Isolated coaxial sockets?

[Akshay]

Hi does anyone know how these are different from standard tx coaxial sockets? Are they better quality? If so are they the same thing as "screened" coaxial sockets?

 

[Adam_151]

Isolated means the input is electricialy isolated from the input, used to be used in flats to prevent a fault on one persons TV being transmitted through the aerial system and electrocuting everyone else, now linking the aerial system to the buildings earthing system is the favoured option, however isolated outlets are still sold for use on isolated systems.

Filtered/screened outlets just have electronic filters in to reject some of the interference that may be present and just pass the relevant frequencies to the TV set, some have a fm, so if those frequencies are ppresent, you can have a filtered radio output as well

Hope this helps

 

[Lectrician]

Isolated aerial points have nothing to do with preventing electrocution!

They prevent a booster / amp from shutting down due to shorted output caused by a dodgy TV or fly lead. Used in flats to ensure other outlets continue to get a signal from the distribution system even if a one tenent plugs in a dodgy lead.

 

[Akshay]

Thanks guys, a couple of varying responses there. Can you confirm they would be no difference in picture quality between a standard coxial socket and and an isolated one?

 

[Lectrician]

Not noticeably.

 

[JustinSmith1]

Not noticeably.

When I experimented with eliminating my cheap crappy (unscreened as well ! ) isolated surface plate I got an increase in signal of about 2dB ! That`s the increase you`d get from swapping from a medium gain aerial to a high gain type, so it`s significant. C4 teletext was always poor but was improved markedly by simply eliminating the plate, though I dare say that a similar improvement would have been achieved by swapping it for a decent quality screened non-isolated plate.
I do know a bit about RF reception and in my opinion particularly with digital signals, no body should be fitting unscreened plates these days.
If the use of a decent quality screened plate prevents just one glitch on your picture per day (for the next 20 years...) it`d have been well worth it.....