[hillpc]

Large Radio Shack VU-210XR combo antenna, 25 feet up, pointing directly into an oak tree less than 2 feet away, still gets fairly decent reception, but pixellating now and then for even the 3rd signal down the radar table (attached). There's a rotator on it. I have a 4way splitter in the line, one oulet capped, one to an FM receiver, one to an HDTV, and one to a cheap digital/analog converter for a second TV.

I recently purchased a CM7777 preamp and it kills all the stations dead. Zero signal level on every channel according to both the HDTV and the d/a converter box. This is curious, since I'd had an older CM7777 on the antenna for years without problems. The antenna and old CM7777 was put up about 20 years ago. I took off the 7777 about a year ago when it seemed to die and kill all the channels. Just bought a new one to try to get rid of the pixellation, maybe get some more channels.

I've put the 7777 preamp at the bottom of the antenna lead just for troubleshooting purposes, before the 60 feet or so of additional run and the power injector and the splitter. The channelmaster customer service people said this should be OK and also told me that I could put a 2way splitter (-3.5 dB) in the line into the preamp from the antenna in case the preamp was overdriving the signal. Didn't help, neither did a 0 - 20 dB adjustable attenuator. I'm baffled now. This setup worked at one time and now I get nothing if I put in the preamp. Even a station so weak it's nothing but pixellated all the time goes completelt dead. Is it possible it's bad out of the box? This is actually a 2nd one in a week because I thought the first was bad out of the box.