Extensions

If you’ve followed all our steps, and ended up drawing a blank, you may need to accept that an indoor aerial is not going to work for you, at least for now. You may need to invest in a rooftop aerial. But here are some final things to think about first.

Improvements in signal strength
When switchover takes place in your area, the digital broadcast signal will be increased in strength. If you currently get a good, clear analogue picture with an indoor aerial, but cannot get it to work with digital, you still stand a good chance of doing so when analogue is switched off at switchover. In the meantime, however, you will need another solution.

All the following products should be available from most electrical and hardware shops.

An extension
If you have a working rooftop/loft aerial connected in another room, you could wire an extension aerial cable from there to this TV. It’s probably worth asking a professional to do this.

If your roof aerial already gives a good signal, and you want to wire in only one extension, then a simple 'Y' type aerial splitter [Read an explaination of "Y Splitter" on the jargon buster] will be adequate for feeding both TVs. These cost about £3.



If the signal is not particularly strong or you want to feed several TVs in the house then you can invest in a small aerial distribution amplifier [Read an explaination of "amplifier" on the jargon buster]. These cost about £25-£40.

If you cannot have a roof aerial, then you may have to install an indoor aerial in an upstairs room, if you can get a signal up there, and then an extension cable to the TV. For this, we suggest you use one of our recommended amplified indoor aerials.

Video sender
If you have a working rooftop or loft aerial, or cable or satellite, feeding one main TV set, you could connect your set top box to a video sender [Read an explaination of "video sender" on the jargon buster] to re-broadcast the digital signal to a TV in every room if that’s what you wanted. This consists of a transmitter and one or more receivers, and costs around £40 to £70.

The advantage of this system is that you do not have to run extension cables around the house. The main down side is that unless you bring extra digital tuners into the mix, all the remote TVs have to receive the same channel.
We have tried out a few of these systems across the price range – see Video senders for what we found.

If all else fails
If neither a rooftop nor indoor aerial will bring terrestrial digital TV into your home, you should choose between using a satellite dish, and cable or phone line (if either of these are available in your area).

Back to top