Just an update, if anyone cares. Plus a couple more questions.
Due to my concern about maybe not even able to get a signal at my house, I decided to just buy a local antenna to put up and see what I get. I bought a CM3020 for $100 and a mast from RadioShack. My two big issues are living in the woods, and having a incredibly steep slope on my roof.
What I did was mount the mast outside my bedroom window on my lesser sloped overhang for my front porch. I used just a 5 foot mast.
I ran a temporary 50' line directly into my window to see what signal strength I got. I could get up in the 80-90 range on the channel 17, and down to about 50-60 on some others in the same general direction. So, I thought,"sweet, this thing is a done deal, all I need is a rotor and I am in business". Well not so fast.
You see, I have DTV. So, I ran the antenna into my 5X8 switch(4lines from D, and 1 from Ant). Then to my HDTV, through a diplexer. Well, bye bye signal strength. I lost 17, it floated between 45 and 0, but I somehow kept, of all channels, 3. Which is the farthest away. I then disconnected the ant line from the switch, and connected it with a male to male fitting onto the run connected directly to the feed to the HDTV. The signals were better, but not as good as when I originally ran the line. So, my assumption, is I lose signal strength due to the lenght of the entire run. I have the 50' to the switch, plus another 50' to the tv.
My questions are:
Since I just bought the CM as a temporary to see what I get, should I return and go for the Winegaurd as mentioned earlier by rick0725? Is it that much better? If so, I definately want to do it. Not trying to cheap out, now that I see how nice HD is.
Will adding the preamp, do what I need it to do, in order to get the signals after the multi switch? I really cannot run a lone line to the tv due to finished walls.
Based upon what I read, as long as I have some signal strength, the preamp should help?
Will adding another 5' help out significantly?
Also, I had a problem connecting the 75ohm connector. One of the ant connecters bolts was stripped, so I could only get about 1 nut engagement. I added a bunch of washers to take up the slack. Could that also be causing some signal loss?
All in all, I am pretty excited about this. I was able to watch a little golf in HD. OMG how sweet that was.
Thanks for the guidance.