£25 High Gain Digital Outdoor Freeview Aerial vs Standard Table Fork

I have a lead that runs through my block of flats to what I suppose is an aerial in the loft in my neighbours property (I'm not sure) with a proper aerial socket in my living room.

It was working on a few channels, but ones like Dave, Pick & Quest were pixelating something fierce.

So, I Popped to Wickes and invested in an all singing all dancing High Gain Freeview Digital Aerial and I've been up a ladder sorting it out all day. Absolutely pointless, because it remained exactly the same.
http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-25-El...erial/p/199497
So, I put it all down to a shit signal area.

This evening, in my wisdom and by pure luck, I thought "Let me try ramming a fork in the end of the aerial cable to see what happens".

Attachment 30715

(Notice the signal strength on the TV - top bar, it was Red and at around a quarter with both 'Aerials' earlier.
When I put it down - perhaps I'm earthed or something, it jumped to the full bar!!!
Go figure, it's now setup that way permanently behind my sofa and needless to say, the aerial is going back tomorrow!

There is no trickery involved here and I am pissed that the fork behind my sofa (only touching the centre core of the aerial cable) has out performed the ACTUAL tool for the job!!!

EDIT -
Result now it's on the floor, tucked away under my sofa.

Attachment 30716

Sounds like you were aiming the aerial in the wrong direction ????

I got a high gain RS components jobby and before that channels were fucked. Sounds a bit daft to me but if it worked then shimmy on.

Be that as it may, the forks not bothered about what direction it's pointed in and it's tucked down behind the sofa minding its own business.

Doing the trick, so I'm gonna leave it! :)

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As a, let's say, an occasional pirate DJ... I've seen weird shit with aerials and transmitters. Stuff I look at and think, how the fuck does that even work...

Fork at the end of a wire is unique, but I've seen people do all sorts to get a better signal. Coat hangers being a common one. Defies logic and science but if it works it works lol.


DJ OD

LOL..

Reminds me of the first cat's whisker receiver, needed no batteries or power.

Parts required:

A set of crystal headphones or ear piece.
One piece of coal.
A cats whisker.
A fork.
A knife.
A few lengths of copper wire.

The coil is just copper wire wound around a wooden cylinder.
The coil conected to an aerial (just a plain long wire going the wall would suffice.
The other end of the coil connected to an earth pin, on any wall socket.
Now all you had left were two connections, one to the GND of the headphones.
The other went to the cats whisker, which would be connected to the coal via the knife & fork.
The coal would connact to the coil.

The way it worked was the knife had to be placed between the fork pointed end and moved in and out to get a signal.
Moving the cats whisker would also improve clarity.

The cats whisker was later replaced with a germanium diode, the knife & fork were changed to a tuning capacitor.

People were still building these in the 70's! Not with cats whiskers or a knife & fork.

Places like Maplin Electronics used to these radios in kit form - I havent checked in years.

Sounds like it's your socket

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