Reddit reviews RCA TVPRAMP12E Digital Signal Preamplifier for Outdoor Antennas

Check TV Fool to see where you should point your antenna. An antenna booster (for indoor or outdoor) might also help.

I live 11 miles outside of Nashville, and had problems picking up anything besides NBC and PBS with a set-top antenna. Upgraded to a setup like you are looking at; outdoor antenna that fit in my attic ( http://amzn.com/B0024R4B5C ) and added a preamp ( http://amzn.com/B003P92D9Y )

I pointed it towards the ABC/CBS/FOX towers and crossed my fingers. Fortunately, I was picking up all the major networks, PBS, and a bunch of independent stations. somewhere around 45 stations/substations total. Works great, couldn't be happier.

The problem you may is that the broadcast towers are on the far side of Nashville from you. You may have to go with a large outdoor pole-mounted antenna to pick up anything.

Not sure if my setup is good enough to work in Murfreesboro. You could order it from amazon, hook it up without mounting anything to test it, and if it doesn't work, return to amazon.

If you're getting a usable signal at the antenna itself (with a short cable to a TV), but you lose the signal after a splitter or long cable run, you should purchase a preamplifier. This gets mounted ON the antenna, and is powered over the TV cable itself, and amplifies the signal where it is usable, to account for the long cable run and splitters.

Every time you split the signal, the signal strength plummets. A simple two-way splitter gives each output a little less than half of the incoming signal. This is OK if you've got sufficient signal strength, but it's important to do this properly.

Amplifiers are not magic. They can't take an unusable signal and make it usable. In other words, if you put an amplifier at the end of the 150 ft of cable, where the signal isn't usable, it's not going to help. The signal is already degraded. You need to amplify before this, where the signal is good.

And YES, you can have too strong of a signal, and the effects are as bad as too weak of a signal.

Start with that. If you live in Menards territory, you can find the RCA preamplifier there for around $20.

Exchange the preamp.

Preamps can be DOA fairly easily. It's worth another shot.

Example of DOA units from amazon revievs:

https://www.amazon.com/Channel-Master-CM-7778-Medium-Gain-Preamplifier/product-reviews/B0013CGNGY/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_search_rgt?filterByKeyword=DOA&search-alias=community-reviews

Another thing to keep in mind is that your preamp, which is fairly high power, may overpower your HDHomeRun tuner. People who live in an area with good quality signal should generally use a lower-gain preamp, like the RCA Preamp.

RCA TVPRAMP1R

Excellent choice for the price. If you don't trust RCA then get a ChannelMaster for $50 more.

As long as you don't live in an apartment, the antenna thing is super easy- just buy an antenna, preamp, and a long-enough coax cable. Then stick the antenna somewhere in the attic pointing in the direction of the right towers, have your TV automatically search, and it pays itself off with the first month's of savings. It seems like it might be a project, but it really isn't.

I have an outdoor antenna that I mounted to an old DirecTV dish and I get a lot of channels

highlights: local channels in clear HD, plus stations from Toledo, Jackson, Lansing. 56-1, 56-2, 56-3 are PBS stations. in total I have ~20 stations that are worth watching, with a handful of others that I've removed from the channel list (QVC, Religious channels, etc)

these past couple weeks there have been different NFL games on CBS Toledo and CBS Detroit so it was nice to be able to jump back and forth (11-1 & 62-1)

I use this antenna and this preamp

I'll probably mess with it more come Spring, a better preamp closer to the antenna MIGHT allow me to get CBC which would be awesome

I would agree.. ION is the only network that is out of that 300deg magnetic group that you will want to get but it is pushing a lot of signal your way so get a 4v and point it towards your primary group and you should get all of them.. however when your signals get below 35nmdb you are at the point where an amplifier will help so if you don't get the

The Platinum series antenna is much less than the 4v and would work fine for you but it is larger the 4v is pretty small about 2.5 feet x 3 feet if you need small and less obvious for your setting

get the platinum and get a RCA amp used from amazon for $15

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B003P92D9Y/ref=sr_1_1_olp?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1474256666&sr=1-1&keywords=rca+preamp&condition=used

you should do fine.. or as good as can be expected

> OTA only breaks up when people fail to invest the minicscule time and effort into obtaining and arranging a proper antenna.

You are lying your ass off. I had a very good antenna and the rca booster everyone recommends.

Sports and prime time were still attrocious. Not one channel really played without breaking up. I aligned the thing with a compass exactly to the degrees antennaweb said.

Fox and cbs transmitters are 2mi, and it still sucked once the quality was turned up for hd broadcasts. NBC is 5 mi and the rest are like 6-8mi.

Antennaweb labels them all yellow for class of antenna.

I am going to say that the city I am in broadcasts with too low of power.

this

I live in Simpsonville, and have used a Clearstream C5 (Walmart Link) for the past couple years . Previous house, installed in attic, ABC was hit or miss (mostly 'miss) but everything else came in great.

We recently moved 1/2 mile away, but in the general direction of Asheville, and ABC...56.8 miles away, according to tvfool.com, and ABC comes in pretty damn well. Still installed in the attic, about the same overall height above grade (~25') - at the front anyway. Our new yard slopes towards the rear, and we have a walk-out bsmt...so it's an additional 12' or so above grade at the rear - not sure if that's also helping

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edit: Using an RCA pre-amp which makes a HELLUVA difference, too. ABC, and some others, don't work at all without it. link

Yeah, I think you're over-complicating things. Just get a decent outdoor antenna. Unhook the cable from the dish. Take the dish off the mast. Mount the antenna to the mast. Hook cable up to the antenna. Enjoy your OTA tv.

