if the signal drops by 3db (a splitter) but the noise doesn't then the signal to noise ratio will ????
????
Back to school ! You got C-
.
What is a noise ??? Something what never decreasing ? Really ?
Your generous. I flunked him.
In a embarrassing attempt to keep it painfully simple;
Noise is signal but of the unwanted kind. In some circumstances the "signal" is the noise, like as in back round noise or interference from other stations on the same freq or harmonic, or
multi path... If you amplify or attenuate a "signal" you do it to both unless you have filters in the system say similar to a FM trap. . But those too cause signal loss and noise. Yes, Smithy is right you can introduce more noise with components. The idea is to have more signal to over come the built in noise of your sets front end [ AKA Signal to noise ratio, and with out adding more noise to the sets front end with the other dudads you hang on the system like amps, splitters etc..
The Amplifier is the major culprit of noise [of the unwanted kind].. If the noise introduced by the amplifier is greater than the TV'S or STB threshold forget about getting a lock on the leader signal.
Unlike with analog , Noise in DTV is not as a major issue so long its below "lock" levels. THe sig level meter on screen is usually relative signal strength over lock threshold. Not over all S-voltage or field strength. Most people miss use that "meter".. You could be down the street from the transmitter and get a reading of 25 % not "locked" because of extraneous noise from other sources being greater than the signal even though the voltage in the ant is [kidding] 1000 volts.
This is somewhat related and very interesting for mountain or city dwellers.
DISTRIBUTION of digital television signals
There is more to the article than this . But this paragraph is something many of us should know. It has to do with SNR also.
As expected, the largest antenna, the 3028 eight-bay UHF screen, had the greatest gain on the lowest DTV channel (26). Higher in frequency, Channel Master's 3023 deep suburban yagi was the best performer in terms of gain, outdistancing the eight-bay by at least 3 dB. At the upper end of the UHF TV spectrum, however, the four-bay 3021 was just a hair better on channels 64 and 67. Frequency response is definitely something that you will want to keep in mind as you select a terrestrial DTV antenna.
Although it is true that gain and directionality go hand in hand, not all high-gain antennas reject multipath equally. A long yagi, like Channel Master's 3023, is quite adept at handling signal reflections in a low-multipath setting with a fairly unobstructed reception path, but it can be overwhelmed by secondary and even tertiary signal reflections when used in an urban environment.
