And now in longhand?
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Apologies - a complete mistake
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Have you actually got it yet, or are you waiting for it to arrive? I will be interested to know what you think.
Hi Chris,
Not yet, according to Parcelfarce, itās made its way from Cumbria to Preston! Which is still āway oop norfā compared to Lockās Heath.
Chris
Edit: Saturday morningā¦itās got as far as Parcelfarceās āSolent Deptā, which I think is the one just down the road from me at Titchfield.
And according to the tracking website itās status has been āupgradedā to āPrepared for deliveryāā¦WTF is that supposed to mean???
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Shame you canāt nip up the depot, Chris, and fish it out.
Looks like you deleted it. perhaps by mistake?
Iāve reversed the deletion for you.
yes, I think this one may have been incompetence on my partā¦
āold age and retirementā 
Thanks for the reinstatement
I did have a spin around the parcelforce website to see whether I could intercept it, but couldnāt find anything. I expect theyāll deliver it tomorrow.
In the meantime, seeing as the the sun is shining down on Locks Heath, Iād better go and mow the back lawn!
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So the beast has arrived and the first problem is that the aerial socket is different to the NAT03!
Now I know that Iāve got some gender adaptors somewhere, but can I find them?
Oh no. I had forgotten about that. Robert Dyas in the Swan Centre in Eastleigh if it comes to it.
Well this is interesting. So I got out the soldering iron and knocked up an aerial adaptor (And donāt worry Richard, no NATs were harmed during this exercise ). Itāll do for the moment!
Iām then able to split the aerial lead to both NAT05 & NAT03 and run them into separate inputs on the 83 (N05 on input 3 and N03 on input 5 - just to be awkward). Both are set to 90.7 (R3), just after 18:05 playing Vivaldi Concerto for two Cellos RV531, latterly Mozartās āHaffnerā
Listening over headphones.
Now accepting that the aerial is an El Cheapo indoor aerial, being able to run the two at the same time is useful for raw comparisons.
So first impressions:
- the 05 is louder. I made half-hearted attempts at level matching on the Headline.
- the 05 is very noisy. Substantial background hiss which is just not present on the 03.
- the 05 is way more detailed. the cellos on the 05 were substantially fuller and more āgravellyā than the 03
- the 03 sounds ādullā (even when roughly level matched with the 05)
So far, so good.
Iāve now been instructed to play with the cats before dinner!
Yes, the output from the 05 is higher.
Iām guessing the noise on the 05 might be attributable to āEl Cheapoā.
I agree with Chris, El Cheapo
My 05 is on the end of a Ron Smith G14 - El Expenso - & there is no background hiss on any of the stations coming from the big area transmitter or the smaller locals.
I also pick up distant stations, some low power, & yes there is some hiss on some of these, but the mono button fixes that & talking of which the auto mono system works well
Undoubtably, El Cheapo is less than satisfactory. Come to think about it, it might even be for UHF, so hardly optimal. So I think a Galaxie is now on the shopping list.
I have a five element bog standard aerial on the roof and it gives a brilliant signal from Rowridge on the Isle of Wight, which I imagine is your transmitter too.
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Yes, Rowridge is the one. In fact there are parts of Locks Heath from where you can actually see the mast, provided itās not raining!
Seems to be difficult finding a VHF antenna (apart from Ron Smithās). Plenty of DABs around 200MHz, but not many at VHF, apart from the Omni from the many DIY stores - might be worth grabbing one of those as a trial.
I really wouldnāt bother with an āOmniāā¦ they are less than unity gain, can suffer horrible multipath reception, and not much better than a wet piece of string.
If you are in a good signal strength area, a simple dipole can suffice ā¦ and is better than an omni and is non directional.
Three element and five event Yagi (beam) antennas will usually suffice depending on signal strengthā¦ and not provide high wind loadingā¦ something that some forget.
A specialist radio hardware store/supplier has theseā¦ they are not hard to getā¦ itās just not your standard Currys fayre.
Blake UK have for example suitable antennas ā¦ including dipole and multi element aerials. (You are looking for VHF Band 2 antennas).
Antiference is an example of popular and effective manufacturer of antennas.
An aerial installer who addresses radio as well as ādigital tvā will know what to do and will check alignment and signal strength and multipath issues for you.
The more elements the better the gain in a directionā¦ but the more narrow the ābeamā, fine if you are pointing to one transmitter, but often not much good if you want local or community radio as well, and some community radio has great music inc live music.
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I used a simple dipole in the loft but from where I was situated in Warsash, it was line of sight to Rowridge
Yes, you can see the mast from Brook Lane (weather permitting), around the junction with Barnes Lane, where the sunny uplands of Sarisbury & Locks Heath fall away towards the Warsash shoreline, and the strange and mysterious land of Wight beyond 
.
So a Galaxie will probably be overkill, and one of Blakes may well be more than sufficient.
In the meantime, Iāve found another old indoor TV aerial. This one takes batteries, so it got a new set. I also removed the splitter I was using yesterday. The hiss is much suppressed; certainly I can live with it until I get an external aerial sorted out,
And after a few more listening tests, Iām now firmly in the ā05 campā.
You paint quite a picture, I can almost hear you on the radio!
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