Hi,

At home I have an Arcam 10 DAB tuner and an external DAB aerial, so
everything is near enough perfect. However, I may need to rent a flat for
work purposes (ie too long a commute), and am thinking of buying a micro
system along the lines of a Pure Legato as below:

http://www.pure.com/Products/product...oduct=VL-60692

I am going to assume in advance that the 'T' indoor aerial supplied with the
product might not up to the job of providing a good enough signal, so am
investigating alternative indoor aerial solutions. Maplin have this on
offer:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ges&doy=search

Can anyone tell me whether this is likely to be a reasonable solution? On
the 'one for all' website it says nothing about DAB in relation to this
product, so is it technically suitable? I include the following blurb from
their website, fully acknowledged etc:

a.. High quality indoor antenna for receiving VHF and UHF TV channels
a.. Ultra flat design - can be easily be hidden under TV set, behind
cabinets, wall decorations, couches etcetera
a.. Build-in wide band amplifier for excellent reception
a.. 360° reception - ensuring that the SV 9210 works properly in any
position
a.. 4 metre antenna connection cable

Thanks in advance for any information!

Kieran

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:20:28 GMT, "Kieran"
wrote:

Hi,

At home I have an Arcam 10 DAB tuner and an external DAB aerial, so
everything is near enough perfect. However, I may need to rent a flat for
work purposes (ie too long a commute), and am thinking of buying a micro
system along the lines of a Pure Legato as below:

http://www.pure.com/Products/product...oduct=VL-60692

I am going to assume in advance that the 'T' indoor aerial supplied with the
product might not up to the job of providing a good enough signal, so am
investigating alternative indoor aerial solutions. Maplin have this on
offer:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ges&doy=search

Can anyone tell me whether this is likely to be a reasonable solution? On
the 'one for all' website it says nothing about DAB in relation to this
product, so is it technically suitable? I include the following blurb from
their website, fully acknowledged etc:

a.. High quality indoor antenna for receiving VHF and UHF TV channels
a.. Ultra flat design - can be easily be hidden under TV set, behind
cabinets, wall decorations, couches etcetera
a.. Build-in wide band amplifier for excellent reception
a.. 360° reception - ensuring that the SV 9210 works properly in any
position
a.. 4 metre antenna connection cable

Thanks in advance for any information!

Kieran


This antenna is very unlikely to perform as well as the "T" you get
with the receiver. If it handles VHF and UHF it is very broad band -
which almost inevitably means very poor performance. It will simply
not be high-quality for anything - TV included.

If I were you I would wait until you are in the flat, and then see how
things are - you may find there is no problem, particularly if the
flat is a high one.

d



Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Kieran" wrote in message
...
Hi,

At home I have an Arcam 10 DAB tuner and an external DAB aerial, so
everything is near enough perfect. However, I may need to rent a flat for
work purposes (ie too long a commute), and am thinking of buying a micro
system along the lines of a Pure Legato as below:

http://www.pure.com/Products/product...oduct=VL-60692

I am going to assume in advance that the 'T' indoor aerial supplied with
the product might not up to the job of providing a good enough signal, so
am investigating alternative indoor aerial solutions. Maplin have this on
offer:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...ges&doy=search

Can anyone tell me whether this is likely to be a reasonable solution? On
the 'one for all' website it says nothing about DAB in relation to this
product, so is it technically suitable? I include the following blurb from
their website, fully acknowledged etc:

a.. High quality indoor antenna for receiving VHF and UHF TV channels
a.. Ultra flat design - can be easily be hidden under TV set, behind
cabinets, wall decorations, couches etcetera
a.. Build-in wide band amplifier for excellent reception
a.. 360° reception - ensuring that the SV 9210 works properly in any
position
a.. 4 metre antenna connection cable

Thanks in advance for any information!

Kieran



I see no reason that this should not work, provided that the DAB transmitter
serving the area's field strength is fair in the first place. It would
probably be worth trying a DAB receiver outside in the street by the flat to
see what the results are, before committing to the purchase. If the flat was
a ' basement ' below ground level, you might struggle.

Remember that even though the antenna is amplified, it has to be receiving
something reasonable in the first place - a hundred times noisy bugger all,
is just noisier bugger all ...

These antennas are either phased arrays, comprising a number of printed
curcuit dipoles, or patch antennas. Both types work a lot better than you
might expect.

As far as I know, Maplin have a return policy anyway, so if it did turn out
to be unsuitable, they would probably take it back.

Arfa

Thanks to both for your replies.