If you need to amplify it like you said in your title, get one of these

Use this site to determine your needs. http://www.tvfool.com/

I get my antennas from parts-express, check the clearance items for good deals.

This is a good preamp for the money if needed. https://smile.amazon.com/RCA-TVPRAMP1Z-Preamplifier-Outdoor-Antenna/dp/B003P92D9Y

Yes, you will get more channels outside. I bought this one with the preamp. The mast looks like a dish mast. I mounted my on the side of my garage. With my old setup inside I got two channels. I now get six channels. With a bit more height I could most likely get the other channel that I am missing.

I used one of the coax cables from my sat dish that is near my new antenna to get the signal to my TV.

I went with the EASDTV2BUHF and RCA TVPRAMP1R Preamplifier. Stuck the antenna in the attic (insulation is below the antenna, only wood and shingles between it and towers) and the preamp downstairs at the end of the line connected directly to the antenna and it works great for me! Only downside is it's UHF only, but that's the majority of the channels anyways. Dual band antennas typically do two frequency ranges not as well as a single band antenna.

Two mast-mounted pre-amps come to mind for me:

• ClearStream Juice: Per testing done by enthusiasts on another forum site, it has the best results for avoiding overloading when some signals come in stronger than others. https://www.antennasdirect.com/juice.html
  
• RCA Preamp: These have a great price point for trying, and I've been running one for 1 1/2 years. Others have reported quality problems and short lifespans (a couple of years). One nice feature that I'm liking is that with the separate VHF and UHF inputs, one can use different antennas. Both the antennas you mention are weak for VHF (the 4max has the single dipole, but that still might not be enough for your situation). Adding a small Yagi attached the VHF jack and pointed due south (depending upon your hill), and having the 4max pointed more SE going into the UHF terminal might do the trick. https://www.amazon.com/RCA-TVPRAMP1Z-Preamplifier-Outdoor-Antenna/dp/B003P92D9Y
  
  Here's another wild thought--Is there anything that might be running at those times that could be causing the interference? Like perhaps a yard or porch light that comes on at dusk? Especially if it's near the coax.
  
  Good luck! Cheers, Statmanmi

This is the preamp, RCA TVPRAMP1R

Feed the two coax lengths from the UHF combiner and the VHF retrofit kit into a preamp base like the RCA Preamp (it has separate coaxial inputs for VHF and UHF).

The preamp locks in the signal at the antenna so that far less is lost in the coaxial runs to your televisions and other tuners.

Change the splitter (which can go bad over time). You can try something basic at first from Home Depot or Lowe's or Target or somewhere similar.

The preamp system has a power injector that feeds electricity up the line to the preamp base. You can place that behind your HDHomeRun or behind your entertainment center, just before your TV or tuner box.

Can confirm that the ClearStream 4 is as good as it gets for an indoor antenna. But, you might want a pre-amp also. Here's what you need:

https://smile.amazon.com/ClearStream-Indoor-Outdoor-HDTV-Antenna/dp/B001BRXW74?sa-no-redirect=1

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P92D9Y/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The amp helps you pick up a few extra channels, as it does for me in a rural area. You can get some coax and jack into your existing cable system if you want to, or re-wire as you see fit.

I have not installed an outdoor antenna yet but plan to in the near future. The two amps I’m looking at are the RCA and Windguard. They seem to get great review. I plan to go with one of the two.

Winegard LNA-200 Boost XT HDTV Preamplifier, TV Antenna Amplifier Signal Booster, HD Digital VHF UHF Amplifier https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DQN3R9O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uifrDbZRKT87J

RCA TVPRAMP1Z Preamplifier for Outdoor Antenna https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P92D9Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_CkfrDbTS5QNPV

Thanks. I was looking at this preamp, but it looks like which is to be located right beside the antenna in the attic. It looks like the power should go directly into it, the line from the antenna goes into it, and then I have 1 line out to the cable box. Can't figure out how I would get the amp in the attic, but power it at the side of the house.

Sorry for the dumb questions.

http://www.amazon.com/RCA-TVPRAMP1R-Outdoor-Antenna-Preamplifier/dp/B003P92D9Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371660282&sr=8-1&keywords=rca+preamp

This is what you need

I was in the exact same boat as you trying to get VHF signals from a big-box-store antenna. I now use the ClearStream 2V mounted on my roof with an RCA Preamp and I receive all my local channels no matter what the spectrum without any glitches or pixelation.

Watching on tv requires me to deal with an antenna and the quality is poor. 1080i sucks.

You have to deal with the random pixelation from a bad signal, so it is not any better than your average internet stream. This my antenna with this booster pointed in the correct direction for the channel according to antenna web. Still sucks. First floor, so I would have to mount it up on the roof or in the attic to maybe get it working better. Right now it is on this kind of pole and I used it just for football. All that work for nothing really. It definitely has a better signal, but still enough random problems to make it annoying. I live on the outskirts of downtown of a major city, there is no valid reason it should be this hard to get a tv signal.

It also restricts me to games broadcast locally, which aren't usually the games I want to watch and doesn't let me easily switch between games. With streaming, I just have multiple streams open and just switch which one is non-muted and full screen.

I was thinking about getting the nfl sunday ticket, but then found out it only allows a single stream at a time. So I still use free online streams.