Hello All,

My HTPC project is still underway on all fronts. On the antenna front, I discovered I was able to receive a free antenna from my local tv station and was surprised to see that they sent me the Channel Master 4228 and provided the CM 0068 pre-amp also. I currently have everything temporarily mounted on a pole that is bolted to an old basketball goal that I had in the backyard (I knew there was a reason for not getting rid of it at the time ;)
The plan is to hire someone to come out and install it on the 2nd story roof (as long as it doesn't cost an arm and a leg).

With the temp set-up, I'm getting signal strength in the high 80's for most of my stations (although a few still want to hang out in the 60's such as NBC and CW). With the goal of getting the best signal, should I replace the CM 0068 pre-amp with the 7777 that folks seem to highly recommend? Looking at the chart on solid signal, it appears that I would be getting a 3db UHF gain and a .2 UHF reduction in noise with the 7777 but wonder if such a small gain is worth the $60 investment. Overall, I think once the antenna finds its permanent home on the roof, I'll get better signals across the board (and hopefully not worry about wind causing it to flake out like it did this evening). However, I wanted to see what the consensus of the group was before meeting with any installers.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

Have a great day!

chris

need zipcode to get a feel for why signal is in your reported range first. or post tv fool results of your exact address

I know it's been a while since anyone has replied to this thread. FYI- I just replaced my 0068dsb with the CM 7777. There was no improvement in the signal strength. I will have to say I like the outdoor housing on the 7777 over the 0068, but that's about it. Save your money, the 0068 works fine!

I know it's been a while since anyone has replied to this thread. FYI- I just replaced my 0068dsb with the CM 7777. There was no improvement in the signal strength. I will have to say I like the outdoor housing on the 7777 over the 0068, but that's about it. Save your money, the 0068 works fine!

I actually found the same, the noise figure on the 0068 must be about the same as the 7777. I expected a huge improvement, as most modern gear has gotten huge gains in the areas of noise figures and raw gain. But CM clearly have been good for a long time.

I will have to take back some of what I said. There is no visual difference especially with digital. The signal meter on my RCA digital receiver didn't change much except for channel 51 which maps to 50. There is improvement on that channel. When I hooked my FSM meter up and recorded the readings, I did have an 3 to 8db gain over the 0068dsb. One thing that has made me glad I did the upgrade is it improved my FM radio reception. I flipped the FM trap out and now I can enjoy good, crisp, clear FM radio even off my CM 4228 antenna!:)