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In Reply to: RE: Thanks to all posted by Road Warrior on February 23, 2009 at 13:11:28
Just to clarify something: a "good" booster (or preamp) should be right near the antenna, on the mast. For gain where the signal is at maximum, to keep the best SNR.When somebody said to keep the booster near the TV, I'm pretty sure they were talking about the "crappy" ones, or the low gain ones. There is not really any booster sold by RS these days that's worth its salt, way too high a noise level for the amount of gain (which is low, and thus, I believe, that person's comment).
It is true that many DTV stations are much lower in broadcast power than the analog ones, and may be harder to receive. That is one reason for the changeover: the analog was "wasteful" in bandwidth and transmitter power, designed for another technical era.
Edit: if you are into a bit of DIY, whether just connecting antenna stuff up or building your own, http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81
is a good resource (among many others). Though it is in Canada, probably the majority of people on the OTA forums are American. After all, we Canadians are after those same U.S. DTV signals too, so it doesn't make much diff, but there is an obvious interest in longer distance reception that could be helpful. Learn what not to buy too...
Edits: 02/23/09Follow Ups:
Actually, it can be good to use both kinds of boosters. a strong one at the antenna and a weaker one close to the TV.
JackEDIT: Having both does make a difference. I have an amplified antenna in my attic. It has a built in amp in it (Duh). I get a better signal if I also use a low powered booster as well.
Edits: 02/24/09
One near the TV can certainly help, especially for long cable runs or just before splitting, but IME they must be quite good quality or they'll do more harm.
My original comment was because I thought he was going to move his amp from the mast to indoors, which if you're only going to have one amp is not the best idea.
Digital signal is very straightforward. Either you get it or you don't. No amount of signal amplification on the receiving end will change that. The broadcasting end is a different story.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
I understand what you're saying, but in the case of "digital", the amp is largely just to compensate for cable losses. Some people have very long runs... Also, the amp can get the signal over a certain minimum level a particular ATSC tuner needs to lock on, the go/no go level I think you're referring to. As opposed to an analog tuner which will work to some extent with whatever it gets.
My TV can give you the signal strength on a scale of 1-100, Digital only from the antenna. I need about 80 to get a picture, but much less gives me black. On one Baltimore channel (I'm near DC) I can't get a picture, but I can get the station number and call letters (13.1 WJZ-DT), so I'm getting something-signal about 60.
I'm hoping when they do change over, they boost the signal enough for a picture.
Jack
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