No sound, inconsistant reception compared to TV

I’ve tried three different antennas and boosters in many different combinations.   I’v done many scans, but I’m having a weird issue that just doesn’t make sense.  Currently, I have a flat Amazon (50 mile) antenna (amplified) plugged into an 10db amplified spitter.  The splitter is connected to my TV and my tablo.  ABC rf channel 13 comes in perfectly on my TV and looks great on my tablo, but no sound.  Before you type anything about the double amplifier, I’ve tried it with 1 and with none.  I’ve tried a directional antenna from monoprice and an old vhf/uhf bunny ears antenna (which does surprisingly well).  Is the tablo tuner just not as high quality as my vizio tv?  Sometimes, the tablo doesn’t even pick up a couple channels that my TV does.  I really want to love my tablo, but this is disappointing. 


I’m 30 miles from the antenna that broadcasts all of my potential channels.  I live in a tall house in the woods with a 10 mile wide lake in between me and the broadcast antenna which is up on top of the tallest mountain in VT.  The tablo site says I shouldn’t get ABC (the channel in question), but the tablo scan gives me 5 green dots for ABC. 

@beerCrafter2011 Just to be clear: you get zero sound at all on ABC? Have you tried this on more than one device? e.g A roku, the web app at http://my.tablotv.com/, etc.


OTA in general can be a little inconsistent - remember, it’s over the air, and is subject to changing conditions. That being said, the Tablo has good quality tuners. 

Just keep in mind that there’s multiple tuners, and the signal is split to do this. We’ve used an amplified splitter to mitigate for this, but you won’t get the exact same results as some high quality TV tuners.

Unfortunately I have the same experience with some channels that work perfectly on my HDTV but not on the Tablo.

@TabloSupport

Do you recommend any amplified splitters that I can use before the Tablo?

Right now I have this antenna below and it has a built in preamp and then I use a separate non-amp 1x2 splitter that goes to the HDTV and Tablo.

http://www.winegard.com/get-free-tv/hdtv-antenna/flatwave-amped/

@theuser86 We don’t have any official recommendations on hardware (other than hard drives) that work with the Tablo. It’s just too relative to your area/setup.


That being said, I’ll have a chat with the hardware folks and see if they can recommend anything in particular. If they’ve got any ideas I’ll send it over in a PM.

@TabloSupport

Thanks that would be great, I don’t want to use an amp or preamp that may damage the Tablo tuners.

I linked the antenna I’m using and I’m in Ontario if that helps. Doesn’t have to be an official recommendation but a recommendation from someone who knows more about all this hardware would be great.

Well, I switched to an amazon 60 mile “sky” antenna and it works a lot better.  can an amp hurt the tablo tuner?

@beerCrafter2011 It could, but only if the amp is of low quality. And even then - it wouldn’t hurt the actual picture. It could cause the Tablo to mis-represent the results of a channel scan, though.