Gizmo100
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2018
- Posts
- 3,064
We're visiting the MIL in Arkansas this week and one of my projects was to get the outside over the air antenna working right again.
She had recently had a 4 day power outage caused by a thunderstorm. It appears that she had a power surge when the power went out. When the power was restored the TV worked but she couldn't get any stations to come in.
A little history she was using a indoor digital antenna and pulling in about 6 channels. We upgraded her to an outdoor antenna with a signal booster. In return for our troubles we were able to pull in 42 channels. Alas I was her favorite SIL....
The first thing I did was checked the signal amplifier power supply and it was DOA. I replaced it and it lite up. I re-scanned for channels and we got 16 of the channels back. Then I went and checked the antenna and it had got turned 45 degrees. I fixed that and re-scanned and got us up to 34 channels. The only problem was the CBS station and it's sub channels would not come in. These are our favorites so my mission was not finished.
My first thought was maybe the antenna was being block by the growth of trees so maybe we need to get it up in the air. It's only about 6 feet in the air. So I raised it by 10 feet and nothing. So I then raised it by 20 feet and also tried moving it to different spots trying to get a better line of sight and nothing.
It was then that the MIL said well I don't understand why they don't come in they were working just fine until the storm. This changes everything. I removed the amplifier and re-scanned the channels and what do you know we have our CBS channels. We lost a couple of the other channels but I think they were shopping channels so No loss. I reinstalled the antenna to it's original location. And all is good in the MIL's house
End of story The amp was blocking the higher VHF channels from working but letting everything else worked. What threw me was channels 2 - 7 worked but channels 11.1 - 11.4 would not come in.
We are up to 39 channels and I'm still the favorite SIL
So for those of us that have signal amps on our RV's this is something that may be worth knowing. On our TT I'm not sure where the amp is located but I think it's built into the antenna and not by-passable.
She had recently had a 4 day power outage caused by a thunderstorm. It appears that she had a power surge when the power went out. When the power was restored the TV worked but she couldn't get any stations to come in.
A little history she was using a indoor digital antenna and pulling in about 6 channels. We upgraded her to an outdoor antenna with a signal booster. In return for our troubles we were able to pull in 42 channels. Alas I was her favorite SIL....
The first thing I did was checked the signal amplifier power supply and it was DOA. I replaced it and it lite up. I re-scanned for channels and we got 16 of the channels back. Then I went and checked the antenna and it had got turned 45 degrees. I fixed that and re-scanned and got us up to 34 channels. The only problem was the CBS station and it's sub channels would not come in. These are our favorites so my mission was not finished.
My first thought was maybe the antenna was being block by the growth of trees so maybe we need to get it up in the air. It's only about 6 feet in the air. So I raised it by 10 feet and nothing. So I then raised it by 20 feet and also tried moving it to different spots trying to get a better line of sight and nothing.
It was then that the MIL said well I don't understand why they don't come in they were working just fine until the storm. This changes everything. I removed the amplifier and re-scanned the channels and what do you know we have our CBS channels. We lost a couple of the other channels but I think they were shopping channels so No loss. I reinstalled the antenna to it's original location. And all is good in the MIL's house
End of story The amp was blocking the higher VHF channels from working but letting everything else worked. What threw me was channels 2 - 7 worked but channels 11.1 - 11.4 would not come in.
We are up to 39 channels and I'm still the favorite SIL
So for those of us that have signal amps on our RV's this is something that may be worth knowing. On our TT I'm not sure where the amp is located but I think it's built into the antenna and not by-passable.