Signal strength too strong on one channel?

Here’s a interesting twist to signal problems. I have an amplified Wineguard antenna feeding my Tablo and have an issue where one channel breaks up on a consistent basis while all the others are fine. I discovered that when I unplug the amplifier, the problem station’s issues clear up, but I lose the signal on three other stations entirely. It appears that the signal strength for that one station is being over-amplified when the antenna amplifier is plugged in. I’m at a loss as to how to even approach a fix for this issue. Any ideas?

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Good thought, but it’s one of the flat Wineguard antenna’s and I’ve got it adhered to a window. I contacted the TV station and their chief engineer recommended a -3 db attenuator to cut down the amplified signal slightly. He thought that might be enough to stop over-driving their signal while not dropping the other stations signals so much that I lose them. I’ll give that a shot to see if it makes an improvement.

Which Winegard antenna is it? The exact model number?

It’s the FL-5500

That is an amplified antenna, you could always try that one channel with unplugging the amplifier from the power outlet and see if that attenuation in the signal lets you watch it.

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You can also purchase or build a notch filter, I don’t find many on line and expect then to cost http://www.tinlee.com/Matv_filters.php?active=3. We used to tune the Weingard version for the local antenna store 20+ years ago. The 3 dB pad mentioned effects all frequencies, a notch filter can be tuned to a deep notch, or wider to not totally eliminate a channel. This of course always works better when you have a spectrum analyzer lying around to tune filters.

Oddball thing to try is parallel another (different brand/model) antennae using a splitter. Move it around a bit and see if you can find a sweet spot that satisfies all the channels you want to tune.

The attenuator will be arriving today so I’ll be able to see pretty quickly if that’s all it takes. I’ll post the results once it’s been installed. If it doesn’t work I’ll be exploring some of the other options you all have mentioned.

The -3db attenuator worked! The station that was consistently breaking up is now rock solid, and the signal from the amplifier is still strong enough that the weaker signals are still there.

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