Twig advice needed

I remember pricing up a Ron Smith aeirial and it was VERY expensive.
After speaking to various people, and as I live in Birmingham which is not far from the Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield transmitters, I decided to give a cheaper aerial a try: the general concensus was that I would be in a good reception area anyway.
After a relatively cheap installation of a very large aerial in the loft, the signal strength meter reading was well above the minimum requirement (a figure of over 400mv or something seems to ring a bell but I'm not a techi) I have crystal clear reception with no hiss etc. even at high volumes.
So as far as I'm concerned, a Ron Smith aerial was not needed in my set-up.
I am sure in more demanding reception areas, Ron Smith is pretty well the only way to go, particularly if you're in a weak reception area or suffering from multiple incoming signals etc.

I suspect that if you've got a no hiss and good reception, you may as well stick with what you've got and save a lot of money for your next upgrade

I think I saved over £400 compared to the price of a Ron Smith aerial.

By the way, my dealer has heard my NAT03 and confirmed that there's nothing wrong with the signal it's getting.

I do appreciate that signal strength is not the "be all and end all", as there can be ghosting and other stuff that you can see on a TV signal, which even with a strong signal, can be present.
However, in the case of audio, I suspect that if it sounds right, it is right.

Computers are supposed to work on 1's and 0's - in other words "Yes" or "No" - why does mine frequently say "Maybe"?......

Thanks for your reply Blythe, so am I right in assuming that a quality aerial is really only necessary for weaker reception areas and the actual sound quality(musicality,bass/treble quality) is down to the tuner I'm using?BTW I used to have a Nat 03.

I have a NAT01 which was running off a bog standard Aerial. The signal was good and there was no hiss.

I then managed to buy a brand new, unused Ron Smith Galaxie aerial for £50.00. This is his most popular model which retails around £150.00 ish including delivery.

I then paid a TV company £35.00 to to remove the old aerial and mount the new Galaxie.

The aerial was pointed towards Oxford (same as the old one) and the result is a mixed bag.

Anything being transmitted from the Oxford direction is definitely much clearer and to me was well worth the money. Therefore I had an improvement on all BBC channels and Classic FM which are the ones I use regularly.

Strangley enough, the local transmission (BBC Wiltshire) from Swindon dropped in quality because it was being transmitted from the rear direction of the aerial. I queried this with Ron Smith in person who explained that his aerials are designed not only to pick up signals from the front but also to delete or remove signals comming up from the rear which can degrade the good signals.

My view was that as this aerial has got a minimum of 15 years left in it, it was worth the money.

You can contact Ron Smith for a brochure and price list.

Regards

Mick