Dumb amateur question: What about Multiple Signal Boosters?

First off, I'm very new to this and the more I read the less informed I feel :D

That said, I'm in Akron, OH and have a Samsung HDTV and wanted to give up on paying Time Warner Cable and give having an HD antenna a try. So I bought this Philips MANT940 Indoor/Outdoor antenna and plugged it in.

After some moving it around, testing out positions in the house and hanging myself out the attic windows to check reception I decided to mount it outside my attic window on the side of the house, roughly East but facing Northish (towards Cleveland where most of the signals are ~21 mi. away). I bought some extra coax from Home Depot and ran the line down the outside of my house where it hits a wall socket and then a short length to the TV.

This is probably 25-30ft of cable total (25 from the antenna to the wall, 5 to the TV.. don't know if that's important, sry).

The antenna also came with this little "Power Infuser" that when on gives UHF amplification 18 dB. W00t! It helps a lot.

At the end of the day I'm very, very satisfied as I have every channel I wanted... Except for one - CBS, WOIO 19.1 out of Cleveland. It is completely unwatchable. On clear nights with no clouds I can sometimes manage but it usually stutters out or gives me lots of audio breakup/pauses.

Now, I get everything else I want and I *could* live without this but it's annoying and I'd like to have it. I guess in the end, here is my question:

Would buying another signal booster (like the Motorola Signal Booster 484095-001-00 Bi-Directional RF Amplifier) and using it in conjunction with the Amp that came with the antenna possibly help? Is using mutiple signal boosters going to be harmful to my TV?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!!

The answer is NO.

Multiple signal boosters will not amplify a poor signal and make it stronger.

The right answer is that you need to get rid of the piece of junk antenna you bought and move up to a real antenna.

A channel Master CM 3020 or a Winegard 7696P antenna would be a good choice. A set of amplified over glorified rabbit ears antenna would be the poorest choice of all.

I watch WOIO and the Western Reserve Channels out of Cleveland Oh from my house - 120 miles away. So the problem is not with the stations transmitters - but with your receive antenna.

Like I just wrote in my previous post, use the right tool for the right job. Don't use a rake or a hoe to try and dig a ditch. Use a spade shovel with a long handle.

Mount your antenna high up on the roof and use a antenna rotor to position your antenna to receive as many channels as possible.

If I can watch WBOY out of Akron with a Winegard 8200U antenna and Channel Master 7777 pre amp, then you should be able to receive WKBN out of Youngstown with little to no difficulty with the antenna's I just recommended.

To ripthesystem,

To start out, the advice of JBantennaman is, IMHO, exactly correct. Your weakest point is in using a too small antenna of the indoor type,
that has too small of a signal collection area to have any signal to amplify. Or to put it a different way, there are a large number of different ways to improve your signal quality, and amplification is only one of those ways.

And for a newbie, its quite understandable that the entire subject of getting a good TV signal can be a complex and daunting subject. And its maybe better to approach the learning curve subject with the best sound tool on the planet, namely an exact address TVFool report.

And then you can turn the question around, and ask the right question, namely this is where I live, now what can I do to get a reasonable subset of the all the potential channels reliably? And as a general rule of thumb, throwing a lot of money at the problem and using every way possible to improve signal(s) is the way to get all potential stations to come in. From a more practical standpoint, using every fairly cheap way to improve signal may not get you everything possible, but the wisdom is knowing where the point of diminishing returns is.

So I enclose a generic address TVfool report for Akron, not as good as an exact address report, to give you some ideas.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d507cfdbfa4087b

And to just concentrate on your desired station, WOIO, you can see
that it comes in at a very strong 45 NM(dB). Which is where your indoor antenna craps out. ( Basically showing how inadequate an indoor antenna is at your location. ) Now look at all those stations below it, with something like a winegard 7696P, you should easily pick up stations down to 5-10 NM(dB). You may need a multiple antenna set up or an antenna rotator because of the variety of different headings, but you should be able to do much better than you now are
without spending much money.

But remember one thing, if you go a roof mounted system with a real
antenna, you are going to have to ground the antenna. Its not an expensive step, but for safety its imperative.

So please, ripthesystem, post an exact address TVFool report, and then this forum can help you put together the best possible advice
for getting the most channels for minimum dollars. My guess is that you may be able to get away with one good combo VHF/UHF antenna, a fairly short mast, a not too strong preamp, and do much much better than you are doing now. If you are willing to spend more money, you can do better by adding a multiple antenna set up or an antenna rotator. And if you can do the work yourself, you can save big bucks. And even better, you can start with a cheaper set up and upgrade later if you want more. As for the minimum bucks you spent on the indoor antenna, that will probably be wasted money.

