[rabbit73]

Welcome to the forum, Fool82:

I think you are being too hard on yourself. You have done a better than average job on research and installation than the average newbie, and have had the good sense to come here.

Thanks for the report and excellent photos. We will study them and give you our advice.

I see 2 ground wires going down to the ground from the grounding block. Are they connected to a grounding rod there, or to the house electrical system ground?

I see a coil of extra coax hanging from the ceiling. It looks like you hated to cut it shorter. The signal loss of RG6 is about 6 dB per 100 ft for UHF. It wouldn't be as critical if there was a preamp at the antenna.

That is a clever repair; the pill bottle acts as a strain relief. I always wondered what it looked like inside the housing. The balun looks like a 1:1 ferrite core transformer. Maybe ADTech can confirm that. Antennas Direct is very good about replacement parts; maybe they will send you one if needed.

To improve signal, I have used a 4 way RCA distribution amp as a preamp was not helping my signal reception at all.

I think you need a preamp at the antenna first before adding a distribution amp. It will improve the system noise figure and make the signals stronger before the coax downlead loss.

I doubt that the RCA distribution amp has a Noise Figure (NF) that is as good as a preamp.

My frustration is I have never been able to reliably receive my local Green Bay,WI CW station.

My CBS station is the most powerful at 100% signal strength(Obviously the distribution amp messing with the result) And my CW station is the weakest at 30%. My confusion with the CW station so weak, is why my WACY station comes in at 68% reliably even in the day time when it should be just as weak.

What direction is the aim for your antennas? If it is on the south eave, it appears to be correct for Green Bay, but I need confirmation.

WCWF CW Green Bay real channel 21, virtual channel 14.1, is at 34 degrees magnetic. WACY is in the same general direction, but not the same location. They are both 1Edge signals, so there could be terrain differences.

Quote:Originally Posted by replayrob

Oh, and I'm fully aware of the effects of signal strength on digital channels... I felt it was important to note that the signal strength during my recordings were in their normal range which had previously produced excellent results from CBS-DT NY. I was just trying to avoid the prerequisite "how was your signal strength?" posts....

reply by DTVintermods

Signal strength is not indicative of picture quality unless you know that the channel is free of noise and multipath. And a clean spectrum as seen on a SA (spectrum analyzer) is not an indicator of clean channel because the phase distortion (group delay) is missing. So even though channel 5 is also on the ESB (at a different height), what comes into your TIVO on channel 5 may not necessarily include the same multipath and noise that is on WCBS channel 2.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/45-loc...l#post21477306



If a preamp with the AD antennas doesn't give you enough gain, then you must upgrade to a VHF/UHF combo antenna with more gain.

I hope there are no trees or other buildings in the signal path.

The HBU33 has approx. the same gain as your two AD antennas, but in one package. You could mount it (with a preamp) facing Milwaukeen and use an A/B switch to select which antenna you want to avoid a rotator.