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Need help - no signal from TV antenna in the attic

Hi, I just moved in to the new house. There is a 4-way coax splitter in the attic, which has one input and four outputs (to different rooms). I know that previous owners had a cable (from the cable company). It looks like the cable was going into the same splitter in the attic, and then routed to rooms downstairs. I want to use the TV antenna in the attic. I tried connecting the TV antenna to splitter's input ? absolutely no signal is getting to TVs downstairs. I also connected the antenna to each of splitter?s outputs (which go to TVs) ? exactly the same outcome - not even a change in a static when I plug in the antenna. I bought a TV signal inline amplifier from RadioShack ? absolutely no difference. However, if I drop a 100' coax cable directly from the antenna in the attic to the TV downstairs (bypassing the splitter and all of the home cable wiring), the picture is crisp and perfect. Can I run some tests to ensure cable continuation (from the attic to rooms downstairs). Does anybody know how I can get the signal from the antenna in the attic to TVs downstairs? Thank you.

Reply to
ymg200
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Short all the ends of the coaxes downstairs and test the other ends in the attic with a continuity tester or meter.

It would hard for me to believe that all the cables going downstairs are bad but that's not out of the realm of possibility. But if you've run a new cable downstairs and got good signal you've already found the problem and the solution.

Reply to
Meat Plow

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 09:49:39 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@excite.com put finger to keyboard and composed:

IIUC, the inline amp comes with a separate DC or AC power injector. With this injector plugged in, test for 9VDC or 9VAC or whatever at each of your RF sockets.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one \'i\' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

On Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:31:10 -0500, RickMerrill put finger to keyboard and composed:

This one is passive:

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AIUI, a 4-way splitter will have at least 6dB insertion loss, so this may account for the difference between a borderline good signal and a non-existent one.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one \'i\' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

You can't run four tv's off of a non-amplified antenna. I'm surprised they could run 4 tv's off of cable without putting in an amplifier somewhere. I guess I'm wrong about that, but the cable signal is stronger than a passive antenna signal. Get a radio shack tv signal amplifier with one input and four outputs. You'll need to power it with AC.

Reply to
mm

I agree it is preferable in his/her situation to get an amplifier but it is just "NOT TRUE" that a non amplified 4 way wont work. I am doing just that. My house has a four way splitter, I just placed a Yagi antenna on the roof, an old school Radio Shack Model VU-90 XR to replace an older model.

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I am running it down from the roof, with approx 35 feet of RG6U/Q quad shield, into the built in house wiring from our 10 year old home. There is at least a few hundred feet throughout our home and most likely its only RG59 cable to boot. And i get perfect analog and digital signals with this setup. I DO plan on eventually replacing all the internal cable with RG6U/Q when i can get aroung to it. And i do plan to add an amplifier to the system at that time, but there is not one channel in Salt Lake City that i cannot get.

Reply to
GMAN

I agree.

Reply to
GMAN

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