Help need signal boost in the rain and woods

[Nwkayak]

Hi and thank you for the help.
I have just instaled a clear stream 4 with hopes of getting the Olimpics on NBC in seattle.
The antenna gets about a 20% signal for NBC in clear weather and is ok to watch.
But when it rains it is a washout. (all connections are sealed)
I am thinking about a pre amp but do not know how much gain is to much or if it would help at all.
If you have any outher options or advice let me know
This is the setup.
CS4 25 feet up with some trees in the way.
100 feet of coax to one tv.
link to the report
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...27ee1c6c93d228

Go team USA
Thanks
Thanks

[mtownsend]

Hello and welcome!

The CS4 is a decent antenna, but there are others with even higher gain.

You main problem seems to be that the stations are starting out rather weak, and then you have tall trees in the way. Trees block more signal when they are wet, and that is probably enough to be causing your channels to break up.

It's usually impossible / impractical to get around or over most trees, so the only option left is to try to make up for the signal loss by going with a higher gain antenna. If your antenna is sensitive enough, you might be able to pull in enough signal despite the tree blockage.

For a high gain antenna, I'd consider something like the Winegard HD8200U. It's a very big antenna, but does well across VHF and UHF bands. The CS4 is probably doing poorly on VHF channels like KSTW (ch 11) and KCTS (ch 9).

You would also benefit from a pre-amp like the Channel Master 7777, Winegard 8275, or Antennacraft 10G202. These will boost the signal immediately after the antenna and minimize the signal degradation you would otherwise get from cable / connector / splitter / receiver losses that occur after the pre-amp. This would probably give you an extra 2-4 dB of margin to help prevent your channels from dropping below their breaking point.

[Nwkayak]

Thanks.
The cs4 was the best choice as the rig is tree mounted.
I will try to pick up some gain with a pre amp and also have the option of going 100 feet up one of many outher trees.

[mtownsend]

For long cable runs, you will definitely need a pre-amp. RG6 will lose up to about 6 dB for every 100 feet of cable. Without a pre-amp, a lot of the hard-earned signal coming from your antenna will be lost to the cable.

If you're talking about going up 100 feet into a tree, it sounds like you may end up with even longer cable runs (~200 feet?). If the cable lengths start to become excessive (several hundred feet), then the situation can be complicated by the need to daisy chain amps (not recommended if you can avoid it).



Hopefully, adding a pre-amp to your existing setup will be enough. You should end up a few dB better than where you're at now, and that might be enough.