It's hard to surprise anyone now with two TVs in an apartment. Technologies, and the signal receiving devices themselves, are constantly developing in our fast-paced age, which inevitably affects the price reduction for older models. And this, in turn, leads to the fact that almost every family can afford a second TV, or even a third. Agree, it’s still convenient when you can watch your favorite programs in the kitchen or in your room without disturbing any of your family members. And in this case, we will definitely need an antenna splitter.
Active or passive: how to make the right choice?
Don't even think about just connecting a couple of wires to the antenna in parallel and thus get another signal source. The quality of the picture as a result of such an operation will be very poor - multi-contour will appear, contrast will decrease, etc. Therefore, you need to useantenna splitter, or, as it is also popularly called, "crab".
If the signal source is good, which can be determined visually, and before that there was only one TV in the house, then a model assembled on the basis of resistive dividers is quite suitable. Such an antenna splitter is considered passive and, although it provides good signal matching, it still introduces a certain attenuation into it, proportional in strength to the number of outputs. This type has proven itself well in a large city or near a metropolis, where the broadcast power is quite high.
Accordingly, in case of poor reception or a large number of receivers, it will be better to use an active type antenna splitter. Such a device not only separates the incoming TV signal, but also amplifies its power.
When buying a splitter, pay attention to the attenuation level, which is indicated in decibels both on the device label itself and in the accompanying instructions. The lower the value of this indicator, the better. If you can view the frequencies of the received channels in the TV menu, then remember the highest value of them and check that it falls within the frequency range of the selected device.
How to connect an antenna splitter
All that is needed to connect a second TV, except for the device itself, is a TV cable, mounting brackets (if the cable will be attached to the wall), a sharp knife, a regular tape measure and antenna plugs (according to the number of additional TVs). First, we chooseapartment is the place where the antenna splitter will be placed. It is best to use special sockets mounted on the wall of the room for this. Then we measure the number of meters from this point to each of the two TVs, sum it up, add a couple of meters to the reserve and buy the antenna cable of the required length. Now it needs to be cut into the required pieces, from the ends of which the outer sheath is removed with a knife, and the braid is bent outward onto the unpeeled part.
After that, instead of the plug, which is located at the end of the old coaxial cable, an antenna splitter is connected, and pre-prepared pieces of cables to all television receivers are connected to it. Then all these wires are fixed motionless with brackets or a plinth cable channel. The last thing left to do is turn on all the devices and check the quality of the received signal.
