HD reception - would a booster help? (1 Viewer)

[Steve Carlo]

I live in an area which has pretty bad regular OTA broadcast reception. I have to move the Turk (?) antenna around the dish a lot. Our HD is sometimes excellent, and other times impossible. Last night was a clear night and I couldn't get a decent HD signal at all. Would using a signal booster help? I know that boosting a crap signal will just give a higher signal strength crap signal...but I think there may be some losses inherent in the splitting and diplexing that could be reduced.

My current set up is a dish with a diplexer (?) to mix the dish and OTA signals with the reverse close to the TV (about 35 feet between the two). The dish and OTA signals then go through a surge protector and into the various components.

Thanks!

 

[Dean_S]

It sounds like you are using (or trying to use) one of those Terk dish mount antennas??? If that's correct you might consider a better antenna with a better mounting position on your home before you start spending money to amplify the signal. Historically, Terk antennas are overpriced, under performers but that's not really important to fixing your reception problem. I suggest that you jump over to antennaweb.org and put in your address to see how far and what direction the TV broadcast towers are from your house and then look at their antenna suggestions for some ideas about what you really need to get decent reception at your location.

 

[Steve Carlo]

Thanks. Yes I do have one of those wrap around the dish terk antenna. It was about the only option we had since our dish is mounted close to ground level. But that aside, according to antenna web, we are less than 15 miles from every tower...I'd have thought we could pick up from that range with a took pick (most are the green and yellow bands)

 

[Philip Hamm]

A coat hanger is probably better than anything by Turd, er. Terk. They have a reputation worse than Bose. Try a Zenith Silver Sensor indoor antenna instead since you're so close to the towers.