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Hello and welcome!
It would help if you could create a tvfool signal report for your exact location and then post the URL here. That will let us see what kind of signal strengths you're working with.
In lieu of that, a few general comments apply:
1) Splitters and cable runs reduce signal strength, so the fewer times the signal is split and the shorter the cable runs are, the stronger your signal will be. As an experiment, you might try to connect the antenna to only your HDTV (remove any splitters) to see if the increased signal strength is enough for your TV to lock on to.
2) TV signal strength meters measure signal quality (based on how well the digital data can be decoded) rather than actual signal strength. That is why most signal meters show nothing at all unless it's able to at least lock on to the channel. When the meter is working, the numbers represent how "clean" a signal is, but do not necessarily correlate with the true signal strength.
3) The tuners built into most HDTVs are usually a little less sensitive that the tuners built into set-top boxes. Converter boxes have only one job to do, so their designs are a bit better in the tuner department. If you install a pre-amp close to your antenna, it will probably overcome the lower sensitivity of the HDTV and make both setups perform about the same. However, in order to know if a pre-amp is appropriate for your situation (we must be cautious of amp overload) we need to see your tvfool report.
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