TV Antenna Source said this about install of TV antenna amplifier.
The TV signal from your TV antenna becomes weaker as it travels through the coax cable to your TV.The farther it must travel the weaker it becomes. Signal splitters also weaken the signal. The more times the signal is divided the weaker it becomes. The splitter itself creates the signal loss, it doesn't matter if the TV's are on or off or even if all of the connections on the splitter are used the loss still occurs, it's called insertion loss. The line loss that occurs getting the signal from the TV antenna to the TV or TV's can be overcome by installing a preamplifier near the TV antenna amplifying the signal before the signal loss occurs.
The degree a signal amplifier increases the signal strength is measured in decibels (dB). The higher the amplifiers dB rating is the greater the strength of the signal is increased. "Wait a minute, I know what your thinking "I'll just get the biggest high output amplifier I can get and that will solve all my problems. I have one word for you, OVERLOAD. When too much signal is present overload can and does happen. Signal overload can occur in the amplifier, the TV tuner or both. Use the guidelines below, to select the proper amplifier for your system.
Selecting the correct TV antenna amplifier is a simple mathematical process.
Add-up the total amount of signal decibel loss that will occur as the signal travels from the TV antenna to the TV with the longest cable run. Add the signal loss from the cable length and any splitters between the antenna and the TV. Choose the amplifier with the dB gain rating that is from 5 to 10dB greater then the total loss. EXAMPLE: 100 feet of coax cable and a 2 way splitter have a signal dB loss of 8.7 dB. Also VCR's and other such devices that the signal travels through create minor signal losses. A perfect amplifier match for the above example would be the Winegard AP 8700. The 8700 amplifier has a gain rating of 19dB.
AVERAGE LOSS PER 100 FEET OF RG6 COAX CABLE IS 5 dB
2 way splitter 3.7 db
3 way splitter 7.5 db
4 way splitter 7.5 db
6 way splitter 13 db
8 way splitter 13.5 db Winegard AP-8700 Preamplifier High Gain Low Noise 19 dB UHF 17 dB VHF for HDTV Antennas
I used a nice quality Winegard 1080-HD antenna, but it was significantly smaller than my old antenna and did not pick up the Boston channel digital signals as strongly on its own (1 bar out of 6, compared to 2-3 bars for my old antenna)but once I added the Winegard Ap8700 pre-amp BOOM! The digital signal exploded into an unbeliveable 6 out of 6 bars! No more dropped pictures and fantastic picture quality, visually in my opinon better than what the cable provider was giving me and I am saving $50.00 per month - SUPER NICE!
WARNING WARNING WARNING - The bracket for this pre-amp is made of plastic and can easily be over tightend and snap off!
Boston to Shirley 40 miles, highly wooded, antenna sits on top of a second floor chimney, cable run from chimney to pre-amp 3', cable run from pre-amp to Samsung digital converter box approximately 40'.
When we built our home ten years ago, we made the mistake of having our electrician install our tv antenna. He ran the antenna wire from the Winegard antenna he installed in our attic down to the basement and back up to all the rooms. He obviously never check the connections because we got terrible reception in all locations of the house. We live in the a very rural area about 50 miles from the transmitters. No cable available here. After messing around with a whole gamut of different things that still only gave us medium reception on some channels and none on others, the finality of Feb. 2009 made us decide it was time to either get this fixed ourselves, buy a dish, or have a large outside antenna installed with a rotator and a pre-amp. When we went to the video store, they weren't too sure that this pre-amp would do much for our high def reception using our attic antenna. Wow! We get every station perfect on every TV in the house. We couldn't be happier. We paid more than this Amazon price ($70), but it was well worth it. Let DTV2009 come!
This pre amp makes all the difference with the new digital signal on our over the air antenna in our attic. We live anywhere from 30-60 miles from the stations and was only receiving 1/2 the major networks but with this pre amp I get ever station crystal clear.
Had an antenna (HDTV) in the roof connected directly to one tv. Got great reception and all of the channels. The cable run from the attic to the tv was approximately 100 feet. When I wanted to add more tvs to the antenna, I bought a splitter and then my problems started. Started out with just an unpowered splitter then tried a couple other powered splitters but none would provide acceptable signals to 3 tvs off of the antenna. Got the Winegard AP-8700 and installed it in the attic approximately 1 foot from the antenna...problem solved. Now all tvs get great signal strength and all of the channels are received. Even added a 4th tv a couple of days later, and it works great too.
Something of interest/relevance. This pre-amplifier requires power. I almost didn't get it because I didn't want the hassle of getting power to the attic. But never having messed with it before, I didn't realize that you plug in the power to this device wherever is convenient and with the supplied adaptor, it sends power to the pre-amplifier and the antenna signal over the same wire. So it was a mute concern. - Booster - Hdtv - Antenna - Winegard'
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