Question about amplifier

Are you using splitters?
These will eat your RF up, and create "echos" if not terminated with the
proper
impedance on unused terminals.
There is the paradox of having too much signal too. In this case you raise
the noise
level that the front-end of your receiver may not tolerate well.
Try this website to give you an idea how close or far you are relative
to the type of antenna quality you need.

http://www.tvfool.com

Les


"Tony" wrote in message
...
I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.

I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.

It might work well for your FM and VHF channels, but for the UHF channels,
it would probably work for R/F channels 14 thru 23UHF, after that, channels
will rolloff or attenuates.UHF channels are from Channel 14 to 51 now,since
channels 52 to 69 are now been sold off .Most UHF channels are above channel
23,UHF band, up to channel 51UHF. 12 DB of gain is alot if you don't have
any splitters connected after the amp. You might want to pad down the signal
at the converter with a attenuator pad to prevent overload.
"Tony" wrote in message
...
I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.

Tony wrote:
I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.


Broadcast UHF Channels 14 thru 51 start at 470 MHz and
extend up through 700 MHz. The amp you have specifies that
it works up to 450 MHz, so it would be useless for receiving
the UHF channels. The best place for that amp is the
appropriate recycling bin.

"Techcom" wrote:

It might work well for your FM and VHF channels, but for the UHF channels,
it would probably work for R/F channels 14 thru 23UHF, after that, channels
will rolloff or attenuates.UHF channels are from Channel 14 to 51 now,since
channels 52 to 69 are now been sold off .Most UHF channels are above channel
23,UHF band, up to channel 51UHF. 12 DB of gain is alot if you don't have
any splitters connected after the amp. You might want to pad down the signal
at the converter with a attenuator pad to prevent overload.
"Tony" wrote in message
...
I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.



I doubt that the amp will go even that high. Channel 14 starts at 470
MHz. But 450 MHz is well above channel 13 (210-216 MHz). It sounds
like it was intended for an old cable system that didn't go above
channel 61 (444-450 MHz). Because of its apparent age and intended
use I suspect it does not have a low enough noise figure to be useful
unless it happens to cover all of the frequencies you're trying to
receive AND your problem is that you're getting a very good signal off
the antenna but you're losing too much of it in your distribution
(splitters, long cable runs, etc.). Easy enough to test, though; just
hook it up and try it.

To see if you're getting usable signals from your antenna, take a
receiver up in the attic and connect it directly to the antenna with a
few feet of coax. If you don't have a small enough digital TV, use a
small analog one with a digital converter.

It would help if you said what channels you're trying to get (real
numbers, not virtual) and if your problem is weak signal or multipath
(when you had analog, was your problem mostly with snow or ghosts?).
Your antenna should be good for UHF at 25 miles with no serious
impediments (mountains, big buildings, aluminum siding or stucco),
fair for high VHF (7-13) and probably poor for low VHF (2-6). No
amplifier will make up for poor reception.

Del Mibbler

If your old amplifier doesn't work out after trying it, get a 5 to !000MHZ
( 1GIG ) Drop Amp, either 10DB gain or 20DB gain. Replace all your splitters
in your line with 5 to 1000MHZ splitters and if your coax cable is RG59
cable, you may want to replace it with RG6 cable as your last resort.RG59
cable chews up too much signal at the higher channels .Still, if too much
signal at your converter, you want to pad the signal down to prevent
overload to your converter box.
"Del Mibbler" [email protected] wrote in message
...
"Techcom" wrote:

It might work well for your FM and VHF channels, but for the UHF channels,
it would probably work for R/F channels 14 thru 23UHF, after that,
channels
will rolloff or attenuates.UHF channels are from Channel 14 to 51
now,since
channels 52 to 69 are now been sold off .Most UHF channels are above
channel
23,UHF band, up to channel 51UHF. 12 DB of gain is alot if you don't have
any splitters connected after the amp. You might want to pad down the
signal
at the converter with a attenuator pad to prevent overload.
"Tony" wrote in message
...
I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.



