western NJ reception

[jrzy]

My zip code is 08853. Coordinates are Lat: 40.517618, Long: -74.774219. I'm in an area of mostly open farm fields. About 400ft. or so east of our house (toward NYC) there is a two-story house surrounded by trees.
Current setup (in 2nd story attic): Winegard HD8200U VHF/UHF antenna with Winegard 8700 mast mounted pre-amp and an older Radio Shack 4 way distribution amplifier. There's a 40-50ft. run of coax to two downstairs TVs, with an older Radio Shack distribution amplifier before each. On the Sony Bravia upstairs we get good, consistent reception of all the NYC stations (UHF and VHF)and subchannels (plus New Brunswick, Secaucus, Newark, and Newton, NJ) for a total of 39 channels. The NYC stations' signal strengths range from 69% for FOX to 78% for WPIX. Downstairs is the problem. There's a 5 yr.old Sanyo TV hooked up to a Zenith DTT900 converter box, and a 13 yr. old RCA TV hooked up to the same Zenith converter box. We can only get 4 channels on the downstairs TVs, all VHF(WPIX, WABC, WNET, and WNJB) with occasional signal loss. I've tried eliminating the distribution amplifiers one by one, and in each case the signal strength went down and still no UHF downstairs. Would a different antenna or preamp likely give me a stronger signal, and would that help UHF reception downstairs? Any suggestions appreciated.

[tigerbangs]

Two things occur to me: first of all, you have a distribution issue, which I am going to bet is the result of the Radio Shack distribution amp and splitters. Inconsistant reception between Tv sets in a house indicates a a distribution issue. Secondly, GET THAT HD-8200 out of the ATTIC! You have weak enough signals where you are under the best of circumstances, but moving the antenna outdoors and raising it by 20' will make a big difference in the quality of your reception. You also have the Philadelphia stations available to you if you install a rotator and turn the antenna towards Philly, almost doubling the number of stations avilable to you.

I think that you need to dump the Radio Shack amplifiers, as the noise that they generate is probably burying your weaker channels. WE might need to rethink your distribution system. If you can draw out a diagram of how things are connected now and post it or PM me with it, I can probably help you