I just got around to hooking our 2nd TV after 6 months in our new place. New cables, new plugs, drilled a hole in the ceiling, down came the cable, all good. Except there’s loads of interference on the picture for terrestrial and freeview won’t find anything. I’ve tried alternative cables, bypassing the signal booster and the aerial seems to be pointing roughly in the right direction for the transmitter.

Any tips or should I just pay this one away?

not enough signal strength.
what transmitter are you off.
what band aerial did you buy.

Aerial is whatever was in here when we moved in. It’s in the loft and, according to the previous owners, was “fine” when they were here. I think we’re picking up Crystal Palace.

make sure cable is not split
make sure coax plugs are fitted corectly
get a 2 way sgnal booster, or a good 2 way splitter.
if non of the above work, get a local rigger in.

It sounds like the copper shielding is touching the centre pin of the connector.

Cable is brand spankers and the patched pile of cables I dug out of the cable bag I have had the same result. Pretty sure the plugs are fitted right; just found some guides and I did the same except I trimmed the braiding off rather than folding it back.

Check the sockets that you are plugging it in to

Cable comes from the booster box into the bedroom. Even unplugged the kitchen extension and put the new cable into that.

so you have 1 cable running from the aerial
the cable runs to a booster, and you have run a 2nd cable to another tv.
how??

Aerial to booster, booster to TV. Two hops. I’ve even tried cutting out the booster and connecting the two cables directly.

you need 1 cable to a booster with 2 outputs, 1 to original tv and 1 to new tv.
does you booster have 2 outputs.

plug the ‘original’ tv into your new aerial and see what happens…

It has 1 input and about 8 outputs. We only have one TV for terrestrial/freeview in the house, the other we have cable on. The problem isn’t the fact I’m an idiot who doesn’t realise he needs two booster outputs for two tvs, it’s interference 😛

did you use a aerial meter to see if you have enough signal strength.
if no how do you know it is antiference.
you could also have too much signal strength, you could need a attenuater.

IIRC the shield braid should be folded back over the outer before the little ‘pronged’ bit slides over the top then the threaded ring fits over that. Also, the centre wire should be kinked before it goes into the alloy center of the plug, to get maximum contact. I would say your problem lies with the aerial itself, not being helped by being stuck in the loft. I had a problem with a roof mounted aerial losing signal a while back. Didn’t matter too much as there’s a Sky feed to the set, but I had a fitter check it out when I had a new Sky HD box fitted and the cable lost signal halfway along it’s length, but the aerial turned out to be fine. Yours could be other way round. I would suggest getting a professional to check out the whole system and make sure it ok once and for all. Save you a lot of fannying around and getting pissed off with it.

Just had a similar problem with new tv in bedroom. Spent a small fortune on new fittings, cables and splitter but still not good enough reception. Ended up fitting a mains / adapter powered Masthead Amplifier… that sorted it.