2 way TV signal booster

[DIYspanner]

Recently got a 2nd hand booster to supply a couple of TVs yet when plugged into one TV with around 50% signal and 100% quality on its own without the booster, the booster is reducing the signal quality to around 60%. The led lights on the booster so I presume there's no issue with power.

Is that the norm for a booster of this type or is it merely faulty? ...... I'd presumed a signal booster would provide near 100% for both signal and quality.

 

[ETAF]

what issues are you having, i would have thought with 100% quality , even though the signal strength is down - should get an ok picture ?

is it just to be able to connect up 2 TV's to the 1 aerial

 

[DIYspanner]

Although the Freeview website quotes 'Signal strength: Good' for all channels and both TVs are Freeview enabled, the booster does not perform as well as I expected.

Aerail lead plugged into the booster and the two cables out to the TVs. I do however have suspicion that some older cable already in the wall down to the ground floor is not the best. Its not screened. The cable I've used to the other TV is WF100.

 

[ETAF]

i used that cable when i redid all the rooms , and had an amp - 8 way in loft
but you still get 100% quality , with just the cable, on both the TVs -
are you daisy chaining through PVR or something else ? -
is it an outside aerial - has it moved at all ?

i'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along -

 

[DIYspanner]

In my opinion the booster is faulty. For the price of a new booster, I can get another log periodic aerial provided its at least 0.6m from the other.

The cable runs layout in my fine art below,

 

[Rodders53]

Those aerial distribution amp's are probably among the worst made.

Screened by aluminium sputtered on the plastic case. Cheap components, so the smoothing caps fail = hum = extra noise = signal becomes rubbish, despite the red light being on. They also amplify 21 (470 MHz) to 68 (860 MHz) inclusive when we need to filter off 49 and above nowadays to reject mobile phone interference adding noise.)

ATV aerials recommends getting rid of unscreened wallplates and using f-plug cable joiners. He also favours Blake/Proception amplifiers with proper metal screened insides.

Freeview prediction tool is mainly about interference from other transmitters... What is the postcode? Wolfbane's DTT tool guesstimates the signal (field) strength albeit now a bit out of date with transmit frequencies... and an insecure web server... http://www.wolfbane.net/

NB too much signal from over amplification can look like too little with poor quality and signal breakup.

 

[DIYspanner]

Regarding the wall plates, I use inline f-plug connectors fixed into blanking plates with hole drilled for the connector.

Will bin the above mentioned booster!

 

[flameport]

with around 50% signal and 100% quality

50% is marginal at best.

Amplifiers amplify everything, including noise and interference. Some introduce noise of their own.

The quality rating from TVs is often misleading, as it's probably after error correction, which inevitably will be good if the error correction is working.

 

[Lucid]

50% is marginal at best.

Amplifiers amplify everything, including noise and interference. Some introduce noise of their own.

The quality rating from TVs is often misleading, as it's probably after error correction, which inevitably will be good if the error correction is working.

Good info here. I would expect all powered splitter/boosters to add noise. This makes the signal to noise ratio worse, and it's why the quality (a sort of measure of SNR) gets worse after the booster, not better.

The general principle is to amplify near the aerial, and then passive split closer to the TVs.