News

I recently received a call from a customer I've known for some years. He asked me if I could take a look at a TV Aerial which was installed on a roof of a property he owns but lets out to a family in Bromsgrove. The complaint from the family was that every time it rained TV pictures were lost.

Taking a look at the Aerial from the ground I could see that it was a new and modern designed TV Aerial made by a company called Triax, a TV Aerial that I personally know to be generally of good quality and well made.

The Aerial could be aged quite accurately at around 10 years as this is when all the properties were built on this particular development of around 30 or so houses.

The original Aerial installation would have been straightforward as it had a clear line of site direct to the transmitter at Bromsgrove which was less than a mile away.

Getting close up and personal with this Aerial it quickly became obvious as to the problem. No matter how well made a TV Aerial is and no matter how big or small it may be or indeed how much it may have cost etc etc if the person who initially installs it, installs it incorrectly it WILL FAIL, in time, GUARANTEED!

This, like many modern TV Aerials has a semi sealed dipole (the dipole being the working/clever part of the Aerial where the TV coax cable connects)

This particular TV Aerial has a small water drainage hole in the base of the dipole just in case of any water ingress in the future, the water could then simply drain away.

For whatever reason the installer of this TV Aerial installed the Aerial upside down, putting the drainage hole at the top, allowing the dipole housing to act as a reservoir and fill with water each time it rained. The end result being a damaged printed circuit board within the dipole housing.

Unfortunately looking around this estate in Bromsgrove with a pair of binoculars it appears that almost every single TV Aerial had been installed in the same way, Upside Down!

Although I often find individual TV Aerials which have failed due to upside down installation this is the first time I've come across a whole estate with the same problem.

I find it really hard to believe that the guy/s installing these TV Aerials was installing them upside down in order to secure repeat business many years earlier than if the Aerial had been installed correctly so I can only think that this Aerial like many others I've seen over recent years was installed with a large helping of ignorance!