Oh my gosh. I just did a very long thread and it dumped when I hit submit....Here we go again.
Need help out here in rural Graham, Washington. Surrounded by lots of trees. Do not wish to contribute to pocketbooks of satellite mafia even if we could afford to. Can't afford fancy new HD tvs, either. Since the ridiculous DTV switch, my husband and I have given up TV and only watch DVDs from the library. However, my 85 yr old mom who lives in attached mom-n-law house enjoys her local channels, but has lost most of them since the switch. She certainly can't afford satellite.
For the switch, we put a ClearChannel 2 on the single story side of house, located right above her TV. Because we were testing the reception, we ran the line from the antenna through an open window and into the back of the converter box. This gave her spotty reception. Lost two of her favorite locals altogether. If the wind blew a bit, we had to adjust antenna and re-scan to get the remaining. But at least she had some TV.
So, we had an electrician come out to make it pretty so we could get rid of the window setup. He ran the CATV line from our structured wiring box located in the central part of house (about 50feet from mom's TV) through the attic and outside. (This sounded like a good idea, as that's supposed to be what the structured wiring boxes are for.) Then for some reason he attached a splitter and tacked under the eave of house. Then he ran line from splitter to antenna. Inside, the line went from converter box to antenna plug on wall (which then travels through the attic to the structured wiring box). Well, she's getting ONE out of six local channels now, and lost most of the junk channels, as well. Unfortunately, we were both at work while all this went on, otherwise would have questioned the splitter, at least.
So, today, my husband hooked it back up the way we had it, directly from antenna, through window, and into coverter box. She gained two more locals and got the junk channels back. Still missing her three favorite locals, of course.
I plugged in our address on Antenna Web and it said we needed a large directional antenna with pre-amp. Plugged in address on TV Fool and it shows we need a roof top antenna, which is what we have. (it is about 5-6 ft off of low end of roof pitch, a couple feet away from gutter)
We don't know what to do at this point. We would sure apprectiate suggestions. Here is our signal analysis:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...b7c842546ff127 Thank you for any help.