Receiving Digital For The First Time

Digital and analog signals are both available right now so you can use the analog signal to make a quick check of your antenna performance.  Start with analog channel 3 and tune channel by channel all the way up to analog channel 58 on your regular analog television set.  Note the quality of the picture on each channel.  They all should be about equal.  If one or more channels are noticeably worse than the others, you might have a problem receiving digital.  You can try repositioning your antenna if you can do it safely.  Antennas that have been up a long time can show the effects of age and weather, which are poor reception on some channels and quite good reception on others or weak reception on all channels.  If you find yourself in this situation, you may want to arrange for your antenna to be professionally serviced.  Most antennas are roof-mounted and if you are going to work on it yourself, you must be sure you can do it safely.

Try to receive the DTV signal without any amplification at all.  If your receiver operates reliably on all channels, you are done.  If you have one, you can try using your present amplifier.  If your receiver operates reliably on all channels, you are done.  If it does not, you may need a new amplifier.  Choose one that the manufacturer has certified specifically for DTV. 

You may be in a situation where only one channel is weak and the others are ok.  This can be a tricky problem to fix with an amplifier.  The strong signals could overdrive the amplifier and cause enough distortion so that you receive nothing.  In this case, try to solve the problem with a different antenna and replacing the coax.  If that doesn’t do it, you might have to place an attenuator on the input of the amplifier, which will scale all the signals from the antenna to a range the amplifier can handle.  You might want to consult an antenna specialist for help.