Experimenting newbie with Antenna's & Amps
 

I'm about 30-35 miles from most of my main channel towers. Running three tv's no splitters 50 -100 feet of coax. I bought a new CM rotor and found it was junk, had plastic gears, made in China with lots of rotational slop. I returned that and found and old CM rotor on CL and took it all apart, cleaned it and regreased, it works great.

1) I started with a Lava HD2605 it was a cheap piece of junk, did get a few channels but nothing impressive.

2) Tried a Wineguard amplified Flatwave FL6550A mounted on pole 25' up with and old Channel Master Rotor. Although it got about 45 channels it depended on weather and wind conditions, often got pixelation randomly.

3) Next a Channel master CM-4228HD again on pole 25' with rotor and no amplifier. Got about 52 channels and most were good with little pixelation but could not run more than one tv as signal was not be strong enough. I bought a CM-7777 high gain preamplifier 30 db and this over powered the signal and I got nothing (returned). Next I tried the CM-3414 Ultra Mini 4 amplifier this proved to be the best yet with a solid 50 channels until the next day when the wind blew 25-40 mph and picture kept getting a lot of pixelation. So I took the antenna down and set it up in a second floor room facing the right direction. Works great on the closest stations but a little weak when I try to go out over 45 miles.

QUESTION? I'm thinking of buying a CM-7778 medium gain preamplifier 16 db that mounts right at the antenna. Do you think this will help or still over power the signal especially using in conjunction with the CM-3414 mini splitter that is 11.5 db out amp?

Thanks in advance

Welcome, Billybronco1

Please post the link to your tvfool report so that we can see what your signals look like:
http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?opti...pper&Itemid=29

How do you run three TVs with no splitters?
Are there trees in the signal path?
If you can't run more than one TV, that's the time for a preamp or a distribution amp.
We don't have enough information yet to give you a good answer.

I have three cables coming out of the CM-3414 Ultra Mini 4 amplifier to the individual tv's. Yes there are trees.

From antenna to amp is 50'
tv #1 is 25' from amp
tv #2 is 50' from amp
tv #3 is 90' from amp

See attached radar map

Use EITHER the CM3414 or the 7778 with a passive four-port splitter. Do NOT use both the preamp and the distribution amp.

The trees blowing in the wind are your major concern, not the amplifiers. See if the trees are avoidable. If not, you're very limited on what you can do with hardware to "fix" the tree problem.

Well the trees have to stay and I like the idea the antenna is inside instead of blowing all over the place in the wind. We get enough solid local channels to satisfy us and cutting the cable will give me plenty of joy. My cable contract does not end until July so this gives me plenty of time to experiment with the antenna set up, so far it's great but the trees are bare and we need to see what happens in all kinds of weather conditions. Next project is the landline but I think I got that one figured out too, thanks

Keep in mind that amplifiers can and will also amplify interference.

Decades ago I would ALWAYS install a preamp on antenna installs but back then there were very few sources of interference.

Today there are dozens of sources of potential interference in every home and dozens more outside.

It is common to add a preamp and LOSE channels instead of gain them as a result.

If to want to boost signals for running multiple TVs I recommend an adjustable gain amplifier.
M
That way you can avoid over amplifying by using only as much gain as needed