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In preparing for the potential loss of my FOX LiL (KDFW 4.1) via DISH (due to contract dispute), I swung my antenna around to the DFW area.

Now, don't laugh...

My coax comes straight into my house from an antenna mounted on a 50' tower. I'm guessing the coax travels another 30' before it actually penetrates the wall. This coax connects to an old amp with only 1 output. From that output another coax goes to a cheap FM amp/splitter purchased at Walmart that has two outputs. From here, one coax goes to a DISH receiver; one goes to a plain splitter dividing between my other DISH receiver and my AV tuner.

This was all done in 1997.

With this setup, I've been able to enjoy excellent FM reception on my AV tuner and pretty decent OTA (now digital, of course) out of East Texas. (I'm in Athens, TX, but my DMA is DFW). So, my DFW networks are provided via DISH. I only go to my East Texas networks during inclement weather for the radar. I've never been able to consistently pull in 51 (KFXK) for Fox--I don't know why, and I don't care. I prefer KDFW for my morning news.

The obvious problem is that I'm splitting the hell outta my signal which hasn't been a problem until I swing the antennas around to DFW (~75 miles away). I get marginal signal strength high 50's to low 60's. I eliminated everything after the indoor amp and took coax straight to one of my DISH receivers and got more stable signals being high 70's to 80's.

Obviously, this solution eliminates my OTA access on my other DISH receiver and my FM reception on my AV tuner. All 3 of these components are within the same cabinet serving 1 TV.

Of course, now I know that with a simple cable redirect, I can receive a stable FOX reception in the event it gets pulled from DISH (an action I believe will be brief---if it happens at all---but I couldn't risk losing Fringe and Bones which are two of my wife's favorite programs.)

But for a long-term solution, should I just replace my amp with one having more outputs. Is there one with 3 outputs that won't attenuate my signal?

I appreciate the help!

EDIT: Reviewing my original receipt from 1997, the UHF/VHF antenna is a CM3649. There is also a single-channel antenna that is listed on my original receipt as a "Channel 7 antenna" (remember this was in 1997) that was intended to pull in KLTV out of Tyler. The single-channel antenna looks exactly like this. The coax's from each of these antennae are joined via a box mounted between the two masts such that there is only one coax trailing down the 50' tower.

The pre-amp with only 1 output is a "PERMACOLOR 10G205C". The splitter/amp following that is a "Recoton 10db signal amplifier".