Hello ripthesystem and welcome to the forum!
#1. WOIO CBS is transmitting on real RF ch 10 - a VHF frequency. Obviously your Phillips is a UHF design and falls down hard at the lower freq's...

I pretty much also agree with what's been said, but with a small twist...

Think of it this way; An amp will improve signal quantity but a better antenna will improve signal quality. IOW, if your antenna is lame and is receiving the signal marginally an amp will just magnify the garbage - not really much help.

If it were me I'd bring that Phillips back (to Wal-Mart?) and follow the advice and get a real outdoor antenna.

Where the twist comes in is if your exact address tvfool report looks like what NMT posted, and all you want are the stations in the green, I would think you could get away with less than a 7696: at only ~20 mi with LOS (Line Of Sight) you would need a 7694 at most, and can save yourself a few bucks.

To shoot out a couple of smaller possibilities, you could also probably get by with a EZ-HD from Denny's:
http://www.dennysantennaservice.com/ez_hd_tv_Antenna.html
or something similar. Or a DIY Bowtie antenna would also serve you well, if done right - read: an mclapp design. If you don't want to be bothered building one yourself, what looks like a well built outdoor version is avail here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Tune-A-Tenna-UHF-VHF-HDTV-TV-Antenna-USA-Winegard_W0QQitemZ180422326736QQihZ008QQcategoryZ1 49957QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m444QQ_trkparms Zalgo%3DCRX%26its%3DC%252BS%26itu%3DSI%252BUA%252B LM%252BLA%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63

Again, this is all predicated on your exact address tvfool being similar to the generic NMT posted - You didn't read my post: http://www.highdefforum.com/local-hdtv-info-reception/102565-recommendations-when-posting-advice.html did you?:D

EDIT: The only dumb questions are those that aren't asked!;)
Multiple amps can and are used to overcome extremely long (several hundred foot) cable runs - which is the function of an amp, to overcome further losses in a system such as cable, splitters, etc...

Just to clarify for the original poster, an amplifier can only amplify the signal it receives from the antenna. This is done to make up for loss incurred during the cable run, going through splitters, etc. If you do not have enough signal at the antenna, you cannot amplify it to a great signal at your TV.

As our guy Hans puts it a few thousand times a day... what's something times nothing? That's what you get.

A better antenna is the way to go.

First off, I'm very new to this and the more I read the less informed I feel :D

That said, I'm in Akron, OH and have a Samsung HDTV and wanted to give up on paying Time Warner Cable and give having an HD antenna a try. So I bought this Philips MANT940 Indoor/Outdoor antenna and plugged it in.

After some moving it around, testing out positions in the house and hanging myself out the attic windows to check reception I decided to mount it outside my attic window on the side of the house, roughly East but facing Northish (towards Cleveland where most of the signals are ~21 mi. away). I bought some extra coax from Home Depot and ran the line down the outside of my house where it hits a wall socket and then a short length to the TV.

This is probably 25-30ft of cable total (25 from the antenna to the wall, 5 to the TV.. don't know if that's important, sry).

The antenna also came with this little "Power Infuser" that when on gives UHF amplification 18 dB. W00t! It helps a lot.

At the end of the day I'm very, very satisfied as I have every channel I wanted... Except for one - CBS, WOIO 19.1 out of Cleveland. It is completely unwatchable. On clear nights with no clouds I can sometimes manage but it usually stutters out or gives me lots of audio breakup/pauses.

Now, I get everything else I want and I *could* live without this but it's annoying and I'd like to have it. I guess in the end, here is my question:

Would buying another signal booster (like the Motorola Signal Booster 484095-001-00 Bi-Directional RF Amplifier) and using it in conjunction with the Amp that came with the antenna possibly help? Is using mutiple signal boosters going to be harmful to my TV?

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!!

No, another amplifier will not help. It would be best if you would post a TV Fool report (http://www.tvfool.com). Enter you exact address and proposed antenna height at TV Fool. Your address will not be shown publicly. Because you have fewer than five posts, copy and paste everything that comes after the TV Fool URL, and one of us will be able to turn it into a clickable link. Are you interested in receiving out of market stations from Youngstown or just Akron/Cleveland area stations?

The answer is NO.

Multiple signal boosters will not amplify a poor signal and make it stronger.

The right answer is that you need to get rid of the piece of junk antenna you bought and move up to a real antenna.

A channel Master CM 3020 or a Winegard 7696P antenna would be a good choice. A set of amplified over glorified rabbit ears antenna would be the poorest choice of all.

