Call Stephen Davies on 07779339726
or e-mail info@outofthinairwales.co.uk
About the Businessman:
Steve Davies or Signal Steve to his friends, is the anchorman and founder of Out of Thin Air Aerial and Satellite Services.
His ethos is to carry out each job as if he was doing it for himself or his own family, so no short cuts, the best quality cables and products used and always neat and tidy. He can't guarantee to be the cheapest but he can guarantee a quality job.
He will endeavor to assist you to have the best viewing and listening experience that you can afford, along with excellent after sales support.
His fascination with the industry starting as a hobby interest as far back as his teenage years when he would strive to receive television and radio from all parts of Europe, tuning the wavebands to see if he could receive any extra channels that no one else could pick up! He taught him self, from books and hobbyist magazines, making his own equipment and gadgets.
"I am an apprentice trained qualified Electronic Engineer and qualified Digital Installation Engineer.
I have now turned my hobby into a full-time business!
The majority of my skills learned through a career in the local Automotive Industry with Smiths Industries and Lucas at Ystradgynlais. “Tick-Tock” as it was affectionately known and later on with Caerbont Automotive Instruments and Sumitomo. So if my face is familiar, we may have met before in our working careers.
I have been operating my own business full-time for since December 2009, so into my fiftheenth year now.
When I was a child in the 1970’s, I would be intrigued to find that at night I could tune into all sorts of distant stations on my medium wave transistor radio – I would listen to American football matches on the AFN or pop music from stations like Radio Caroline or Radio Luxembourg.
After watching an episode or film of the comedy show ‘On the Buses’ where Stan and Jack altered their new cab radios to pick up transmissions from the Planes and the Police. I borrowed my grandmother's multi-band short wave radio, took the back of it and started randomly altering the tuning circuits to see if I could do the same!!
When my Father came back to the 'Green, Green Grass of Home' in 1976, moving us all from Buckinghamshire after his Grandfather had passed away, (not understanding any Welsh) we were very disappointed with the choice of television programmes. I started experimenting with an old dual 405 line / 625 line black and white TV – to my father’s annoyance – but with the aerial in the VHF socket I was able to find BBC1 West 405 line transmission from Mendip and so we were able to watch the English channels from Bristol!!
When I started college, I would use some of my grant money to buy various hobby and trade magazines like, ‘Practical Electronics’ 'Shortwave' and ‘Television’ and started to teach myself about aerials, television and radio reception and making gadgets.
I carried on with my Education and early automotive career in the 1980’s with the television and radio reception becoming a hobby. As money was tight, I made my own experimental aerials, filters, amplifiers and power units
In the summer months, I soon learned that on the VHF waveband, the same group of channels that I received the original ‘BBC West’ on, I could now receive stations all over Europe and beyond, from Spain and Portugal in colour!! in the south to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Romania even as far as Russia in the East – this was called ‘Dx-ing’ all dependent upon varying atmospheric conditions, stations might only appear for seconds or minutes, so I bought various technical books and kept subscribing to magazines like ‘Television’; “Practical Wireless” and “Shortwave magazine” to identify things like; station logos, clock designs, News programme names, time differences, Country border (weather) maps etc.
One special compilation magazine was called “Out of Thin Air” which inspired me so much that years later I would call my company after it!!
As I started to earn more money, I would always be improving my set-up. I built a 35 feet ‘triple guylined’ mast Using two galvanised 3" pipes sleeved together. I cut lengths of lightweight right angled steel struts and clamped them to the mast to act as steps so I could walk up it and service or change the aerials or amplifiers – with just a rope tied around my waste and then around the mast!!
On top I fitted an aerial rotator with a small stub mast onto which i added 4 Wolsey Colour King Bowtie aerials (made in Abercynon) arranged in a square grid. I added a phasing unit. These aerials had a wide angle of pick-up so were great to receive distant UHF signals.
For VHF band 1 I used an 'X' style (405 line BBC) aerial, rescued from a friend's loft and for Band II, a 4 element FM aerial.
Sadly Digital Television introduction throughout Europe put an end eventually to analogue Dx-ing.
With regard to Satellite TV my first experiments were in the late 1990’s. I bought an ex-sky circular solid steel satellite dish and analogue Amstrad box for £20. My bedroom window faces south. I found that my dish slotted nicely in an old wicker chair which I duly placed in front of the window. I found the Sky satellite (at 19 degrees east then) and tuned in the channels manually. I turned the dish slightly and altered its height fractionally and found ‘Hotbird’ at 13 degrees east and tuned these channels in –to my surprise there were many of adult content we shall say! Same as for 'Thor' the Scandinavian satellite at 1 degree west. As I turned the dish towards the south west, propping the chair on books to change its angle & height!!, I tuned in more channels – limited to a total of 100 by the analogue receiver! Fun days with the analogue satellites and not much encryption!!"
Personnal Likes: walking, cycling, running, sunshine, positive people with a good sense of humour, open minded people with worldly views, good story tellers, travelling the globe, live music and real ale, all animals, having money and loyal friends
Personnal Dislikes: Businesses or individuals who owe me money, conflict, wars, filter-tipped cigarettes, swearing - especially from females, grumpy or rude and discourteous people, grey days, bad service and shoddy workmanship
Core values that are important to me: fulfilment, integrity, happiness, confidence, sense of humour, fun, commitment, excellent service and honesty.
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