I doubt that the amp will go even that high. Channel 14 starts at 470
MHz. But 450 MHz is well above channel 13 (210-216 MHz). It sounds
like it was intended for an old cable system that didn't go above
channel 61 (444-450 MHz). Because of its apparent age and intended
use I suspect it does not have a low enough noise figure to be useful
unless it happens to cover all of the frequencies you're trying to
receive AND your problem is that you're getting a very good signal off
the antenna but you're losing too much of it in your distribution
(splitters, long cable runs, etc.). Easy enough to test, though; just
hook it up and try it.

To see if you're getting usable signals from your antenna, take a
receiver up in the attic and connect it directly to the antenna with a
few feet of coax. If you don't have a small enough digital TV, use a
small analog one with a digital converter.

It would help if you said what channels you're trying to get (real
numbers, not virtual) and if your problem is weak signal or multipath
(when you had analog, was your problem mostly with snow or ghosts?).
Your antenna should be good for UHF at 25 miles with no serious
impediments (mountains, big buildings, aluminum siding or stucco),
fair for high VHF (7-13) and probably poor for low VHF (2-6). No
amplifier will make up for poor reception.

Del Mibbler

On Aug 2, 8:35*pm, "Techcom" wrote:
If your old amplifier doesn't work out after trying it, get a 5 to !
000MHZ
( 1GIG ) Drop Amp, either 10DB gain or 20DB gain. Replace all your
splitters
in your line with 5 to 1000MHZ splitters and if your coax cable is
RG59
cable, you may want to replace it with RG6 cable as your last
resort.RG59
cable chews up too much signal at the higher channels .Still, if
too much
signal at your converter, you want to pad the signal down to
prevent
overload to your converter box."Del Mibbler" [email protected] wrote
in message


Just as an aside, Belden 1505 is _very _ close to the performance of
RG6 and may even outperform some of the lower grade RG6.

Amplifiers can make up for cable losses when the amp is located at the
antenna where the signal is at it's strongest. What it _can't_ do is
fix multipath. If your reception is failing because of multipath ( a
VERY common issue) the amplifier will simply give you a _strong_
signal with multipath and as Del said, may even overload the front end
of the receiver which is even worse.

As a comparison, I run a Winegard SquareShooter (gain 4.5dB, no
preamp) at 35 miles in southern California with a 3 way split and
flawless performance. I DO have (barely) line of sight to the
transmitters through a half dozen trees and the antenna aim was
tweaked with aTektronix spectrum analyzer - but that's just because
I'm a little nuts.

G²

[top-posting corrected]

Techcom wrote:

I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.

It might work well for your FM and VHF channels, but for the UHF channels,
it would probably work for R/F channels 14 thru 23UHF,

Huh? What makes you believe that an amp labeled as 50-450MHz would "work
well" at UHF frequencies 472 MHz to 526 MHz (channels 14-23 UHF) ??

Techcom wrote:

If your old amplifier doesn't work out after trying it, get a 5 to !000MHZ
( 1GIG ) Drop Amp, either 10DB gain or 20DB gain. Replace all your splitters
in your line with 5 to 1000MHZ splitters

....as opposed to 54-1000MHz splitters?

And why must he use splitters/drop amps with 5 MHz low ends if they
are in an antenna system?

Maybe you can ask for his old amp after he replaces it, then you can run
your little test on it and you can tell us!
"UCLAN" wrote in message
...
[top-posting corrected]

Techcom wrote:

I'm having reception issues, despite living no more than 25 miles from
most broadcast towers. During a recent trip to the attic, I found an
amplifier hooked into the cable lines, which I no longer use.

I'm wondering if using it could help boost reception. It's listed as
VHF/FM 12db, 50-450 Mhz. I tried installing it just before my tuner
(Zinewell ZAT-600HD..first gen chipset), and it didn't help.
Wondering if hooking it up in the attic, where my antenna (a Winegard
HD 1080 VHF/UHF) is installed, might work.

Being that it's listed as VHF/FM I kind of doubt it, but I thought I'd
ask anyway.

It might work well for your FM and VHF channels, but for the UHF
channels, it would probably work for R/F channels 14 thru 23UHF,

Huh? What makes you believe that an amp labeled as 50-450MHz would "work
well" at UHF frequencies 472 MHz to 526 MHz (channels 14-23 UHF) ??