In Reply to: Thanks to all posted by Road Warrior on February 23, 2009 at 13:11:28:
Just to clarify something: a "good" booster (or preamp) should be right near the antenna, on the mast. For gain where the signal is at maximum, to keep the best SNR.When somebody said to keep the booster near the TV, I'm pretty sure they were talking about the "crappy" ones, or the low gain ones. There is not really any booster sold by RS these days that's worth its salt, way too high a noise level for the amount of gain (which is low, and thus, I believe, that person's comment).
It is true that many DTV stations are much lower in broadcast power than the analog ones, and may be harder to receive. That is one reason for the changeover: the analog was "wasteful" in bandwidth and transmitter power, designed for another technical era.
Edit: if you are into a bit of DIY, whether just connecting antenna stuff up or building your own, http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81
is a good resource (among many others). Though it is in Canada, probably the majority of people on the OTA forums are American. After all, we Canadians are after those same U.S. DTV signals too, so it doesn't make much diff, but there is an obvious interest in longer distance reception that could be helpful. Learn what not to buy too...
Edits: 02/23/09
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Follow Ups
- RE: Thanks to all - cfraser 15:32:58 02/23/09 (5)
- RE: Thanks to all - Jack G 05:03:59 02/24/09 (4)
- RE: Thanks to all - cfraser 09:46:52 02/24/09 (0)
- You're talking about analog signals, right? - Jazz Inmate 08:45:23 02/24/09 (2)
- RE: You're talking about analog signals, right? - cfraser 10:32:54 02/24/09 (1)
- Exactly - Jack G 13:28:00 02/24/09 (0)