When i scan for chanels. All my chanels have 5 Green dot, but When i tried to record or watch on live TV. Tablo said weak signal. Why?
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Hopefully someone will come up with something new, until then, here’s how it’s exact same been answered before:
100+ results for5 green dots
Error - Weak Signal w/ 5 Green Dots Signal Strength
Unit won’t play claiming weak signal. Scan shows 5 green dots
5 Green dots but still no signal, why?
Signal strength or Signal quality
The five green lights after a scan are only a snapshot and more or less meaningless in the real world. Television signals leave the transmit antenna and travel thru the atmosphere. The received television signal strength can vary wildly depending on atmospheric conditions. Television receiving equipment uses Automatic Gain Control (AGC) to stabilize that RF signal level but there are limits to its effectiveness. With the weakest of signals, I have seen a 1db drop in signal level cause good reception go to a complete loss of reception. (Digital cliff effect)
This problem seems to happen with either weak antenna signals, or overly strong antenna signals, or interference from a strong signal to a weak signal.
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Go to this FCC website and enter your zip code:
https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps -
You will see a list of stations in green highlight. Click on each one and record the “RX Strength:” in in dbuV/m. Also record the Tower distance and Direction angle.
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Put that list of Call signs and RX Strength numbers and the Tower distance and Direction angle here.
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What is the number of tuners in your Tablo?
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How old is your Tablo?
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Are you using Roku or FireTV?
JimH
Hi
My Tablo have 4 tuners, approx 3 years old.
I have an amplifier on my antenna and after i have a 8 split. I changed my setup.
I connected a 2 splits after my amplifier, connected Tablo on one side and connected a cable to go on my 8 splits. So the signal is more powerfull for Tablo.
And now it work fine (and in bonus Tablo found more channel).
An 8-way splitter divides the incoming signal by 11db or a factor of 12. (To all of its outputs)
So the signal to the Tablo was very weak after a 8-way splitter.
Your 2-way splitter only divides the incoming signal by 3.5db or a factor of 2.
So now the signal level is about 6 times stronger then when you sent your first comment.
But the downside of your current configuration is that signal level at the outputs of the 8-way splitter are about 14.5db down or about 25 times lower.
If I were you, I would substitute a 4-way splitter for the 8-way splitter. The 4-way splitter has a loss of about 6 db or a factor of about 4 times lower. Combine that with the 2-way splitter loss and you get a total loss of 9.5db or a factor of about 8 times lower at the 4-way outputs.
If you really need more than 5 outputs then you need an amplifier with a higher gain.
Yea 1x8 is, unlikely. If you keep slitting one cable with 1x2 to get 8 - that’s too many. There’s like an 8 distribution amp.
Now that would make sense. But really, just splitting and splitting… and splitting isn’t the best option.
Thank you
My need was for a 5 splitters, 2 TV on second floor and 2 TV on first floor, plus 1 for Tablo.
I have an amplifier for the signal.
I will changed my 8 splitters for a 4 splitters.
So on the final, i will have:
Antenna
Amplifier
2 splits (Tablo and output to 4 splits)
4 splits (For the TV)
Do the TVs really all need their own direct line vs a device on them (i…e Roku) that can be used with the Tablo wirelessly?
I am in Canada, Québec. Each TV have Roku.
My antenna deliver more french channel, thats why i preferred to connect the Tv’s on the antenna. And i never had problem reception of the signal on Tv’s.
I used TABLO to record and listen it back (with Roku) on Tv’s or on IPAD.
And Tablo is very usefull on travel 
I only have 3 TVs, they have always had an antenna connection long before I’ve had a tablo. I continue to use them that so when I want to watch OTA TV, I’ll just use my TV… as a TV. 
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I have a similar problem. On one sub-channel of a station I get a weak signal error and no video. Signal on a scan is 5/5 and other sub-channels work fine and the channel plays just fine using the built-in tuner of the TV.
This leads me to think that it is a software issue where the signal is not being decoded to play properly. When I contacted Tablo support and they did a diagnostic - they agreed and suggested that I contact the station and ask them to fix it.
Wondering if any others are experiencing the same problem? If there are quite a few … maybe Tablo will revisit a fix.
A “sub-channel” is the same signal as the “primary” channel. That is the station broadcast one (1) signal carrying all the channels with it’s number - compressed via multiplexing.
Not to believe everything you read on Wikipedia, this article explains it fairly easy to understand with a nice table. Digital subchannel (note: I have no credit with it nor is it the sole source)
Now this may be an unlikely possibility - on both ends! There have been discoveries where broadcast, when transcoded needed some data send a couple (rare) broadcaster omitted. But the method to decode has been in place for “a long time” and it’s work for virtually everyone else on all the other channels… so I would be hesitant to quickly point the finger at a messed up tablo programming.
“Yea 1x8 is, unlikely. If you keep slitting one cable with 1x2 to get 8 - that’s too many. There’s like an 8 distribution amp.”
The problem is more complex. We have to consider the incoming signal level. In the case of Richardd43 we do not know the actual input signal level. But we do know that it is so low that a reduction of 11db is too much for the Tablo to decode that signal.
In your case I agree with djk44883. The problem which you describe is more likely to be caused at the TV station end. But you could be misinterpreting your tests.
Try these exact steps:
- Run one Coax cable to the TV and a separate one to the Tablo. This is to avoid causing the Tablo to lose its signal during the test.
- Tune the Tablo to a different channel and verify that channel’s reception. Leave it on the channel.
- Tune the Television Set to the problem subChannel and verify good reception.
- Tune the Tablo to the problem subChannel and verify loss of reception.
Lastly, swap the coax cables between the TV and the Tablo. Then repeat the test.
Please report your results.