Or …
Your wife can yell at you when she finds out how much you spent on one of these. 
And that’s the “cheapest” real one I could find!
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Does anyone know if Tyler’s new signal meter will work in conjunction with Tablo 4th Gen? That is what I have my antenna connected to. Not sure if that should be obvious to me, since this discussion is in the TabloTV forum. Thanks.
It’s just another antenna connected device. Doesn’t integrate with something else. Just used to help you to adjust antenna position/orientation for reception (to get the best reception you like across all the channels you want).
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Any antenna signal meter would be either temporarily connected where the Tablo is connected (for signal analysis) or you can permanently connect it on a parallel leg of the antenna coax. It should show you your signal strength for any channel, but won’t/can’t take into account the Tablo amplifier. Unfortunately Tyler doesn’t yet have a video or more information on his product on how it works.
I purchased the Mediasonic HomeWorx (HW250STB) a while back and it shows that my signal quality/strength hovers in the high 80’s% to low 90’s% for the major network channels. This should be sufficient to ensure a quality picture.
Oh, look. Another cat. 
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I used a compass to set my antennas the old fashioned way. To check their aiming at a later date I went to Google maps and drew a line from my exact antenna’s rooftop location, to the middle of the three towers in the tower farm. Then looked at what the drawn line crossed over, then checked to see if the antennas aimed/crossed over the same stuff (at the furthest distance away I could see from my roof). May not be perfect but the antennas (2 Televes long range mix) work great.
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Glad it’s working out for you because signal issues can be bothersome. But when Tablo says, “it’s your signal strength”, how can you dispute it? I think the only way is a signal meter. You opted for the big-daddy antennae, where others may not want or don’t have that option.
Ah. I think what I was thinking was how was I going to see the channels to adjust the antenna? I see the channels through the Tablo. Dopey me, the signal meter would temporarily attach to antenna to do the adjustments and I guess maybe an app would go along with it to install on your TV so you could scan and see all the channels? Sorry if I sound like a moron with these questions and really do appreciate all the responses.
Wow, sounds like a lot of work. Glad it worked out for you!
Thanks. 
Actually, you have it right just like @cjcox said. The AntennaMan or HomeWorx signal meter will show you the signal quality. As you change the location and direction of the antenna, it’ll change the signal at the meter to show you the best location in real time. This is the desirable way.
The Tablo uses some type of signal display that may not work well to adjust your antenna. The Tablo display reads and displays the signal only at the time you search for channels. It is NOT real time.
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Many TV’s have a built in real time signal meter in diagnostics. I used my TV with help from my wife while I was on the ladder making adjustments. Just connect the coax directly to your TV. There is no need to buy something if you can find the meter on your TV.
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No meter on either of my TV’s unfortunately. 
I’m a retired engineer. I enjoyed every minute of it. 
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So normally to use signal meter, antenna temporarily connected to meter and then signal meter connected to TV and you run channel scan on TV and it would tell you signal strength for each channel? I hope I finally got it right. What was getting stuck in my addled brain was how I was going to see on my TV. Channel scan totally not in my brain!! 
If there’s a coax IN and OUT on the meter or device (Homeworx has this), you can do that, but it’s not necessary. Typically you’d connect the antenna coax to the IN on the device (not the Tablo) and then connect an HDMI or other outputs to a monitor or TV to see its channel scan. Once your antenna is set for the best quality signal, you can basically take the device back out of the loop and connect your Tablo back up.
I should mention that the signal meter device has its own tuner and you will also run a channel scan on it, just like on the Tablo. The differences are - there’s only one tuner, it has a real-time meter so adjusting the antenna will show quality changes on your screen in real time. There’s no app either, which is why you need to connect it to a monitor or TV.
However, if you have an antenna that may need constant adjusting say, with multiple antenna farms, you could leave it in the loop. If you do, you’d need to connect both the Tablo AND the device to your TV so you could switch back and forth between the Tablo and the signal meter device.
Keep in mind that leaving the signal meter in the loop may slightly reduce the signal going to the Tablo.
I do hope this makes sense.
Do you mean split the signal with one leg to Tablo and one leg to a permanent meter? I wouldn’t penalize Tablo with a forever -3.5dB signal drop just for a meter that is occasionally used.
Now that I cut all my TVs to Tablo I don’t send any signal over my home coax network. I go straight into Tablo only, no signal splits. I have Roku devices on all my TVs for a consistent (and stable) user interface.
Some people might prefer to still send signal to TVs directly but just be aware each 1:2 splits “costs” you -3.5dB of signal. A 1:4 splitter is just two 1:2 splitters behind a 1:2 splitter so they are a -7dB drop. So chose wisely and only light up coax runs you care about.
Yes, a simple splitter is a signal reducer. But it’s an option to use one just to check your signal. But this is only if your signal meter doesn’t have an OUT coax port.
This is how I originally pointed my antenna. I later acquired a “real” signal meter, and when I went back and checked the antenna I discovered
-
it was already pointed fine, and
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it was not particularly sensitive to a few degrees either direction.
My conclusion is using Google Maps or Google Earth, or a compass, or even an “old school” printed map is a perfectly valid way to point an antenna, assuming you know where the towers are in your area. You might even have a clear view such that you can just sight along the boom or “point and shoot” in some other way. If you are using an omnidirectional antenna, it may matter even less.
However, in a more complex situation like multiple antenna farms, hills/buildings in the way, etc. a signal strength meter of some sort might be very helpful. In these cases, the “optimum” direction may not be so obvious as just referring to a map.
BTW. Maybe I missed it in your post, but how are you combining the signals from the 2 Televes antennas?
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The 2 Televes antennas are about 2-1/2 feet apart on a 10 foot pole on a 5 foot tripod. Combined with equal length quad shield cables with weather proof ends going into a cheepo splitter/combiner (I think Radio Shack). Then there’s one cable running about 70 feet through the house to the antenna power inserter in the basement. The power inserter has 2 coax outputs (handy), one goes to the 4th gen the other to the legacy Tablo. I used to have multiple amplified splitters with cables running to all the TVs but we really don’t watch live TV anymore. Only watch recordings.
The tower farm to my north is about 46 miles away and to the south about 50 miles. Lots of trees in the way. All necessary towers are in a close cluster in both directions.
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I think you have a perfect application for the Televes Smartkom. It is marketed as an antenna combiner, but it has a number of other very useful features. It has inputs for up to 3 antennas, will provide power to each (for the builtin amps in the Televes units), provides user programming to select desired transmitters from each antenna, levels all the signals, and has adjustable output level.
My brother uses it to handle 3 long range antennas on a 30’ tower in rural Texas. Works very well. I have the more expensive Televes Avantx, which I bought before the Smartkom was available. Both of these devices are excellent. Essentially they let you “build” your own in-home OTA distribution system.
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