OneForAll are best known for their line-up of universal remotes, but they also do other TV accessories. Here we look at the dubiously-named SV9380 Full HD Indoor Aerial.

Our quick take

The SV9380's success will depend on a huge range of conditions - where you put it, what you plug it in to and where you live. It may boast a range of technologies and Full HD stickers on the box, however we didn't find it sufficient to provide our TV with a decent signal.

For those that live within close proximity to their local TV transmitter and have freedom of where they put the aerial, then perhaps it will suit, however, the best results will come from a properly installed roof aerial.

OneForAll SV9380 Full HD Indoor Aerial - 3.0 / 5

FORAGAINST
  • Design
  • powered
  • interference filtering
  • Didn't provide sufficient signal strength even within the recommended distance

It is, in essence, an indoor antenna for your television. We say it is dubiously-named because the "Full HD" aspect is somewhat misleading. It's rather like still cameras putting "HD photos" on the box. It's a small piece of marketing which might make you think, at a glance, that the aerial is going to upscale all your TV to give you a pin-sharp picture.

It won't, of course, but it will receive terrestrial broadcast high-definition signals, if you happen to live in an area that has them. For UK readers that means you'd need to live within range of a transmitter putting out an HD signal (DVB-T2 or Freeview HD as it will be known) and you have to have a receiver box capable of decoding that HD signal, which are only just starting to appear.

But leaving this slightly misleading nomenclature aside, we put the indoor aerial to task in a typical domestic setup. OneForAll point out that you should check your distance from a transmitter before buying any aerial and a useful transmitter map (for the UK) will help you narrow down your selection. The aerial here is designed to be used within 18 miles of a transmitter.

We tested it in three locations. Outside the 18 mile recommended distance, it received nothing at all. Our main test location fell well within the 18 miles, in a typical suburban street. We tested it direct to a TV as a typical "set top" indoor aerial, we connected it in place of our roof aerial feed, through a signal booster and splitter feeding two TVs, and finally into a set top box on a separate TV. 

The SV9380 isn't your typical coat hanger on a pole style of aerial. Instead it is flat, black and plastic and stands on an aluminium base which keeps it vertical (ish). Around the back are the two connections - the coax socket to connect it to your tuner and a power socket. The SV9380 can be powered either by your set top box or the powerpack supplied, depending on your setup. It boasts both signal amplification and interference reduction, aiming to provide a clean clear signal to your TV.

Direct to the TV or set top box and it did manage to receive a signal, however siting was important, with the SV9380 failing to provide an adequate strength signal for Freeview reception across all channels if it wasn't perfectly placed. Ultimately, this might mean you have to move your TV, or opt for a longer coax cable than the supplied 1.5m in the box. We found best results when the aerial was placed in a clear area near the window. Reception upstairs in our test house was significantly better than downstairs.

However, given the varying strengths across the Freeview channels, we found that not all could be watched acceptably. The stronger main BBC channels were no problem, but ITV and channels further down the channel list just couldn't be received - something that isn't a problem with our roof aerial.

The signal filters claim to clean out interferences from Wi-Fi and mobile devices and in our proximity tests with these types of device, we didn't notice any change to the SV9380.

 

To recap

For those that live within close proximity to their local TV transmitter and have freedom of where they put the aerial, then perhaps it will suit, however, the best results will come from a properly installed roof aerial