Saorview on the cheap

Irish readers who aren't living under a rock should know by now that the analogue terrestrial TV service will be switched off in October of this year (i.e. 2012).  If you haven't make some arrangements to receive digital TV by then you will be enjoying uninterrupted views of cosmic noise, left over from the big bang (otherwise known as "snow" or "static").

I came across plans for a homebrew antenna at www.tvantennaplans.com (May 2019 update: the site seems to be gone, but a search for "db4 antenna plans" throws up plenty of good results).  I just had to tried it and it worked beyond my wildest expectations.  Here it is, mounted in my attic, facing roughly in the direction of the Kippure transmitter:-



Signal strength...100%, bit-error rate...0%:-



The only part I had to buy was the 300Ω <-> 75Ω balun (part number FD78K from Maplin, about €3.50)

I have been running with this for over a year now and it works perfectly.  I have made a few more of them for family and friends with equal success, even in locations where analogue RTE service was poor.

If you really really can't pick up the Saorview terrestrial service, there is also the Saorsat satellite service.  You will need a Ka-band LNB (which is different to the normal type of LNB you would use for picking up Sky/Freesat etc. from Astra 2) and a dish aligned on 9^oE.  I tried it with an ordinary cheap-and-cheerful satellite receiver and a dinky 40cm dish mounted in a bicycle-repair stand...



...and it works a treat.  You don't get TV3 or 3e at the moment but hopefully that will change.  I haven't tried it, but I understand that it is possible to use a slightly bigger dish and mount a normal LNB off-centre and you can pick up both Saorsat and Sky/Freesat etc. using a single dish.  www.tvtrade.ie (where I bought the Ka-band LNB among other goodies) sell a mounting bracket sized for exactly this purpose (the positioning of the LNB is critical for this trick to work).  Its a great site with a great range of well-priced products.  They also make their own excellent tutorial videos.  Highly recommended.

SCART connection from DVD player to TV blanks the TV picture

The problem: when my cheap-n-cheerful 14" Philips portable TV was connected to my even-cheaper-n-just-as-cheerful Bush DVD player, the screen on the TV was completely blank when trying to watch ordinary TV. Sound came through OK, but no picture. Disconnecting the SCART cable or plugging out the DVD power cable cured the problem, so it was pretty apparent that the problem was something being sent up the SCART cable from the DVD player to the TV.

SCART pinout (female connector seen from the front). Image is taken from Wikipedia.

After a visit to Wikipedia (source of all wisdom) and a bit of poking around with a multimeter, I found a 2.5v signal from the DVD player to the TV on SCART pin 16, even when the DVD player was turned off. This should tell the TV to expect RGB (rather than composite video) from the DVD player but appears to have a negative side-effect. Snipping pin 16 in the SCART cable has cured the problem.