DB Loss by Splitters is Teh Suck.

[sscutchen]

I've got two LCD HD Samsungs on SciAtl 8300HD DVR boxes. And I'm losing signal on some channels.

So I messed around with my various cable wiring in the house today. I put good compression Type F fittings on the RG6U where I had cheap connections. Made sure everything is tight. But what it comes down to is that I've just got a lot of drops and thus a lot of in-line loss.

So I'm having to invest in an amplifier.

Will end up with a two way splitter feeding the cable/VOIP modem and the 15db amp

The amp then feeding a 6 way splitter, 2 drops of which go to the Sammy/SciAtl drops.

And each LCD drop then has a two way splitter to feed the 8300HDs and the TV tuners independently.

Doing this without the amp results in about a 17 db loss to the TVs and 8300s.... something like 2% of original signal strength. The Samsung tuners seem to do OK with this. But the 8300HDs are dropping out. Simply taking the TV off the circuit and recovering the 3.5 db from that last splitter is good enough to get the 8300HDs working OK. But that's a crappy solution, and it also tells me I'm on the edge of signal strength for the 8300HDs.

The 15db amp will compensate for most of the splitter loss, leaving me with maybe more than 50% of original signal strength.

[cbelt3]

Sounds like your incoming is at the low end of spec for your provider. Not atypical, of course, but it happens.

[volcs0]

Similar situation here - multiple splits. The amplifier made a big difference for us.

[vision63]

QZ Loss by Splatters is Teh Suck. (discuss)

[N-OS X-tasy!]

Yeah, I thought this thread was going to be an album review.

[incognegro]

another case where analog > digital

[testcase]

Make sure the amplifier you use works across the frequency range you're receiving. Several years ago, a Cablevision tech pointed out the old amp I was using wouldn't handle the service (I think it was 2GHz) that they'd be using soon.

[Dick Moore]

Also be sure that any unused outputs on all splitters are terminated with 75 ohm terminations. High SWR from unterm'd connections can be a signal killer.

Also note that some splitters intentionally have more thru-put signal loss as a byproduct of not allowing reflected crap back up the line.

Make sure all your splitters are rated for the bandwidth, as mentioned above, and make sure they are the lowest loss possible. The amp should go into the line at the earliest point possible so that it has enough signal to work with to preserve best signal-to-noise performance.