Help with TV aerial splitter - no signal

brimur69

I know this sounds like a basic task but I am dumbfounded as to why it is not working. I live in an apartment and I have SAT and TV ports in the living room and bedrooms. I wanted to split the Living room TV aerial between the TV and a DVR so I bought this splitter + cables on Amazon... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K1ZL1QG

I have previously attempted to use a splitter (from Powercity) and it failed so I assumed it was a dodgy splitter or cables but this is the 3rd one I have bought that does not work.

The apartment already had cables coming out of the sockets in the living room and bedrooms and when I swap them with any other coax cable that I have bought in the past the signal is lost. I have tried in each of the rooms and the same result.

When I look at the cables that came with the apartment I see U-JIN TFC-T10 printed on them. If I use any of those in the any of the rooms I get a signal but no signal with "normal" aerial cable.

Finally, if I use two of the T10 cables (which both work by themselves) with a splitter (tried 3 diff ones) I get no signal also

Any ideas? Is this a special type of cable that I need to buy?

The Cush

brimur69 wrote: »

I know this sounds like a basic task but I am dumbfounded as to why it is not working. I live in an apartment and I have SAT and TV ports in the living room and bedrooms. I wanted to split the Living room TV aerial between the TV and a DVR so I bought this splitter + cables on Amazon... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K1ZL1QG

For clarity, do you have a Saorview aerial in the living room that you are trying to split or are you trying to split one of the wall outlets?

brimur69

The Cush wrote: »

For clarity, do you have a Saorview aerial in the living room that you are trying to split or are you trying to split one of the wall outlets?

No. I only have the TV and SAT sockets. The aerial is somewhere else in the apartment block and shared among the apartments.

The Cush

brimur69 wrote: »

No. I only have the TV and SAT sockets. The aerial is somewhere else in the apartment block and shared among the apartments.

So the TV outlet gives you the Saorview channels?

brimur69

Yes, I get saorview from the TV outlet and the freesat channels from the SAT outlet

The Cush

brimur69 wrote: »

Yes, I get saorview from the TV outlet and the freesat channels from the SAT outlet

The only thing that comes to mind is the signal isn't good enough to split without some amplification.

winston_1

brimur69 wrote: »

When I look at the cables that came with the apartment I see U-JIN TFC-T10 printed on them. If I use any of those in the any of the rooms I get a signal but no signal with "normal" aerial cable.

I don't know what U-JIN TFC-T10 is. Nor do I know what you mean by "normal" cable. But before trying the splitter you need to get "normal" cable working. Are the plugs fitted properly including soldering?

http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html

brimur69

Thanks, I thought the same so I have ordered this... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B077S35BB3

Hopefully that will solve the issue

winston_1

You can't boost what is not there. As I said you need to sort out why "normal" cable does not work before throwing money unnecessarily at the problem.

I've now found out what U-JIN TFC-T10 is. Basically RG6 equivalent.

brimur69

winston_1 wrote: »

I don't know what U-JIN TFC-T10 is. Nor do I know what you mean by "normal" cable. But before trying the splitter you need to get "normal" cable working. Are the plugs fitted properly including soldering?

http://www.megalithia.com/elect/bellinglee/index.html

By "normal" I mean a cable that says "tv aerial cable" on the packaging. I bought some on Amazon and some in my local Tesco and none work.

My local mast is Three Rock and I when I did a scan just now with the "normal" cable I can pick up an ITV+1 and Sky News channel for some reason but nothing else. Using the cable that was here when I moved in I can pick up all the Irish channels and radio as well as a few English channels

brimur69

winston_1 wrote: »

You can't boost what is not there. As I said you need to sort out why "normal" cable does not work before throwing money unnecessarily at the problem.

I've now found out what U-JIN TFC-T10 is. Basically RG6 equivalent.

Thanks, maybe that cable is more sensitive to a bad signal? Any idea where I could get more, with the proper connectors on?

coylemj

brimur69 wrote: »

My local mast is Three Rock and I when I did a scan just now with the "normal" cable I can pick up an ITV+1 and Sky News channel for some reason but nothing else. Using the cable that was here when I moved in I can pick up all the Irish channels and radio as well as a few English channels

If you're getting Sky News off the port marked 'TV', it means you are one of the diminishing number of people still getting the Virgin Media (formerly UPC) analog signal. To pick up all of the stations, you need to scan VHF and UHF.

Are you sure there's an aerial connected to that port? Because you can't get Sky News from any terrestrial signal, even if you live near the border.

brimur69

coylemj wrote: »

If you're getting Sky News off the port marked 'TV', it means you are one of the diminishing number of people still getting the Virgin Media (formerly UPC) analog signal. To pick up all of the stations, you need to scan VHF and UHF.

Are you sure there's an aerial connected to that port? Because you can't get Sky News from any terrestrial signal, even if you live near the border.

I was scanning DTV only when I picked them up. Im on the east coast so assumed I was getting it from the coast of the UK.

The UK channels are being picked up on 474/490/498MHz

coylemj

That's a combined Saorview (from Three Rock) and Freeview (from Divis) signal. All terrestrial. And the Freeview signal from Divis does carry Sky News, despite what I said earlier.

Johnboy1951

Did you try leaving the original working cable in place and adding the splitter to the end of it and then your own cable from the splitter to TV?

brimur69

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Did you try leaving the original working cable in place and adding the splitter to the end of it and then your own cable from the splitter to TV?

Yep, working cable -> splitter -> aerial cable or 2nd working = no signal

However I received the booster/splitter I mentioned above and it has a new result

aerial cable -> booster/splitter -> anything = no signal

working cable -> booster/splitter -> working cable = working signal
working cable -> booster/splitter -> aerial cable = can pick up "Divis" channels but not Saorview channels.

So weird!

So for me its a success somewhat in that the booster splits out 1 connection to 4 so what I need to do now is try to find more of the same "working cable" which I am struggling with

Johnboy1951

RG6 is commonly available, and is equivalent cable according to previous poster.

One example but seems to be out of stock there:
https://www.freetv.ie/?subcats=Y&pcode_from_q=Y&pshort=Y&pfull=Y&pname=Y&pkeywords=Y&search_performed=Y&q=RG6&dispatch=products.search