Spacelab Aerial Digital TV Signal Strength Meter Finder F-connectors DF-200

Only one word for this "crap"

This signal meter has a needle and scale rather than a set of lights, so should be more sensitive than those with leds. The instructions tell you to plug the supplied battery and its fplug adapter into one side, plug the arial into the other, adjust the gain dial so that the needle is just at the 'on position' (left side of the scale) and then move the arial till the needle moves as far right as it will go.Problem 1 - The meter's arial socket requires a F style plug, a normal co-axial plug won't fit, and there is no adaptor with the meter.Having purchased an adaptor I could not get any signal from the meter unless I wound the gain nob to max. Very odd as I was getting a picture on the TV, though it broke up a lot. Indeed the meter registered the strongest signal with me holding my thumb on its arial input.When I finally did get the needle to move away from the left side of the dial it was by pointing the arial straight up and angling it so that it was facing away from the transmitter. Unsurprisingly I did not get any picture on the tv with this.In short I just could not get the meter to work. I live in London 15 Miles from Crystal Palace's 20000 watt transmitter

very useful