I recently moved an now most of my stations are about 50 miles away, but my antenna is rated for that distance.  The problem that I am having is the signal strength jumps from 40% to 90% almost every second.  Does any know if an amplifier would help?  I have seen conflicting notes about amps and ATSC signals.

Thanks

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Being 50 miles away, you most likely could use a preamp. Dont buy a distribtion amp. Buy one that is meant to go up at the antenna.  A Channel Master 7777 is highly rated. 

http://www.solidsignal.com/prod_display.asp?PROD=ANC7777

The key spec being noise figure. The lower the better.

But you could also be having multipath problems. If you tune in analog stations do you see any ghosting. If so, you have multipath and a preamp isnt going to help.  You just might need to re-aim the antenna.

Also, hows your coax cable? Is it the thin RG59? If so, it has higher losses than the thicker RG6.  Replace it and it will help immensely. What shape are the connectors in? Can you grab them and pull them off by hand? If so, time to replace them with some good comression connectors. Basically, you need to whip the entire antenna system into shape to cut down on signal eating losses.

I live 70 miles away from the transmitters and I have no problem receiving ATSC.

-dickm

Thanks for the help.  I use RG6 for everything.  Also i noticed late last night just by moving the matching transformer around was making a difference, I have never heard of one to go bad, but I will replace it anyway and look at the amps.

Thanks

Edit: Turns out one cable was bad.  Thanks

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Vista Home Prem : P4 @ 3.2GHz : 3GB DDR2 : HD2600 : Auzentech X-plosion : HVR1600 : DishNetwork : OTA HD : good ole 27"CRT : DMA2200