I’m looking for some help in pulling in a couple channels that I currently cannot, and also improving one other.
I’m west of Milwaukee, WI by about 10mi. Single story home, one layer asphalt shingle roof. My current antenna is a Winegard HD7694P mounted in the attic. It has been aimed as best I can with a compass. One single run of cable (about 30ft) to a wall plate. From there, it was originally out to a single TV set with a single piece of coax. All of the coax is RG6 (Commscope Britewire), with brand compression fittings. I am not willing to mount the antenna outside. I just added a splitter for an additional device with no change in reception on any of the channels.
Here’s my TV Fool analysis:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wr...cc491b390defaf
Most of my channels have good reception. I base that on the fact that they are trouble free, not any actual signal strength numbers.
I am having problems with the following channels:
7.1 – Can’t receive it at all
36.1 – Pixilation and drop out quite frequently. This channel doesn’t show up on the analysis, but it’s broadcast from the same tower as 10.1 (which has no reception issues).
I’ve come here for direction. I’ve gotten contradictory information from Winegard. When I first called them looking for a recommendation, the tech was concerned that an attic installation in general wasn’t going to give me good reception, and said the 7694 might not do all that well. He was hung up on the fact that I was installing in the attic and wouldn’t stop talking about that. I just called yesterday to ask them in an amplifier would help my situation, and the lady told me it would be worse with an amplifier. She said she would never recommend the 7694 to someone 10 miles away and it would be too much power. Adding the splitter that I recently did would have helped in that case right?
I understand an amplifier can’t amplify what’s not there. To me, it’s a question of whether or not I’m losing enough signal strength in my cabling to push me past the edge on receiving those couple of channels. I think they are broadcasting a fairly low power in comparison to many of the others. Is my antenna truly not large enough since it’s mounted in the attic?
Could I get suggestions on my next steps in improving my reception?
Thanks.