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HD Signal Booster

post #1 of 13
3/8/09 at 4:22pm
Thread Starter 
I recently installed a 57 element antenna in my attic. It is supposed to have a 100+ range and the stations I want are only 44 miles away. 90% of the time it works well, but it gets pixelated and looses signal. The signal meter shows a strength of 65+ though. I know that with HD signals it is a all or nothing deal. Would an antenna booster help? There is about 50' wire between the antenna and the TV.
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post #2 of 13
3/8/09 at 6:05pm

Re: HD Signal Booster

definately will work.

just today i put a hd antenna on my roof. when i came down and checked, i was kind of disappointed that it didn't work as well as the indoor antenna i was replacing.

i found a booster that i had sitting around. the only problem was i couldnt find its power supply. it says 15v on it. i ended up finding a 10v that fit the socket.

Voila! it worked! still spotty on one channel though. makes me wonder if i got a 15v power supply if it would work even better.
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post #3 of 13
3/9/09 at 12:40am

Re: HD Signal Booster

Brandon: don't get all paranoid, but some equipment can be damaged when it is supplied with power at a lower level than it is designed for*, so I would keep an eye on that booster.

* for example certain components only partially turn on, while others are fully activated, causing a "stressful" relationship between the two components.
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post #4 of 13
3/9/09 at 6:37am

Re: HD Signal Booster

Quote:
Originally Posted by drobbins
I recently installed a 57 element antenna in my attic. It is supposed to have a 100+ range and the stations I want are only 44 miles away. 90% of the time it works well, but it gets pixelated and looses signal. The signal meter shows a strength of 65+ though. I know that with HD signals it is a all or nothing deal. Would an antenna booster help? There is about 50' wire between the antenna and the TV.

First, don't buy into this 100+ mile, or similar claims, on antenna boxes; its all pure marketing BS. There are many factors that go into how far a transmitter can be away from a receiver and still receive a good signal, and the antenna in not even the main one.

In any case, yes you can use a pre-amplifier with your antenna. I have a pre-amp system in my house to drive multiple TVs in several rooms. I have a radiant barrier in my attic so I had to mount my antenna outside. Also, all the stations that I am interested in receiving are about 30 miles away. A few rules:

1. The pre-amp must be mounted as near to the antenna as possible, usually on the antenna mast. Keep the cable between the antenna and the pre-amp as short as possible.
2. The gain of the pre-amp should be about the same as the total losses between the pre-amp and your TV, with about 10-15dB extra to spare.
3. If you are driving multiple TVs (different rooms) do not forget to add into your calculations any splitter losses.
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post #5 of 13
3/9/09 at 8:38am
Thread Starter 

Re: HD Signal Booster

I found an old preamp in my collection of wires and stuff. There is a light in the attic that can be used for electric supply, so the amp can be mounted with in a few feet of the antenna. How do you calculate signal loss? I will try to hook it up tonight if time allows.
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post #6 of 13
3/9/09 at 10:53am

Re: HD Signal Booster

Quote:
Originally Posted by drobbins
I found an old preamp in my collection of wires and stuff. There is a light in the attic that can be used for electric supply, so the amp can be mounted with in a few feet of the antenna. How do you calculate signal loss? I will try to hook it up tonight if time allows.

I am not a big fan of putting AC power devices in the attic for fire issues, but since that is what you have......if it was me I would replace it with a DC powered unit later.

Basically, the total losses are just the sum of the cable & splitter (if any) losses. If you do not have any splitters (just driving one TV) and the cable is short (< say 50') then don't worry about the losses. The other issue is the gain of the pre-amp. You probably will not need much at all, maybe 10-15dB or so. Your main problem may become having too much net gain (gain minus losses), which can cause more problems than you already have.

Most OTA antenna systems require some experimenting to get everything working correctly. However, more than likely, it will work just fine.
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post #7 of 13
3/9/09 at 1:44pm

Re: HD Signal Booster

Quote:
Originally Posted by drobbins
I found an old preamp in my collection of wires and stuff. There is a light in the attic that can be used for electric supply, so the amp can be mounted with in a few feet of the antenna. How do you calculate signal loss? I will try to hook it up tonight if time allows.
Is your antenna distribution in the attic? If not the amp should go wherever that is or if its just running to a TV put it there. We use Winegard AP-8700 in our installs. Putting your antenna in the attic severely cuts down its signal pulling ability. I never recomend it to anyone who is more than 20 miles from the towers.
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post #8 of 13
3/9/09 at 2:22pm
Thread Starter 

Re: HD Signal Booster

Quote:
Putting your antenna in the attic severely cuts down its signal pulling ability. I never recommend it to anyone who is more than 20 miles from the towers.
Yea, I realize this, but a 10' x 8' antenna on top of our brand new house has a very low WAF. Hopefully this booster will do the trick.
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post #9 of 13
3/13/09 at 11:38am
Thread Starter 

Re: HD Signal Booster

I added the 12db booster that I had, and it increased the signal very little 67 to 70 on channel 13. So I purchased a TV/HDTV/VCR/FM Antenna-Mounted High-Gain Signal Amplifier - RadioShack.com. It is supposed to have up to 30 db gain. Once it was hooked up, I lost 15 out of the 17 OTA channels that I had. No signal at all. The 2 channels left were 40-1 & 40-2. I know the hook-up was OK because when I adjusted the gain up and down, the strength went from 77 to 60 and back. With out the amp it is normally 79.

Was the incoming signal too week for the better booster to boost? I will leave the 12db booster hooked up for now. I am tired of crawling around in the attic insulation.
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post #10 of 13
3/13/09 at 3:35pm

Re: HD Signal Booster

Most Radio Shack antenna stuff sucks.
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post #11 of 13
3/13/09 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 

Re: HD Signal Booster

Any recommendations?

What signal strength is needed for a stable picture? Mine was fluctuating around 72 and kept loosing signal. I moved it up another 10" and now it seems stable at 78.
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post #12 of 13
3/13/09 at 8:42pm

Re: HD Signal Booster

Hmmm... If you're consistently getting 65-to-70-plus on the HD tuner's signal meter and still have lots of problem w/ reception, maybe the problem is not signal strength, but your tuner's ability to handle multipath signals, especially since you have your antenna in the attic presumably w/out direct line-of-sight reception. In fact, if multipath is the problem, boosting the signal can actually make matters worse, which seems to be the case when you added the higher gain RadioShack unit.

What TV/tuner do you have? How old is it? More recent tuners are better at handling multipath signals. I've gotten significantly better results w/ newer tuners every few years so far.

_Man_
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post #13 of 13
3/14/09 at 7:38am
Thread Starter 

Re: HD Signal Booster

I just bought the tuner and installed it in the Dish receiver. Hopefully it is of a good enough quality. I also get the same results connecting straight to the TV. The TV is new this Christmas. The antenna is lined up with the station with in a few degrees though. Luckily the house is orientated correctly. The only thing else I could think of, is there is a small set of hills between here and the station.
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