Analogue Glomex TV antenna - will it work with digital TV?

[Ric]

My boat has one of those small flying-saucer Glomex TV antennas mounted at the masthead and a small amplifier in the cabin. It was installed by the previous owner in about 2001 and I have never tried it out. Given that TV has now switched over to digital, is it still viable?

 

[PhilS]

It's worth a try. I have a similar setup installed in 2012 and it works with Freeview. For house aerials the difference between digital and analogue is that the digital aerials work with a wider range of frequencies. I don't know if there was a change in flying-saucers as we went digital. I would not have thought so as they don't look as they are tuned to a narrow band to me. I would expect the amplifier to be OK with digital (Freeview).

 

[C08]

Mine works fine on digital.

 

[ctva]

Why not just plug it in and try it?

 

[Ric]

Why not just plug it in and try it?

Because I don't have a TV to plug it into! Just considering whether to buy one or uninstall the Glomex.

 

[Richard10002]

I thought needing a new "digital" aerial for Freeview was a con, and the old aerials would work fine. I don't recall changing an aerial to cope with Freeview.

 

[ex-Gladys]

It depends on your proximity to a transmitter. At home, a digital aerial made a big improvement, but it still needs a powered signal amplifier as well.

 

[GrahamM376]

We use an old analogue Status flying saucer for digital TV, works fine, as did the house aerials after changeover.

 

[Steve Clayton]

https://ukfree.tv/article/1107051054/Freeview_reception_all_about_aerials

 

[idomeneus5]

+1.

 

[Cardo]

Exact same setup with the Glomex UFO on the mast head. After we bought the boat we replaced the old analogue TV with a new one with built-in Freeview - no problems at all around the UK. Struggled a bit around Greece, but that's no surprise.