I have a little rabbit ear/loop antenna with an adjustbale signal booster, which worked very well on on my small TV upstairs, so I thought an amp would work on my downstair's TV (has outdoor antennas).

Tried an amp from source (10DB UHF/VHF/FM COAX AMPLIFIER- NEXXUS, about $40) for the big TV and got worse.

I placed it just before my big downstairs TV and got no improvement and lost many channels completely, so I returned it.

Is 10 DB too much? What's a better choice?

Looking at your reception results in the Hamilton thread I'm not sure what you were looking for with an amp - what was your goal?

I am concerned not just about the NF (which it sounds like shielded twinlead would mitigate) but also interferring with the antenna.
Don't sweat it. So long as the twinlead is only ever run vertically w.r.t. the antenna, as opposed to horizontally, the effect is virtually zero.

I've actually been putting the pre-amps directly behind the antenna feedpoints, behind the reflectors, and then just running a gentle loop of twinlead down and back up again to the feedpoint for attachment. Takes between 2 and 3 feet of twinlead for that, and doesn't seem to harm reception of either strong or weak stations.

Usually a pre-amp is installed a couple of feet below the antenna, but that means having to deal with routing the twinlead down to it while spacing it away from the (usually) metal mast. This also requires more twinlead length, something I like to keep as short as possible.

Putting it behind the center of the antenna gets rid of that problem, but might cause harmful interaction between the antenna/pre-amp in some situations. Again, I don't see that happening with the G-H setups I've done.

Cheers

Looking at your reception results in the Hamilton thread I'm not sure what you were looking for with an amp - what was your goal?
I just wanted to see if I could 2 channels- 29 wutv, and 49 wnyo. I get 29 in analog, watchable, but not clear, 49 analog barely comes. So I thought if I got a booster I might be able to get these two. All other buff/tor digital channels always come in perfect. I might also try repositioning the antenna to the 29 and 49 towers, since it is pointed now more toward the south buff towers. Or I could get a third antenna, 4228 and directly aim it at the 29/49 tower. I might also switch the coupler/splitter from analod to digital. Laslty, I could you a two stage amp, one right underneath the antenna, and the other near the TV. But I'm concerned this could overpower my receiver on channels I'm already getting 100%.

Just keep in mind that you are so far to the west of their contours that you may never be able to get them. :)

I recently picked up a CM0264 and am looking at an installation on a single UHF antenna (at least initially...).

How should the 2nd, unused 300ohm input be handled to minimize RF/noise injection to the amp? Leave the input alone or terminate it someway?

How should the 2nd, unused 300ohm input be handled to minimize RF/noise injection to the amp?Good question, and it comes down to whether the open 300 ohm screws would pick up any ambient signal on their own. The answer to that is simply that any signal voltage (dBmV) received by them would be so miniscule that even if amplified it would still be miniscule. Of course if the preamp was situated underneath or nearby a strong station then yes there would be some signal voltage, but then again who would put up a preamp in such a situation? Nobody. :) I've never heard of a terminator for a 300 ohm preamp input so I think you'll be just fine leaving it as is.

I got a question for my situation maybe stampeder can help, I am planning to use 75 foot cable to go to a splitter and 1 HDTV split with another 20 foot cable and another HDTV would be a 50 foot cable for a split. Now should I get
a pre amp for my situation or would a distribution amp with 2 outputs as a split be better for my situation and would it still give me a decent boost on weak signals? thanks.

Okay lets keep it simple. Assuming all RG6 (these are very general, rounded figures):


You lose about 4 to 5 dB signal for the first 75', 3 or 4 dB loss from the splitter, then 20' of coax at 1 or 2 dB loss, and 50' at about 3dB loss. One HDTV will have already had 10 or 11 dB loss and the other 11 or 12 dB loss
A distribution amp in place of the splitter will overcome the lower losses but you'll never be able to get back those original 4 to 5 dB of pure signal that the 75' of coax cost
If unamplified, those pure signals could be compromised a bit if you are very close to sources of interference, otherwise they're fine
if such interference will be a problem, use quad-shield RG6 coax
Those signals right out of the antenna are precious because they are very clean and noise free. A preamp up there will boost them with a relatively low amount of added noise and provide enough signal to overcome the splitter and line losses with extra signal to spare.