I guess my lack of technical knowledge regarding aerials is letting me down.
At this point in time I'm just looking to know what to buy, and it does
appear that, apart from the 'T' type string efforts, there isn't much in the
way of DAB indoor antennas on the market. Am I right in thinking that it is
possible to use VHF/UHF powered antennas for DAB, or do they have to be
dedicated for DAB in some respect?

The link below lists the antenna I previously mentioned, and another one
from 'one for all' which is explicitly mentioned as being OK for DAB in the
specificationson the 'one for all' website:

http://www.dalepakdirect.com/sub-cat...egory=antennas

From a technical perspective, does one stand out as being better than the
other?

Again, thanks in advance!

Kieran

"Kieran" wrote in message
...
Thanks to both for your replies.

Another silly(?) question. Seeing as the Pure Legato has a single coax
aerial input, but possesses an FM RDS tuner as well as the DAB
tuner/decoder, would the same antenna serve for both FM and DAB? I imagine
there would be something of a compromise, but...

Thanks again.

Kieran

In article , Kieran
writes
Thanks to both for your replies.

I guess my lack of technical knowledge regarding aerials is letting me down.
At this point in time I'm just looking to know what to buy, and it does
appear that, apart from the 'T' type string efforts, there isn't much in the
way of DAB indoor antennas on the market. Am I right in thinking that it is
possible to use VHF/UHF powered antennas for DAB, or do they have to be
dedicated for DAB in some respect?

The link below lists the antenna I previously mentioned, and another one
from 'one for all' which is explicitly mentioned as being OK for DAB in the
specificationson the 'one for all' website:

http://www.dalepakdirect.com/sub-cat...egory=antennas

From a technical perspective, does one stand out as being better than the
other?

Again, thanks in advance!

Kieran



I should just try the T aerial first it may well be more efficient than
the other ones. But a lot depends on the signal level where your going.

If that might be London then you'll be well served.

Or else try FM;-)
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Kieran
writes

"Kieran" wrote in message
...
Thanks to both for your replies.

Another silly(?) question. Seeing as the Pure Legato has a single coax
aerial input, but possesses an FM RDS tuner as well as the DAB
tuner/decoder, would the same antenna serve for both FM and DAB? I imagine
there would be something of a compromise, but...

Yes a compromise, but all depends on the levels in the location your
in...

Thanks again.

Kieran



--
Tony Sayer

In article , Kieran
wrote:
Thanks to both for your replies.

I guess my lack of technical knowledge regarding aerials is letting me
down. At this point in time I'm just looking to know what to buy, and
it does appear that, apart from the 'T' type string efforts, there
isn't much in the way of DAB indoor antennas on the market.

The reason for this is that antennas which are more effective tend to be
physically larger and have to be aligned in a more specific manner. Hence
tend to be awkward in a room. Since you are likely to also get more signal
by having the antenna in a loft or above the roof, people tend to use the
better antennas in the loft or outside.

Am I right in thinking that it is possible to use VHF/UHF powered
antennas for DAB, or do they have to be dedicated for DAB in some
respect?

Depends. :-) The 'traditional' meaning of 'VHF' in this context would
tend to mean 'frequencies around 100MHz used for FM radio'. However DAB in
the UK uses frequencies just over 200MHz. Hence the antenna description
would need to deal with this point.

However an 'amplified' antenna may be no better in use than a 'passive'
one.

FWIW I bought a DAB tuner recently and it came with a 'wet string' internal
antenna. I replaced this with a home-made dipole and this provides a much
greater signal even in the same room.

FWIW I made the antenna as follows:

Went to the garden shed and found a wooden stick of about the right length.
In my case this was a 62cm green-painted stick from a pack of flower
supports This is a little short, but close enough for jazz. :-)

Got a length of twin-flex, and split a length of it to make a dipole,
leaving a short section (cm or so) still together. Taped this to the stick.
Fitted a plug to the short section. Connected to co-ax cable. Used
vertical.

The wet string used twin-flex throughout and only had a short lead. I
suspect the main reasons for improvement was that I now had a longer run of
co-ax so could:

A) Move the antenna to locations further from the the tuner, so find
high-signal places which I could not get to before with the 'wet string'.

B) avoid the losses of the short run of twin-flex lead of the wet string.

Hence you may find that even a decent dipole (no amplifier) on a decent
length of co-ax will work fine.

However if it doesn't, I doubt an 'amplified antenna' will help much.
Instead you'd then have to use a bigger antenna and/or put it higher up in
the loft or above the roof.

Slainte,

Jim

--
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