I have a new digital television and a new outdoor antennae, but still cant get digital broadcasts.?

Question

My T.V. is a new digital television and my antennae is a large directional antennae . It worked o.k. for analogue before. I bought a motorola signal amplifier and it would not work for the t.v.: . The tech. guy says that it's a different frequency. My question is , is there a digital signal booster that can go from the antennae to the t.v. and not to a converter box or dvd player.
I would appreciate any help guys.
thanks
p.s. i live about 35 miles from chicago if this helps.

Answer 1

You will need an RF amplifier. There is nothing different about the RF carriers used to send digital signals in the Chicago area. In fact, you will find that channels 2 and 7 are still in the VHF bands. Often times products labeled for HDTV (like antenna) are restricted to the UHF bands only. Purchasing these products can result in the loss of the above channels but will allow you to pick-up the remaining digital channels in our area.



So there are a couple of obvious things to look at. Is your RF amplifier plugged into a power source? Is it turned on? Do you have it installed at or very near the antenna? Do you have the antenna's coax plugged into the input or antenna connector on the amplifier? Is the coax to the TV plugged into the output/TV connector? Have you selected air or antenna in your setup menu on your TV? Did your amplifier help with the reception of the analog channels? It should have if its working right. Maybe you just have a defective amplifier. RF amplifiers can be purchased with various levels of amplification. I use an RF amp with 15 dB of gain and I live 44 miles from the signal sources in Chicago. I have no problems with digital channel reception.

Answer 2

You'll only receive the digital stations, not the analog, and you're apparently not close enough to any digital transmitters/towers (35 miles is probably too far). You really don't need a super antenna - my cheapest junk (UHF) works just as well for getting anything digital in my area.

Answer 3

That's very surprising. I'm 65 miles from Sacramento and I get all the major network stations with a medium size antenna. I found that the new digital tuners are far superior to the older analog tuners. Are you sure that you're plugged into the ATSC connection on your TV?

Answer 4

There are 2 things to verify....first that you have your antenna wire connected to the PROPER UHF or VHF or DIGITAL input on the back of your TV set...



If you don't know, consult the instruction manual for Digital Reception....



THEN...Autoprogram it to lock in all your TV stations/channels

Answer 5

Yes and no. The new scheme will use the UHF frequencies. Most current antennas are optimized for the lower VHF frequencies (channels 2 through 13). His current antenna may or may not be good enough.

Answer 6

When everything is connected did you do a channels scan. Once you do that you should pick digital channels.