[Dagwood]

Hi all. I live down in a hole and TV reception has always required a roof antenna. I had an old antenna that someone gave me, used, in the early '80s. Digital reception was surprisingly good even with that old clunker (some of the local stations added digital signals in '08) but I wanted to get everything possible so I bought a new outdoor digital antenna about a year and a half ago, along with a good signal booster that mounts on the antenna which replaced a cheapo Radio Shack one that went inside by the TV. I do not have a rotor, as all signals come from about the same source, 35 or so miles away.

The new setup did help some but not by a huge amount. At any rate, things have been great since I installed the new stuff sometime in late 2011 -- until just in the past 2-3 weeks when the signal started to degrade. The weaker channels went out first of course, and they would come and go depending on atmospheric conditions. It kept getting worse until my two strongest channels started going in and out. I never had any problem with these two channels, even with the 35 year-old analog antenna which was pulling in the digital signal from '08 til I replaced it in '011. So obviously something was wrong.

Being in a hole, I get very little wind so i didn't think the antenna had shifted, but I've been on the roof twice now in the past two days, moving it slightly either way from where it was (clamps were still good and tight) and it has not helped. It even got worse when I went in the one direction. I was thinking of getting a rotor, although logic tells me aiming it isn't the problem, because it's been fine for a year and a half.

Any ideas? I visually checked the connections on the roof today, everything seemed tight and sealed. Should I take these connections apart and spray them with contact cleaner or something? Or is there something else that is maybe not right? Could the booster be crapping out this quickly? Is there any way of testing it?

TIA for any ideas!