Hello all,

I live in Maynard, MA, 17 miles from the antenna farm for most boston stations. I have a Sony 30" 955xs with an OTA tuner built in. I put a Channel Master 4221 antenna in my attic - now reception usually is OK, but I get some inconsistent reception for several channels (56.2, 68.2) frequently. Sometimes some of the other channels cut in and out. No big buildings nearby, but some trees. Weather (snow, rain windy with trees moving) does make the signal cut out more.

I have a 50 foot coax running to the attic, of which I already had to cut off the molded end in order to snake it through my walls.

I have a small amplifier (if you could even call it that) that I took off of my set-top Terk antenna which doesn't seem to make much of a difference, but I leave it on anyway.

The TV diagnostics often seem to skip in signal strength, i.e. one second 72 and reception, the other second 49 and no reception.

My questions are -
1) Should I buy a Channel Master 7777 preamp? Will this solve my problem?
2) Should I pull all the slack out of the coax cable and cut it off (probably at least 15 feet?)
3) Or should I use the slack to move the antenna around to different parts of the attic in hopes of getting better reception?
4) Does the antenna care how close it is to the outside wall of the house ? (wood construction, only nails for interference).
5) I strung the antenna up to nails driven in the rafter using wire - should I consider another method?

Any replies greatly appreciated

Ben

It sounds like your problem is multipath rather than actual signal strength. You might try moving the antenna to a different spot in the attic, or switching to a more directional antenna.

The Terk amp is probably not helping and should be removed.

If your wire is attached to the center support for the antenna and doesn't extend to between the reflector and the bowties, it should be OK. If it does extend to the front of the antenna, you should change it.

Try tuning into some analog UHF stations, if you see ghosting, most likely multipath is a problem.

Putting the antenna outside would be the best thing to do, if that isn't an option, try moving it around in the attic as suggested.

Thanks for your help - any way to get rid of multipath other than moving the antenna? I thought that the 4221 was good at rejecting multipath.

With the antenna being in the attic, you could be getting reflections from inside the house, you need to try moving it around or move it outside and see how it performs.

attic installs can be a challenge for some.

-follow the suggestions already mentioned..aim, position, etc
-cutting the cable 15 ft will not have much affect on your situation
-cm7777 preamp is not suggested at 17 miles from towers and may make matters worse -winegard hdp269 preamp would be better.
-amplification alone may not help.
-bowties tame multipath poorly. you may need more antenna gain.would not use a bigger bowtie if you get to that point but a fifferent style of antenna. 43xg, rs u75r comes to mild,