[Cialug] [OT] Digital TV

[Zachary Kotlarek]

On May 4, 2009, at 3:10 PM, <murraymckee at wellsfargo.com> <murraymckee at wellsfargo.com 
 > wrote:

> I've heard of amplified antennas but not of amps in the line from a  
> standard antenna.  Where does one look for them?  I've talked to  
> both Best Buy and Radio Shack about the problem and they suggested  
> the amplified antenna, but putting it in the living room, not in the  
> attic.  It would seem to me to make more sense to put it in the attic.


I'm not making any specific recommendation for this product, but this  
is what I'm talking about:
	http://www.amazon.com/foo/dp/B0018CDGEQ
Alternatively I've had this one recommended to me, though I've never  
personally tried it:
	http://www.amazon.com/foo/dp/B000GGKOG8

In a pre-amp you're looking for something with a noise rating as low  
as possible -- 3-4 dB is acceptable, 2 dB is very good, lower is  
better. The last one I bought was some no-name box from Menards with  
with a 2.4 dB noise rating, and it seems to work fine.

--

If you have enough signal from the antenna and are just fighting cable/ 
splitter losses you might do better with one of these:
	http://www.amazon.com/foo/dp/B001PI09SE/

If you're not sure which problem you have you might check to see if  
you can get decent reception with a short, non-split cable running  
directly from the antenna to a TV. I know that's not trivial with an  
attic antenna, but it's worth checking if you can.

--

For both amp type it's worth considering how they are powered -- it  
can be a real pain to find an outlet for a wall-wart in the attic, so  
many but not all amps provide the option to inject power via coax,  
allowing you to put the power brick someplace else. If you don't have  
ready access to AC power in your attic I'd be sure to check for such a  
system.

	Zach

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2746 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://cialug.org/pipermail/cialug/attachments/20090504/fd5ebf49/attachment.bin