twikoff

i thought i had started a similar thread before.. and was going to bump it with my current frustration.. but couldnt find it.. so Ill start a new one..

first.. Ill run through my cable setup:
1 line coming to the house from the road.. that is split into 3 at the box.. 1 going directly to my computer.. 1 going directly to the digital cable tv box on the main tv.. and 1 going into the attic... The one in the attic has a 3 was splitter on it..
that splitter breaks off to 2 tvs without cable boxes, and 1 with a digital cable box..

the cable modem/internet speed is great.. no complaints there

we use to have trouble picking up on demand on either digital box.. and some of the digital channels had issues.. they came out and bumped my signal up the road, which fixed all our digital channels, and fixed the problem with the OD channels on the main tv.

But i still cant get the OD channels on the tv in my room.. (the one coming from the attic, going to a digital box)..
I have a cable amplifier that was left here from the previous owners.. so I put that in line.. I couldnt decide the best place to put it though..

right now.. I have it between the wall coming into my bedroom.. and the digital cable box.. but still no OD channels..

Ive swapped boxes.. and whichever box is down stairs, picks up OD.. so its not the box.. gotta be the signal.

my question... does it do any good to put the Amp on the line after 2 splitters (1 at the box and 1 in the attic).. or does it need to be further back down the line? Once you lose the signal, does it do any good to boost it back up... or is the point to boost the signal high enough early on, that it can afford to lose some down the line?

I dont want to waste the amp by putting it further down the line.. if its going to give less gain to the tv in my room..

belboz

Not my area of expertise, but I recall a couple things my friend mentioned as he was wiring up his house that may be applicable to your case. One is your splitters need to be bi-directional for digital cable boxes to work. The other is you may want to look into using a bi-directional distribution amp in the attic instead of just a splitter with an amp in-line.

cseyer

You dont want a splitter feeding a splitter causes too much loss for cable modems and/or digital boxes. You would be better off with a 5 way splitter at the entry to the house or as mentioned above a distribution amp at the entry of the cable into the house. Never split more than once if you can avoid it.

Chrisedge

(I agree but...) Mine comes into the house, and is split into 2, One for Internet and the other line into a splitter for all the other lines. Cox insists on internet being only split by a 2 way, then all the TV's into the other. My amp in right after the 2 way splitter, before the splitter for all the other TV's. You want your amp as close to the street as possible.

twikoff

you wont get an arguement me there.. but running 3 replacement connections to my attic would be a pain in the ass.. and i would have to do 3, unless i just added a barrel to one of them.. i guess adding 1 would be ok, since that would cover the other digital box.. Im not concerned about the 2 that dont have boxes and just get the standard channels..

but Im not looking forward to running another line up there unless i get desperate.

twikoff

hmmm.. didnt realize there was a difference..
i know different splitters have different loss ratings
i pestered the cable guys whent hey came out and setup my house (to a point i made them rerun almos tall of the cable, since the people before me left a mess)..
and one thing they did was replace my splitters with what they told me were better ones

twikoff

on 2nd thought.. i guess i could go up there and remove the splitter and add a barrel sending the cable just to my room.. to see if i can get the OD channels.. That might prove if its worthwhile to run another cable up.

but Im really not looking forward to running that length of cable.. especially since what we have now is buried most of the way around the house.. (split level house, no easy access between floors).

i have a dirt cheap bid in on another amp now.. if i get it, i may add it at the side of the house.. or in the attic before the splitter.

Thrush

Sounds like the Splitter in your Attic may be your problem. Get a 2ghz splitter and see if you still have an issue.

twikoff

i just won this auction for $2.75
i believe it has 4 outputs.. i figure ill put it in the attic.. then use 1 out of outputs to go directly to my digital box in my room.. and have the other going into a 2 way splitter heading into the 2 analog rooms..

i figure its better to only use 2 outputs on the amp, to get the best signal to my tv.. sound right?
and i guess ill go ahead and leave the other amp in place on the other side of the cable coming into my room.. hopefully its not actually needed.

kenage

If you need to put these things in the attic how big are they?

twikoff

its not the size.. i have a split level house.. (you enter the middle level.. the kitchen, formal living room, and dining room are on that level... then you go downstairs to get into the family room, or upstairs to get to the bedrooms)..

1 cable line is run from the box up into the attic to feed the bedrooms upstairs..

its at this point that it gets split.. so if i want to use an amp in front of the splitter, it needs to be in the attic