Has anyone had any experience of these Aerials?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outdoor-Receiver-Freeview-Technology-Waterproof-White/dp/B01HD653WS/
I'm a bit concerned a normal aerial would stand out quite a lot. I haven't seen any on houses near me so I'm assuming they are heavily dependent on area.
The flat design suggests that it's a grid aerial. The size of the fancy plastic cover they've put it inside means it's smaller than a standard grid. In basic terms smaller aerials gather less signal.
Here's a grid aerial on my next door neighbour's rather tired property. You can see the pigeon there for scale.
Here's a close shot of the same aerial (minus the pigeon) and I've added a marketing image of a grid so you can better see the layout. The designs are slightly different but the basic principle of operation is the same.
Grids were never that common a sight. However, in the days of analogue TV, grids were useful in cutting down the incidence of ghosting from the aerial receiving reflections of the same transmitter signal bounced off buildings which resulted in time delays causing ghosting. We don't need that so much now. Digital TV is far less prone to this.
The Achilles Heel with grids is that with so few receiving elements (the four metal crosses are the dipoles that do the reception work) these aerials are very low gain and not particularly directional either. This means they're not great compared to a standard aerial such as a Yagi or one of the newer Logs. They're going to struggle a bit in weak signal areas.
In my neighbours case, he stopped using the grid aerial more than 10 years ago. Although we are about 30 miles from the 100,000W Winter Hill transmitter, the local reception conditions here are very good., yet he can't get a reliable service off it.
By contrast, I have a simple low gain Log on a 6ft pole attached to the chimney up on the roof of a normal semi. There's no amplification. The aerial height is roughly 10m from the ground. I get 10/10 signal for all the main mux transmissions (100kW and 23kW), and I even pick up the 2000W and 1000W transmissions for what should be the local-only services for Manchester TV and Liverpool TV.
From where I am, my aerial points due north for Winter Hill. The main Yorkshire TV transmitter is at Emley Moor. It's off axis by about 45 degrees. It's also further away (45 miles) and out of direct line of sight because it's sitting on the other side of The Pennines. Despite all that, I can pick up some of the Yorkshire TV's ITV services well enough that I can watch Calendar News in perfect quality.
The point of all this is to say that if this 1byone aerial works for you, it's probably because the local signal conditions are favourable rather than the aerial performing any kind of magic. Grids are low gain. Small grids are even lower gain. The coax off these type of aerials is often the same kind of thin, lossy and poorly-shielded stuff that comes in those TV extension kits you'll buy Argos and the DIY sheds. By all means try it and see how you get on. If it doesn't do the job then Amazon are pretty good about returns.
If there is such a thing as a universal aerial then a Log Periodic is it. Unlike most other aerials, Logs have a fairly flat and even gain profile. This means they'll give very similar results no matter if the signals from your local transmitter are bunched up at the low end of the spectrum, or the higher end, or scattered throughout. Other types of aerials tend to favour a portion of the signal band. These are called Group aerials. They give stronger signal reception in the portion of the frequency band to which they're tuned.
If you have a suitable loft space, then there's very little stopping you installing a shorter length indoor Group Yagi or Crossbeam in there. The Group nature will help offset some of the signal loss for the signal passing through the roof. You'll get far more signal with this than the 1byone aerial. Use good quality coax (Webro WF100) to preserve that signal down to the TV.
Have a look at the site
Planning Your Install - A.T.V. Poles, Brackets, Clamps & Aerials (aerialsandtv.com) These are good guys who are very knowledgeable and sell decent gear rather than the usual tat peddled by online resellers and bricks & mortar shops who haven't a clue what they're doing.
If ant of this info was useful, please click the Thanks button to show your appreciation. Can't find thanks? Hover mouse over Quote; see it now?
