I have an original 4-tuner Tablo. It worked great with an attic-mounted antenna in my old house with the stations about 25 miles away. After moving, I am having trouble with pixelation. I’ve optimized the placement of the antenna the best I can, and the stations are only about 15 miles away now. I believe I have issues with terrain and tree cover.
My question is whether the current Tablo models have better receiver performance that might solve my issues? Any other users who’ve switched from the original to the new?
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Most of the network specs appear to be the same from the OG/Legacy to the Gen4. It’s more difficult to tell on the tuners. However, the Gen4 DOES have the Antenna Amplification in the General settings.
Being 15 or so miles from our towers with a few 30’ live oaks directly in our path - I recall some pixelation issues in the past on both our OG and Gen4 devices, but few and far between. We don’t use the Gen4 Antenna Amplification with our large, attic-mounted antenna because we get 85%-92% on our signal using a signal meter.
https://support.tablotv.com/hc/en-us/articles/35877026849044-4th-Generation-Tablo-Technical-Specifications
Built-In Antenna Amplifier
- 11dB Gain Per Tuner
- 75 Ohm Impedance (Input and Output)
- Can Be Turned Off If Using External Amplifier
I bought a legacy quad a few years ago. Living 50 miles from the antenna farm, I anticipated the need to amplify the antenna signal because of the distance, trees and the terrain.
Some chans were weak and pixelated with no amplification. Adding one amp improved the signal to the point where I was receiving all of the chans that I expected to receive. I kept adding amps to boost the signal even more. I reached the point where amp #4 was overdriving the receiver and only the weakest chans could be seen. I figured then that using 2 amps, 40db gain, put me in the sweet spot for signal strength.
I got one of the first gen4 dual units as a beta tester. Used a splitter to connect the antenna to the legacy quad and the gen4. The splitter had a 3db loss that cut the signal in half from 40 db to 37db. The gain is logarithmic.
The legacy and gen 4 worked great with that configuration. The only probled was caused by the screwed up fcc assigning chans to adjacent frequencies. A dirty transmitter can interfere with the chan on the adjacent frequency and cause pixelation.
I recomend that you get one amp to try. You shouldn’t need one being so close to the transmitters. That raises a few questions.
Do you have adjacent chans/freqs that interfere with each other or is the terrain and trees so bad that they attenuate the signal too much.
I have communicated with people on the forum who are as close as 8 miles from the million watt transmitters who don’t have a problem. That leads me to believe that your terrain and trees are so bad that you need the amplier.
I wonder what your signal levels will be in winter time when the trees lose their leaves?
Thanks folks. It sounds like there’s no reason to buy a new Tablo (and lose being able to download recordings). I have ordered an amp to see if that helps.
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I failed to mention that I now have 3 Tablos. The old legacy is dedicated to sports, mostly football now and special events. The gen 4 dual is dedicated to movies. The gen 4 quad is for tv series, shows, documentaries, etc.
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Plus - the new Gen4 Tablo isn’t compatible with the old recordings and you’d either have to keep your original Legacy device set up to use it and buy a new hard drive for the Gen4…or abandon the Legacy and use the existing HD for the Gen4. Though, I recommend getting a new HD in such a case.
If this is mostly a reception problem, can you post a report for your location using Rabbit Ears?
Info from that report would be a good starting point for antenna recommendations.
To close the loop, I installed a Winegard amp and things did improve. The worst channel still has some pixelation, but less than before, and the others seem to have cleared up.
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What antenna are you using and where is it set up or mounted?
I have a ClearStream 2MAX. In my previous house, I had it mounted in the attic of a 2-story house. In my current house, which is a 1-story house, I don’t have suitable attic access. It’s mounted in a bedroom closet as high on the wall as I can get it. It’s about 10’ above ground level. It’s good enough. I’m not willing to put the antenna outside. I don’t watch much OTA TV since moving out of market for my sports teams.
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Super 
- glad to hear it’s working for you.