I have an attic antenna to receive HD locals on my 722. Things were fine when I got Dish earlier this winter but as the trees came out I began to have problems with dropouts on a couple of the weaker stations. A couple were in the low 60s signal strength. I decided to try a preamp. I bought a Channel Master 7777. This one had the lowest noise figure of any I reviewed. It is 2.0 dB on UHF.
After I installed the preamp the signal levels were actually worse! I had WTF moment. I rechecked the antenna aiming and all the connections and couldn't find any problems. It dawned on me the the preamp might be overloading the 722 and causing some distortion. I remembered that I had some of the attenuators that the installer left that go on the remote antenna. I installed one of these on the OTA input and bingo - my signal levels came up to the mid 70s.
After I installed the preamp the signal levels were actually worse! I had WTF moment. I rechecked the antenna aiming and all the connections and couldn't find any problems. It dawned on me the the preamp might be overloading the 722 and causing some distortion. I remembered that I had some of the attenuators that the installer left that go on the remote antenna. I installed one of these on the OTA input and bingo - my signal levels came up to the mid 70s.
