni failed to receive any signal from at all the Half Wave failed to receive one and picked up the
other but with a BER of 7200.
My conclusions are that as ATV say, a Half Wave beats an Omni any day, and if the Half Wave
was fitted to the main mast I think the performance difference would have been even greater.
H Dell FM Half Wave Dipole
I had an old 3 element FM aerial in the loft, which I have to admit was a bit rusty from when it`d been outside, but the signal wasn`t that good with large amounts of background hiss.
I also found that if I took the aerial off the end of the cable I still got a signal of sorts but still with loads of hiss.
I installed an FM Half Wave dipole and the signal improved with significantly less hiss.
I also thought it was well made and easy to install.
K Stagg Mendip and Wenvoe + KIlvey Hill Transmitters (using a CH36 diplexer)
As an analogue legacy all the visible roof top aerials in my neighbourhood (West Swansea) are pointed at Wenvoe which is 53 km east – southeast. This normally requires a medium to high gain aerial to receive good analogue reception. By adding a masthead amplifier one can also receive, most of the time, reasonably good analogue reception from the Mendip transmitter, 105 km away, whose bearing is only about 10 degrees different from Wenvoe. This is a great advantage to a Yorkshire exile as one can then receive the English BBC transmissions and C4 rather than the sometimes different Welsh alternatives. I almost have line of site to both these transmitters except for two or three roofs about 100 metres away from me.
The Kilvey Hill transmitter, 7km east-
If you`ve found this site informative and, hopefully, interesting as well,
please help us increase the number of people reading it.
A Hood FM Half Wave Dipole
I originally had an FM Omni aerial mounted on the roof along with my TV aerial, but I wanted them
in the loft, so purchased an FM Half Wave Dipole (and an XB10B TV aerial) to fit indoors.
The half wave dipole inside the loft works better than the FM Omni outside ! Interestingly I can
remember that when I installing the Omni a few years ago it seemed a bit directional and actually
needed aligning to get the best signal off Llangollen FM transmitter, therefore it could be that
some of the other signals weren`t being received optimally. The half wave (vertically mounted)
seems to be truly omnidirectional. The FM half wave`s DAB performance is not needed here because the setback aerial supplied with the radio gives 100% reception here !
May I thank you again for all the advice on your website which enabled me to get a good result.
Incidentally, my experiences confirm that RF reception is indeed a dark art !
S Howell FM 3 Element & 3 element DAB
As requested, some feedback. I fitted the 3 element fm and dab aerials I ordered
from you in our loft and using the supplied triplexer cabled them to our new hifi
unit (a high-
Thanks for the kit. It all works fine, bodger that I am (we`re sure you`re not ! ). If we had a telly we'd order an aerial from you for it too.
M Smith Touring Caravan
We had always tried getting a picture off an amplified set top aerial in the caravan, and the results were really rather mixed. I took the plunge and invested in your DM Log, a caravan pole and a couple of the double clamps to attach it to the jockey wheel.
I`m very pleased with the results, it works great, recommended.
J Taylor FM Half Wave Dipole
Found your site very informative.
Chose half wave dipole for optimum FM/DAB reception, works a treat.
Brevity is indeed a skill, and has a beauty all of it`s own.......