TV aerial

[brians]

Is Glomex the only viable TV aerial for a sailing boat and how high does it need to be mounted to be effective? Does not seem to be much competition.

 

[TNT]

tv

I think there are others but they are the market leaders, there are other options for tv reception. There is the dish option but limited reception linked to dish size, the bigger it is the more chanels you get and of course no good unless you have a stable place to mount the dish
There was a thread on the liveaboard forum a few weeks ago about a web site that will give a free download and will allow you to watch most tv chanels through a laptop, sorry can not find the link but there were quite a few people had used it without any problems, see if you can find the lind and the discussion linked to it.

tnt

 

[cmedsailor]

Is Glomex the only viable TV aerial for a sailing boat and how high does it need to be mounted to be effective? Does not seem to be much competition.

Shakespeare is another brand.
I see a lot of antennas mounted at the top of the mast. Don't they disturb the air flow on the windex (the manual unit) up there? I am really curious because I also would like to install an antenna.
Another common place is above the radar at the front of the mast. But for an omnidirectional antenna I guess that means you are loosing some area.
Oh well, I hope somebody has some good answers to your question.

 

[SimbaDog]

My glomex is at the top of the mast on an offset bracket to one side.
Was completely useless until the digital switchover happened, now much improved!

 

[oldsaltoz]

Visit your local caravan outlet for one that is a bit less costly, ours is about 3.5 m above the water and seems to work fine.

 

[maxi77]

Like all aerials higher is better, though where we are at the moment we would need a mast twice as high to get decent reception. How good it will be depnds on just where your boat is related to the local transmitter. The UK and France have good coverage usually but further afeild it is much more variable.

 

[BAtoo]

Having been living aboard for a while - and Marina based - I ended up with a satellite dish clamped to the pushpit rail. Works well; much better than either aerial I tried but we are in a poor reception area (R Orwell) for terrestrial signals.
Used a Maplins Camping kit with a 45cm dish - I believe these are less directional than the larger dishes. Anyway it works well enough for me untill the wind gets over F5 or so hwen the boat rocks too much....

 

[philip_stevens]

Is Glomex the only viable TV aerial for a sailing boat and how high does it need to be mounted to be effective? Does not seem to be much competition.

I've got an Omnimax Maxview aerial on our boat, on a short mast at the stern, and it has given good viewing results - both the old analogue and now digital signals. It comes with a 12v amplifier.