antenne in wrong side of the room

[V_J]

Simple situation: I am using a indoor DVB-T antenna. Now I've learned that the building has a roof antenna and I now have a connection to it (very long story, involving lying building administrators, previous owners that removed cables and wallboxes, resulting in us having to break open walls after full renovation). Unfortunately, it is in the wrong side of the room: not where my tuners are, and doors on either sides.

Ideal solution would be to pull a cable from there to where the tuners are. But I'm just a few years after renovations and am looking future renovations when the radiators will be changed. So is there anyway around it that does not involve breaking open walls? (transmitters over powerline, flat cables that might be used, ...)

(indoor antenna works, but does not always have ideal signal)


Thanks!

[johnsonx42]

There's no other way to connect an antenna to a tuner other than a cable, but you put a network tuner by the antenna and then talk to the tuner with no extra wires.

An HD-Homerun tuner and a high-speed wifi or powerline bridge ought to do it. Just be aware that your network connection has to be really fast. I'd be looking at AC1200 wifi or one of the newer 500mbps powerline adapters... I'm assuming you have the same sorts of powerline networking options there as we do here.

https://www.silicondust.com/products/hdh...onnect-eu/

[V_J]

I thought of those flat/ribbon cables to perhaps put a less visible cable along the wall and on the floor.

But to be honest, I did not consider a network tuner, so it is good suggestion. As my luck goes, I have no network connection there (if I would have known there would be a roof antenna connection there, things would be quite different - I have cat6 ethernet everywhere). We have such powerlan solutions here, which would be an alternative; wifi not really as the walls nearly kill any signal (the indoor antenna is on a closed balcony, which does not have such walls). If I read correctly, the device you posted has 2 tuners. I'm guessing it cannot use one tuner to record from two channels on the same carrier frequency at once, so it would be a slight loss in functionality (of course, I could also keep the indoor antenna in addition).
The location of the roof antenna connection in the room does however make it difficult to put something there: it is a blank wall without furniture and without really the possibility to put some small furniture... It also may cost more than I want to spend, as a next general renovation may come sooner than I anticipate: currently there is talk of electricity (main cable to the apartment may have to be changed if they move the meters), radiators (this would really mess up things, so that would be the time to put a normal cable in the wall), intercom (more breaking of walls) and facade...
But nice idea...

[johnsonx42]

I thought of those flat/ribbon cables to perhaps put a less visible cable along the wall and on the floor.

those sorts of cables tend to be very lossy, depends on how long the run is and how strong your signal is. all anyone can say is give it a try...

If I read correctly, the device you posted has 2 tuners. I'm guessing it cannot use one tuner to record from two channels on the same carrier frequency at once, so it would be a slight loss in functionality

yes, it has 2 tuners, and they'll multi-record just the same as directly-attached tuners.

the location of the roof antenna connection in the room does however make it difficult to put something there: it is a blank wall without furniture and without really the possibility to put some small furniture... It also may cost more than I want to spend, as a next general renovation may come sooner than I anticipate: currently there is talk of electricity (main cable to the apartment may have to be changed if they move the meters), radiators (this would really mess up things, so that would be the time to put a normal cable in the wall), intercom (more breaking of walls) and facade...
But nice idea...

all up to you of course... i do get very fussed over even fairly small expenditures at times, if there may be some way to avoid it. however I have passed up several chances to get an hd-homerun on a decent sale, and have always ended up regretting it. now I have plenty of tuners so I can't justify buying one...

[mvallevand]

The flat CAT6 cable is pretty slick too. [ATTACH=CONFIG]41726[/ATTACH]

Martin

[johnsonx42]

yeah, flat network cable is a better bet than flat antenna cable, at least if we're talking 75-ohm coax. 300-ohm twinlead would be different, and flat by nature, but I don't think that's the sort of cable being considered.

[V_J]

those sorts of cables tend to be very lossy, depends on how long the run is and how strong your signal is. all anyone can say is give it a try...

Signal should be strong, but I'm not sure even if I could nicely hide a flat cable... It would have to be around 7-8 meters...

yes, it has 2 tuners, and they'll multi-record just the same as directly-attached tuners.

Nice to know...

all up to you of course... i do get very fussed over even fairly small expenditures at times, if there may be some way to avoid it. however I have passed up several chances to get an hd-homerun on a decent sale, and have always ended up regretting it. now I have plenty of tuners so I can't justify buying one...

I know what you mean... I actually bought a good indoor DVB-T antenna the day before we learned that there is roof antenna. So a bit a stupid expense if we could connect to the roof antenna. But at the same time, it works ok, so that makes it hard to justify spending too much on it again.

At the moment, the wallbox still needs to be fixed in the wall, so opening some small part of the wall is still an option.
If I could run a normal cable about 80cm along the wall, it will reach a corner where there is a fake wall from where - with the proper tools - it should be possible to guide the cable to my electrical cabinet, where it could branch out to different rooms. An alternative route from the corner would be via the closed balcony to the same place where my indoor antenna is (from there I can also branch to different rooms). The first solution would be most elegant, but most difficult. However, I lack the tools to do this, I've seen electricians use such spring-like devices to "shoot" cables, but would need to find an electrician for something that small, but it would probably even cost less than the hdhomerun+powerlan. Living fairly shortly in a different country, I lack acquaintances how can pull it off.

Considering that other works that involve wall fixing seem imminent (administration is planning some things in 1-2 years, which may involve both the balcony and cabling to the apartment for intercom), I might just decide now to hold off things and do as I do now and do one of the two options when the possibility arises.

But the hdhomerun thing really looks nice... I'm glad I learned more about it, as I was not aware if the functionality of it.

Thanks