Flat country: what helps an aerial and what catches it out
In the Ebro Delta there are no hills to block the signal, and that is a real advantage. But anyone living in Deltebre knows the television fails here too. The reason lies in three things that matter less in other towns:
- The wind. In open country the gusts arrive with nothing in the way. A short mast, badly guyed or with slack clamps, ends up turning a few degrees and the aerial stops pointing where it should.
- The damp. With the river, the sea and the rice fields all around, humidity is constant. Unprotected connectors corrode and water gets into the coaxial cable, which then loses signal metre by metre.
- The amplification. In houses away from the village it is common to find somebody has fitted a powerful amplifier just in case. With no 5G filter, or set wrongly, it overloads and makes the picture worse rather than better.
So in Deltebre we take particular care over the mounting: a solid, well-anchored mast, weatherproof connectors, good outdoor cable and amplification set with the field meter. More information under TV aerials and satellite dishes.
La Cava and Jesús i Maria
The two historic villages that make up Deltebre hold most of the housing: village houses, a few blocks of flats and shops. In buildings with a communal aerial we check the head-end and the distribution; in the houses, the individual aerial and the indoor cabling, which has often grown by adding another splitter every time a new television went in.
Houses among the rice fields
Beyond the built-up area, Deltebre is a patchwork of rice fields, tracks and scattered homes. Many are family houses with a store or farm building alongside. In these we usually find old aerials and long cable runs that are worth replacing.
Where the house is very isolated, some owners prefer to combine terrestrial and satellite. We fit satellite dishes towards Hispasat 30° W or Astra 19.2° E, on mountings chosen to stand up to the Delta wind.
We are also asked for security on stores and outlying houses: IP cameras with a recorder and phone viewing, placed to watch doors and entrances. It is explained under CCTV.
Riumar and the second homes
Riumar, beside the river mouth, has a great many holiday houses. Here the aerial takes both salt and damp, and on top of that goes months without anyone looking at it. The sensible thing is to check it before the summer. If you spend spells at the house and need internet across the plot, we improve coverage with access points or a mesh system; more under wifi solutions.
What it helps to tell us beforehand
Since a visit to Deltebre is arranged in advance, the more we know the better. We will ask you for:
- The exact location, ideally a pin on a map. Out in the rice fields there are tracks that satnavs do not show properly.
- The specific symptom: whether every channel fails or only some, on all the sets or one, and whether it gets worse in wind or rain.
- Photos of the aerial on the roof, of the amplifier or power supply and of any cabling you can see.
- What you want to achieve: fixing the terrestrial signal, adding satellite, more points, or cameras and wifi as well.
With that we prepare the materials and there is a much better chance of settling it in one visit.
How we plan the trip to the Delta
Deltebre is a long way from Salou and we are not going to promise timescales we cannot keep. What we do is organise visits to the area: we collect the Delta call-outs, suggest you a date and turn up with the materials your description and your photos point to.
On the visit we measure, explain the problem and give you a free quote. If you accept it, we do the work and check the signal at every point. On the same route we look after L’Ampolla and Amposta.