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Old 2-Dec-2013, 7:38 PM   #4
GroundUrMast
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Greater Seattle Area
Posts: 4,773
An alternative to the big combination antennas such as the HD7698P and HBU-55 would be an 8-bay panel such as the Antennas Direct DB8e and a CS5.

An amplifier will not provide the filtering needed for reliable mixing of same band signals from two same band antennas. Consider, the antenna aimed south, toward Colorado Springs will do a better job receiving the the signals from that direction but it will receive some signal from the west. The signals from the west may not be reliable but are still present and would be amplified. Once added in a broadband combiner, the higher quality version of the NW antenna signals will be mixed with the low quality version from the south antenna... The broadband combiner will not block either source, just 'mash' them together. The net signal quality will be less, even if the net raw strength is higher. The bottom line is, signal quality is not simply a function of signal strength. I'd much rather have a high quality signal at a low power level than a low quality signal at a strong power level.

To use an analogy, I'd rather have a sip of clean water, than a swimming pool full that someone just pee'd in.

Still, a good distribution amplifier that tolerates strong signals without overload that has served me well is the Channel Master CM-3410.
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If the well is dry and you don't see rain on the horizon, you'll need to dig the hole deeper. (If the antenna can't get the job done, an amp won't fix it.)

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Last edited by GroundUrMast; 2-Dec-2013 at 7:41 PM. Reason: sp.
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