I watch WOIO and the Western Reserve Channels out of Cleveland Oh from my house - 120 miles away. So the problem is not with the stations transmitters - but with your receive antenna.

Like I just wrote in my previous post, use the right tool for the right job. Don't use a rake or a hoe to try and dig a ditch. Use a spade shovel with a long handle.

Mount your antenna high up on the roof and use a antenna rotor to position your antenna to receive as many channels as possible.

If I can watch WBOY out of Akron with a Winegard 8200U antenna and Channel Master 7777 pre amp, then you should be able to receive WKBN out of Youngstown with little to no difficulty with the antenna's I just recommended.

JB,

1.) WBOY is in Clarksburg, WV, not Akron.

2.) The OP may not be interested in receiving WKBN or any other out of market stations and may not be able to receive them anyway depending on where he is located in Akron.

3.) It is premature to recommend antennas until the OP posts a TV Fool report.

4.) Are you claiming that you receive WOIO 24/7 or just occasionally when atmospheric conditions are good for tropospheric ducting?

Tube 69,

With my Winegard 8200U antenna, mounted on a 12 foot high roof of a little shed in my backyard, and mounted 10 feet above the roof of the shed, on the right day or night I can pick up almost every numerical channel available from Channel 2 - KDKA Pittsburgh to 53 - which is broadcast on 43 - WPGH.

Not only can I pick up the stations, in most cases I can also pick up the translators.

When you have 48 call letters to memorize, you sometimes do make a mistake.

2 - KDKA
3 - WPSU - When I turn the antenna to the NNW - WKYC
4 - WTAE
5 - WDTV
6 - WJAC
7 - WTRF
8 - WWCP
9 - WTOV
10 - WTAJ or WOIO if the antenna is pointed to the NNW
11 - WPXI
12 - WBOY or WICU Erie,
13 - WQED

15 - WPSU
16 - WQEX
17 - WDLI
19 - WPCW or WOIO if the antenna is pointed to the NNW
20 - WFMJ
21 - WFMJ
22- WPMY
23 - WATM
24 - WATM if the antenna is pointed east or WJET Erie if the antenna is pointed North
25 - KDKA
26 - WQEX
27- WKBN / WYFX
28 - WUAB
32 - WTAJ
33 - WNPB
34 - WJAC - RTV
35 - WSSE
36 - W36BE
38 - WQED
39- WDLI
40 - WPCB
41 - WKBN
42 - WGGN
43 - WPGH and when I turn the antenna towards the NNW - WUAB
44 - W58AM - WNEO
45 - WNEO
46 - WKBS
47 - WKBS
48 - WPXI
49 - WEAO
50 - WPCB and when I turn to the NNW - WEAO
51 - WTAE
52 - WGGN
53 - WPGH

The stations do not come in on a regular basis, only when there is a high pressure system with a prevailing isobar pattern. The signals actually bends around the high pressure system and comes in from strange directions due to the fact that there is a mountain to the SW and West of my location which blocks most line of sight signals, along with a ridge directly behind my house to the south.
The good long haul stations comes in after 9 PM at night and usually lasts until about 9 AM in the morning. You can only watch so many CBS stations before you get bored.

WBOY, WKBS and WDTV are some of the hardest stations to get.

My brother lives 300 yards up the road to the north east and he can pick up most all of those channels except for the ones below 20 - due to the fact that he only has a XG 91 and CM 7777 pre amp.

But he can also pick up WBNX, WQHS, WCDN, which are non existent at my location. Some channels out of Cleveland are nothing but a weather channel or a home shopping channel and are not worth watching anyways.

If I wanted, I could sell converter boxes with all the channels scanned into the boxes, but that would take all the fun out of it.

Not all converter boxes see's the same channels, so you might have one with 43 channels programmed into it and another with only 39 or 40 channels and another one with 49 - 52 channels - go figure.

Some converter boxes will remember multiple channels on the same channel while other boxes will delete one station to remember another.

The hard part is disconnecting one to scan another. I had one totally loaded one night and hit the button to do a scan and another box didn't have a antenna connected to it and I lost everything in the memory when I unplugged it and then plugged it back in again because it did a total rescan when it was only supposed to scan for more stations. It took me about 2 months to get them all scanned again.

A better antenna is undoubtedly the way to go: If you are in Akron, and have trouble with WOIO, then your antenna is not capable of adequate VHF reception, since WOIO operates on channel 10. Consider a VHF-high-band plus UHF antenna like a Winegard HD-7696P aimed at the Parma antenna park, and you should be just fine. If you want Youngstown, as well, consider adding an antenna rotator.