I have digital cable from Charter. In my living room I have a Tivo HD (with cable cards), a standard Tivo, the TV, and cable modem. the cable company installed a splitter from the wall to the modem and the video signal. I connected the video signal to a Channel Master 3044, and sent the output to the TivoHD, regular Tivo, and the TV. Everything worked fine and signal was good for several months. Recently, the signal quality dropped drastically (grainy picture quality on the analog channels and no reception of some of the digital movie channels through the cable cards). If I removed the amp from the mix and plugged any video component directly to the cable company's splitter, signal was good again. I decided that my amp had gone out. I purchased a new one (same Channel Master 3044). When I connected it to the system, the signal quality is bad, the same as with the old amp. Any ideas?

Call Charter to test signal levels from the street/ped to the 1st drop in your home and connectors.

The problem could be outside of your home.

If I removed the amp from the mix and plugged any video component directly to the cable company's splitter, signal was good again. I decided that my amp had gone out. I purchased a new one (same Channel Master 3044). When I connected it to the system, the signal quality is bad, the same as with the old amp. Any ideas?

Why do you need the amp inline?

If the amp has passive return and isn't outrageously high, move it before your data/video splitter, see if that helps.

I took off the splitter and put the amp between the wall and electronics. Still was grainy. I unplugged the amp and the picture got less grainy, but still bad. Could the signal level from outside have been increased, so maybe the amp is giving it too much? This is really confusing now. I have tried multiple cables, and ruled out a bad connection. Any other suggestions?

The Frequency Range is 50-900 MHz
Not high enough for Digital signals

so what do I need? This amp worked fine for 5 months, then stopped. Is there another one I can try? Could this be a Charter issue? Even if I'm splitting the signal from the wall to feed four inputs, could I call them out to fix it, or would they try to charge me?

The Freq. Range of that amp is probably fine (though not for modem - not reverse capable), but as RCbridge asked: Do you really need it?

Shot in the dark, but are you sure the input cable is on the right port? It sounds like it may be on one of the output ports, and port-to-port isolation is where you're losing all your signal. It would be about the same whether the amp is powered or not.

... also, it is possible the cableco may have increased the levels and the amp is overdriving the signal. You can always go to Radioshack and get a bi-directional 4-way (passive) splitter to try out. If it doesn't work, it's easily returnable.

As with poor signal quality or strength too strong of a signal can cause same reception issues.

Just have a charter tech come out and adjust your signal.

so what do I need? This amp worked fine for 5 months, then stopped. Is there another one I can try? Could this be a Charter issue? Even if I'm splitting the signal from the wall to feed four inputs, could I call them out to fix it, or would they try to charge me?

They're going to charge you if it's your problem.

In other words, if your amp is the problem, or if more splits is causing the problem, then you might be on the hook for the fix.

It's not against the law, afaik, to put more splits inside your house from one service drop, but if you did it, and it causes a problem, then it's probably on your dime to fix it.

My advice is to try it all connected without the amp and see what happens. Cable usually provides enough signal for the number of splits you have without an amp.

Generally, you would put a two-way splitter right off the wall. Then feed one leg of the two-way to the cable modem. The second leg feeds the splitter for your video devices.

Make sure the splitters are rated to at least 1GHz (1000MHz) and that you are using RG-6 cables for all your runs. If you see the "cable guy" around and ask nice, he/she may just give you the splitters and make up some cables for you at no cost.

If it still doesn't work, then I'd call the cable co.

so what do I need? This amp worked fine for 5 months, then stopped. Is there another one I can try? Could this be a Charter issue? Even if I'm splitting the signal from the wall to feed four inputs, could I call them out to fix it, or would they try to charge me?


While it seems like a good thing to have an amp on your line, it's not. Amps should only be used as a last resort when there is not enough signal to feed everything in your house. An amp should never be installed behind a tv because chances are if you need an amplifier at that point all you're doing is amplifying week signal and putting noise in your line. If your equipment works fine without it, then leave it off.

It sounds like something changed outside though and you're overpowering your tv now.