Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 22, 2011 3:52 pm Hi people, I have been advised by my vendor that a digital antenna has been installed under the roof of my new home which has yet to reach settlement date. Does anyone have a digital antenna installed under their roof? Is this common? Do they work well? Re: Digital antenna under roof installed 3Nov 22, 2011 5:45 pm sleven Yes we do - DH installed it himself - as long as it's a tiled roof and not Colorbond. Will work fine. I googled and did a quick research on the topic before creating this thread and found that its not recommended as digital antennas lose reception under a roof. My roof is tiled so thats a plus. How is your reception? Re: Digital antenna under roof installed 4Nov 23, 2011 9:56 am Hi tuff, Signal strength is significantly more dependent on the distance from the transmitter to your home, along with what if anything exisits in the line of sight path between your house and the transmitter, hills , other transmitters or EMF/RF sources, big metal objects etc than the tiny amount of signal loss due to it passing through a layer of concrete tiles. If your in a low signal area, and already needing to use a high gain antenna then the slight loss may have a measurable effect on signal strength. Whether that translates to a loss of picture quality is debatable as the encoding for digital allows for more loss than a traditional ananlogue signal before you get picture loss, that said however when the signal does drop below the minimum acceptable level it tends to disappear completely rather than just looking a little poor. But we're getting a little far a field, not knowing where you are makes it difficult to say anything with certainty, one option is to look at what other people have installed around you already, if the antennas are regular in size then chances are its not worth worrying about, the slight loss of having it inside under the tiles won't be significant. However if the surrounding antennas tend to be really big high gain eg spans over 3m etc then you may be in an area of low signal to begin with. Choice of antenna and getting it orientated correctly will make a much bigger difference, just remember if your putting it inside the roof you need to contend with roof trusses, so that will dictate the maximum span/size of the antenna itself. Additionally if you go for a 'digital' only x-type antenna or a phase antenna these don't have the longer arms required for tuning in the analogue band and so tend to be easier to fit in the roof. As an example in our situation we have our digital only antenna inside our roof, it points directly at the side of our neighbours double storey house as they are in the direct LOS path to the transmitter and on the other side of them is another house with a colorbond roof that is also within the LOS though only just, we're then around 40km's from the transmitter and our signal strength detected by our TV at the other end of the house, after the signal is divided by a 3 way splitter is still detected by the TV as around 75-80% as such we have no issues with reception what so ever. Our Build - Places Fairhaven 23+ - https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28045 Our Landscaping - Belial's Backyard - https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=45375 Re: Digital antenna under roof installed 5Nov 23, 2011 12:35 pm Belial Hi tuff, Signal strength is significantly more dependent on the distance from the transmitter to your home, along with what if anything exisits in the line of sight path between your house and the transmitter, hills , other transmitters or EMF/RF sources, big metal objects etc than the tiny amount of signal loss due to it passing through a layer of concrete tiles. If your in a low signal area, and already needing to use a high gain antenna then the slight loss may have a measurable effect on signal strength. Whether that translates to a loss of picture quality is debatable as the encoding for digital allows for more loss than a traditional ananlogue signal before you get picture loss, that said however when the signal does drop below the minimum acceptable level it tends to disappear completely rather than just looking a little poor. But we're getting a little far a field, not knowing where you are makes it difficult to say anything with certainty, one option is to look at what other people have installed around you already, if the antennas are regular in size then chances are its not worth worrying about, the slight loss of having it inside under the tiles won't be significant. However if the surrounding antennas tend to be really big high gain eg spans over 3m etc then you may be in an area of low signal to begin with. Choice of antenna and getting it orientated correctly will make a much bigger difference, just remember if your putting it inside the roof you need to contend with roof trusses, so that will dictate the maximum span/size of the antenna itself. Additionally if you go for a 'digital' only x-type antenna or a phase antenna these don't have the longer arms required for tuning in the analogue band and so tend to be easier to fit in the roof. As an example in our situation we have our digital only antenna inside our roof, it points directly at the side of our neighbours double storey house as they are in the direct LOS path to the transmitter and on the other side of them is another house with a colorbond roof that is also within the LOS though only just, we're then around 40km's from the transmitter and our signal strength detected by our TV at the other end of the house, after the signal is divided by a 3 way splitter is still detected by the TV as around 75-80% as such we have no issues with reception what so ever. This is great info thanks Belial. I'll have a look at the surrounding antennas for clues on the signal strength. My quick assumption was that digital antennas under a roof is not recommended and that's what the builder has installed so it others like yourself and sleven find that its fine in that case then I'm happy with that. Re: Digital antenna under roof installed 7Nov 23, 2011 3:28 pm phippsy Mine is installed in the ceiling space, cable tied up to the beams. Works perfectly. What size are these ones? Are they the size of your conventional TV antenna or are they a smaller fit because I don't see how it would fit under the roof. Re: Digital antenna under roof installed 8Nov 23, 2011 4:08 pm It is a normal outside one, but I have over 6 feet of space in the ceiling so it is no issue. I figured it would take 1/2 hour to put it up there and see if it worked, then if it didn't I would have made a bracket for it outside, but it works perfectly so I left it there. I can get a picture later when I get home if you want. DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair Brilliant - thanks so much for that. I didn't want to start pulling too hard on it if there was some other way it was attached, but yep, it was just the paint sticking it… 2 3159 The unit normally clips into a metal plate screwed to the wall, either plate is not flush, or unit not hooked in and could be hanging from the pipes partly, either might… 2 15767 Thanks for the insights, that makes perfect sense, and yeah, I will be leaning on the experience of the excavator operator entirely. 6 16048 |