by ericmark »
Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:15 pm
There are a number of splitters passive i.e. the little Y shaped plugs reduce to signal so are not really much good. With the active i.e. some sort of power there are three basic types.
1) Mast head. Although called mast head you can fit in the loft. Main advantage is the power is supplied through the coax cables so no need for power in the loft the power supply can be next to TV. Disadvantage they only work with TV signal and will not work with radio as well and will not allow through connections with a digi-eye (only used with sky boxes)
2) Simple booster. Needs power can be fitted either in loft or at TV again will not work with digi-eye.
3) Complex booster. Some look similar to simple type and they come in many flavours, One could for example use a Radio aerial, DAB aerial, TV aerial and Sky dish feed them all into one unit in the loft and have a single cable to each wall socket which then splits the signal again. However there is a problem with Sky+ some can still use single cable but many need a second one.
As I said many different types. I have a cheap type and two cables loft to living room. My set-up as an example. The aerial signal goes direct to living room. Where it plugs into sky box. The sky box boosts and splits the signal into two. RF1 goes to TV and RF2 goes back to the loft. In the loft it goes into a booster with a through system for digi-eye from there it spiders out to dinning room, kitchen, and three bedrooms. In three rooms we have digi-eye which allows us to change sky programs on main box from bedroom.
I also have a SCART to RF box in living room which goes before sky box so in each room we can watch.
1) All freeview
2) What is on Sky box
3) What is on Video recorder/player
It is not all plain sailing however as we have a mixture of analogue and digital signals and one has to find out what frequencies are used by freeview and avoid those with the Sky box and SCART to RF box. But it works.
OK you don't want all that but you may in future. If you need to run cables from loft to living room it is as easy to run three as one so consider if you want extras ready for future.
I will guess mast head amp is your best option but mount in loft. That way when you switch it off down stairs on going to bed the young one can't watch TV any more!