Ok so a pre amp should give the boost of the 75 feet loss and also overcome the splitter lose right? so do I need a pre amp with FM trap also I am looking only to spend 30 bucks , I think it's too much for the 100 dollar channel master. Does phillips or magnovocs have a good reputaion for pre amps?

I won't cheap out on such an important piece. You get what you pay for.

If you have nearby FM Radio towers there is a chance that some of your VHF channels will suffer interference. That's when you want an FM trap. OTOH if you wish to run a third split to an FM Receiver for stereo music reception then the FM trap will make your antenna useless for that.

It is true that you cannot use a distribution amplifier if you have already a preamp near the antenna?


Thanks,


Intravino

You can combine a preamp with a distribution amp. This is routinely done in MATV (whole building) systems.

You need to be very careful! :eek: The key is to match them properly so that you don't overload your distribution amp with too much signal or too much voltage.

The preamp's power injector will have to be upstream (antenna side) of the distro amp too.

You can combine a preamp with a distribution amp. This is routinely done in MATV (whole building) systems.

You need to be very careful! :eek: The key is to match them properly so that you don't overload your distribution amp with too much signal or too much voltage.

The preamp's power injector will have to be upstream (antenna side) of the distro amp too.

I agree that you can combine a preamp with a distribution amp in certain circumstances (such as an MATV system where there are very long cable runs and the signal is split many ways), but want to emphasis that in most home installations you shouldn't combine them. If you think about it, even if you have 150 feet of RG6 (about 9dB of loss) and an 8-way splitter (about 11dB of loss) you will only have about 20dB of signal loss which is still less than the gain produced by a high-gain preamp, so additional amplification would still be unnecessary.

Is there a indoor signal amplifier that you can pick up relatively cheap to boost the antenna signals at all?? Just a straight run from antenna to tv ...want to see if maybe my existing cable just needs to be replaced or if its the antenna itself.Thought maybe the amplifier might answer one of those questions

Yes, many department stores like Zellers or Walmart carry basic signal amplifiers that are relatively inexpensive with one input and one output. As you might have read already we've been cautioning folks about them here for several years due to their usually high noise amounts, which detract from your tuner's performance.

Hello all

I am looking to improve my setup because I am in a deep fringe area north west of Newmarket and can only pickup 5 DTV stations and none of them have full strength. The strongest signal is on 5-1 CBC at about 65-70% and there are about 10 others I am unable to lock onto.

My current setup is:
CM 4228 also tried 91XG with the same results
CM 7777 preamp
4' Roof mount Tripod with 10' mast - not able to go higher - subdivision home
High grade RG6 cable - 60' to 65' run length
Artec T3A Pro set top box ( I know there's room for improvement)

After searching for many hours I found this unit made in Europe, the Triax TA34W which looks better than any Channel Master or Winegard product.

Anyone have experience with this unit or know of another ?

I'm open to other suggestions like antenna stacking (if I could only find a low dB loss combiner)

Thanks for reading. J

Unfortunately, being that far north and west means the only real way to improve your reception is to get your antenna higher in the air.

No amount of amplification will help if your antenna can't "see" the transmitted signal. Given the propogation characteristics of UHF that can only be done by going up.

I had some issues with the channel reception I got one CM4221 hooked to four
ATSC tuner > 1 TV, 2 tuner card,1 ATSC STB Samsung <

Some channel where missing on some tuner and other got more channel?

So I got a cable/antenna signal booster 1 in/1out from RCA at Canadian Tire (cheaper than The Source)

Hooked it up and it work great no noise and able to tune in more channel.

Thanks for the replies, unfortunately 5 to 10 KM south of me are large hills in my direct path to Toronto and Buffalo. I am going to have to disagree with you about the amplification part because I tried 3 different models of preamp and so far the CM 7777 can pick 6 DTV channels (5 useable 1 is French) only 3 with Phillips and none with the radio shack model.

Has anyone tried the TriaX TA34W ?

I forgot to include my results form TVFool, they are mostly grey