Winegard HD-1080 with Winegard AP8700 help

[dary0362]

Hello,

I live approximately at these coordinates: 40 degrees 27 minutes 05.67 seconds N and 86 degrees 55 minutes and 28.59 seconds W, near West Lafayette, IN. I have purchased a windegard HD-1080 antenna, placed it inside on the first floor of my apartment complex, and was able to pick up stations out of Indianapolis, a distance of about +50 miles away. I have a lot of fringe stations that I can pick up some clear nights (with weak signals), so I decided to buy a pre-amplifier (Winegard AP8700)and see if I could pick up some of these fringe signals, however it doesn't appear to have any effect whatsoever. Does anybody have any suggestions for a pre-amplifier, or maybe even new antenna, that would work well for my area?

[tigerbangs]

Any amplifier can only boost what's presented to it: you are making the common mistake of thinking that an amplifier will fix weak-signal problems. It won't! Another preamplifier won't fix your problem, either. The indoor placement and the type and design of the antenna figures much more prominently on the overall scheme of things when TV reception is concerned. I know that you are in an apartment, and have limited mounting options, but you need an antenna with more gain and directionality than the HD-1080, which is a low-gain, urban-type antenna. Altitude, line-of-sight, and antenna gain are what you are looking for, otherwise, you'll be at the mercy of the weather for your reception.

[dary0362]

Right....but the coverter box I have shows that I do pick up some signal on particular channels, just not enough to make a digital picture. Also, when re-scanning the tv tuner, the program tends to hesitate on these particular channels, as though there is some signal present. These are the reasons why I purchased a pre-amplifier, however, the pre-amplifier doesn't seem to help these channels. Shouldn't a pre-amplifier work under these kind of conditions?

[tigerbangs]

No...you only need a very small amount of steady signal to see a digital TV picture. Unfortunately, you cannot amplify your way to happiness in this situation. Unless you are running more than 75' of coax cable and/or split to multiple TV sets, a preamplifier won't help you: the answer is more antenna and more altitude.

[dary0362]

Thank you for the help. Getting back to the original post: do you have a recommendation for an antenna? I understand my options are limited given my situation, however, I don't mind having a reasonably large antenna either because I do have some space inside the complex to work with.

[tigerbangs]

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