Does anyone know where you can get one that works without plugging a tv aerial into it? I’ve had a couple off amazon and they never pick up a signal.

We had one which worked ok – the type with an extending ariel and a loop. It is highly dependent upon the signal strength at your house though. We had one of the flat ones which was useless. Also the length and quality of the ariel cable makes a difference

Something like this although ours was non-amplified.

TV Ariel

You need some sort of antenna

You’d need pretty good field strength with low noise to get away on a unit with a built in antenna.
The fact that you’ve already tried and failed sort of points to the fact that the field strength where you are is around normal or lower.

do you mean a freeview reveiver that works?

any aerial will bring freeview in if the signal is strong enough.

so do you need a aerial or a freeview reveiver??

cheers, youre probably right jota, signal strength is probably the problem. got a quote off bt to put an aerial lead in and its £70 but im not paying that.

ive got a freeview box ton but ive tried a few aerials in it but no signal at all, not even a weak one. its in my kitchen so i can watch the world cup while im cooking.

sounds like you need a outside aerial. or a amplified indoor one, which may work.

I can sell you a full outdoor set up for about a tenner.

are they easy to install ton? im pretty crap at DIY

@letherthegas – for one house we had a rooftop ariel with a booster in the loft and that was what was required to get freeview. You can actually go down the freesat route (more money though) which is to get a satellite dish and freesat receiver, in areas of poor signal (eg miles away from anywhere etc) this can be the only solution.

EDIT: an outdoor ariel isn’t complicated to setup but you probably need to get onto the roof, attach it properly, point it in the right direction, run the wire down the roof/under tiles/drill holes in brickwork etc etc. Its a PITA job.

they are mate.
bracket fastens to wall or fascia. pole fits that with 2 ubolts.
aerial clamps on the pole. cable can be done with either sadlle and clamp or a f connector.

£70 isn’t that bad. Does that include everything?

I put mine in the loft and it works perfectly. Obviously depends on signal strength.

Check your signal strength here