Signal Boosters for CATV (1 Viewer)

[Rob_V]

Hey,

Just curious to know if anyone has any general opinions or useful insite regarding cable signal boosters. I'm thinking of getting one because analog broadcasts are looking REALLY bad on my brand new Toshiba 57HX81.

Thanks,

 

[Mike Matheson]

Rob,

Probably the best place to start is to try complaining to your cable company about the picture and see if a tech won't come out and take a look. If your signal strength is low, they might even put a booster on for you.

Other thoughts: get rid of all splitters on the line that you don't absolutely need; if any splitters have unused ports, consider replacing that splitter with a smaller size (so that all the ports are used--more ports means more signal cut); if possible, replace RG-59 cords with RG-6.

Cable is cable though, so for most it never looks great. I got lucky--had a really helpful tech come out, ran RG-6, eliminated splitters as much as possible, etc., and my PQ is now stellar (for cable).

 

[Rob_V]

I don't think the cable company would do that acutally. They just installed it about a month ago, and I've got a digital box and a cable modem that are up with no problems, so they'll probably say my signal strength is good enough.

I do have two splitters on there, installed by the cable tech, but they are both required.

My problem comes right before my digital box, where I've installed a splitter of my own so I can use my TVs internal tuner in addition to my digital box. I'm 100% sure that if I call them, they are just going to tell me to try removing that splitter to see if it helps any. That's what they ALWAYS do when I call them with any problems what-so-ever.

Sounds to me like you've got a pretty decent cable provider. I've got Rogers and they are quite useless and uncooperative.