There are so many houses in Preston that will have more than one TV aerial installed for their homes. I have personally seen in my many years as an aerial fitter, countless houses with 2, 3, 4 or more TV antennas on one mast with all of the cables going into the same property. In most cases the aerials will be individually feeding one TV point in the home, but that is not the best way to supply a house with multiple aerial points television feed to each point. So, why do aerial installers fit more than one aerial to a property?

The reason is usually down to getting the most out of the job. You , see when a homeowner calls a TV aerial fitter to carry out an aerial installation to another room in their home, the customer will not know whether they will need a new aerial or if the aerial they have enough quality signal for it to be fitted with a passive outdoor splitter from which other coax cable can be run into other rooms of the house to feed more TV points. Even in cases whether the signal is only good enough for one point, it can still be split using an amplified splitter device.

On a recent TV aerial installation in Preston, I was asked to fit an aerial that would feed 4 rooms in the house, they were the living room or lounge, the kitchen dining room, and two bedrooms. The whole set up would be fed by only one TV aerial. This would then be connected to an amplified splitter that sat at the base of the aerial mast. The power to the amp is sent via one of the coax cables, the amo also has a 25 db gain, so it is ideal if the original signal is weak, yet has good quaity.

The mast head amplifier pictured above is set up so it can feed up to 6 individual rooms or aerial points in one house off just a single aerial. With this kind of set up it is left for anyone to ask why would any aerial installer not just fit one of these instead of having to install another brand new aerial to a house. For this and more info, please get in touch with Julian at Julian Voigt Aerial & Satellite.

With many of the new build properties in Preston, you may notice that most will not have an externally mounted TV aerials fitted to their chimneys, gable ends or anywhere on the outside of there buildings. The reason for this is a simple one, the architects of the housing estate felt that externally fitted aerials are unsightly and felt that it is aesthetically pleasing to require the new owners to have their TV antennas fitted internally, namely in the loft.

So, this is a good question and one that depends on quite a few different factors, they are;

1. Location of the property
2. The type of insulation within the loft
3. The number of TV points the TV Aerial is feeding

Location
So, there a few factors to take in to consideration before installing a TV aerial in a loft. Looking at where the house is, in respect to where the TV transmitter is, if it is visible, even if its 20 or more miles away, and yes sometimes they can be seen from that far of, then the chances are that the signal will be strong enough to be picked up from within the loft. Fitting TV Aerials in a loft in Preston should in most cases will be OK, since it isn't that far for the signal from Winter Hill to travel to get to the antenna. If though, the house sits in a valley and by looking around, you see other houses that have externally mounted aerials, but on very tall masts, the chances of getting a good enough signal in the loft are very slim indeed.
In either case, unless it is obvious that there is going to be no chance , it is always best practice to connect up the aerial to a meter and test before installing, whether there is going to be a good enough signal first.

Loft Insulation
Most homes will not be insulated with the kind that will block signal. However, to clarify, I am not talking about the loft insulation that one would lay down on the floor of the loft. The kind I'm talking about is the foam boards that have an aluminium foil outer cover that are used to line the roof itself. With this kind of insulation covering the inside of the roof, there is no way on earth that a TV signal will be penetrating that.

Number of TV Points
So, the thing with loft aerials is that by fitting them in lofts rather than externally, you can lose up to 50% of the available signal, and in any case there is always going to be a reduction of signal went fitting an aerial in the loft. So, depending on the quality of signal and strength of it will in some cases restrict the number of aerial points it can feed. 
A way around this would be to install some kind of amplified signal booster to evenly spit the signal and even boost it, so that it can be distributed around the home to the TV points, delivering a signal both strong enough and clean enough to be able to watch uninterrupted television.

​As previously mentioned, carrying out an aerial installation in a loft for most properties in & around the Preston area, should be fine. Unless it has the wrong kind of insulation or the house is positioned behind some geographical obstacle such as trees or a hill, then the will be enough of a digital signal to be received by a loft aerial. For more info on this subject feel free to give me a call.