About a year ago I installed a Winegard HD7697P Hi/UHF 131, 25' height, with a ChannelMaster 30db preamp, and a 120' cable run to my house. Bearing to towers is supposed to be 184 degrees true north, I ended up at about 195 true north... there's a hill in my path.
Going direct to the TV I was fine, but then I got a 4 tuner Tablo which is a noisy signal killer, even though it has a dist amp in it... and I couldn't get good signal out of the Tablo. So I tried an old radio shack 0-18db amp I had, inside the house just before the Tablo, and was getting about 70% signal. I know that's not necessarily the "best" way since it adds noise, but hey... it worked. So all was good... installation was done, and it worked through heavy storms all last winter, high winds, etc.
Then about a month ago I lost signal. Found Ok signal of about 30% at bearing 211 on a clear day. A few days later lost signal on a cloudy day, searched for a signal again and got it at 255 degrees !??? Pretty big difference. Did further trouble shooitng and took the old RS amp out of the path, and bingo... I had OK signal again, about 30%, rain or shine. So the RS amp had died, I guess, which explained my sudden loss of signal. So now my system is working, but lower signal than I had a year ago.
Before I start fooling around with everything again, I thought I'd try to learn exactly what's going on here. Is a bearing change of 70 degrees vs. true bearing to tower an unusually large difference? Is it bouncing off the hill? Leaves are pretty much down here in the Northeast, but that was the case a year ago during installation, too.
Any suggestions as to what to try next? I think I have a few options:
1. Try going back to 195 bearing and search for better signals. Will definitely try that, but I did that a year ago during installation, and don't expect much change.
1. Raise mast up another 4-5'... that's the highest my Rohn 30 will go. I had avoided that during initial installation because I was concerned about high winds, and I have it guyed down at 25'. But I could raise it... I left enough extra cable, and with a year of no wind issues under my belt I'm less concerned about high winds... the guys are doing their job well. But will a mere 4' make a big difference? I doubt it, the hills in my path are pretty high, I can't remember exactly but I think they're several hundred feet high.
2. Replace the old RS amp inside with a better, low noise one... maybe the Skywalker Signature Series SKY38323 25dB Amplifier? Seems like a no brainer... for $25 it should get me back to my 70% signal I had before, I think...? Or is there a better one? I looked a bit at the Solid Signal Televes unit for $80, claims to be 2.5 db S/N... but there are a few things about it I don't like, and I'm not sure that spec is accurate.
3. Replace the channel master 7777 with a higher gain preamp... maybe 50db? Dont' know which models to look at yet, and it's more work to replace, but that's another option.
Here's my report. Many thanks!
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...60ed3ad79b6b1c