722 OTA tuner vs. stand alone OTA tuner

[bub]

I have the vip722 and a small Radio Shack UHF antenna in the attic. I have two feeds coming off the antenna (two of those little flat antenna wire to coax converters). The run to both my 722 and to my internal PCI-x PC tuner are very close to exactly the same length.

My 722 cuts out a lot on one of my channels while my internal PC tuner on the same channel never has a problem.

Is there anything I can do so that the 722 gets a cleaner/better signal so it stops cutting out?

Thanks,
George

 

[Cold Irons]

1) Take the antenna out of the attic & put it outside.
2) Use a UHF powered pre-amp.
3) Try a better/bigger antenna.

 

[empiretc]

I have the same problem on ABC only. Stand Alone gets stronger signal, but 722 still shows 91%. I will get pixelation and dropouts from time to time. I run a bi-direction amp and have tried all sorts of antennas. the problem never went away. again, ABC only.

Dish needs to fix the problem as it has been noted for a long time that the tuner in these units is not that great. Can't wait until they add ABC and FOX HD in my area.

 

[Laddyboy]

I have the same problem on ABC only. Stand Alone gets stronger signal, but 722 still shows 91%. I will get pixelation and dropouts from time to time. I run a bi-direction amp and have tried all sorts of antennas. the problem never went away. again, ABC only.

Dish needs to fix the problem as it has been noted for a long time that the tuner in these units is not that great. Can't wait until they add ABC and FOX HD in my area.

Some tuners are better than others. Your best bet is to get a good antenna and mount it outside as high in the air as possible to max out signal strength. My 722 OTA tuner is not nearly as good as the tuners in my HDTVs or some of my ATSC PC tuners. Signal strength readings often do not reflect problems with signals that fluctuate or drop out due to one reason or another.

 

[CowboyDren]

If you have high signal strength one moment, and then dropouts the next, you probably have multipath problems. You would see this as a ghost artifact with an analog signal. Better aiming may fix this, but mounting the antenna on a 3' mast outside is a surer bet.

 

[Jerry1Gman]

The AntennaWeb.org mapping program, provided by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), locates the proper outdoor antenna to receive your local television broadcast channels.

http://www. antennaweb .org/aw/Address.aspx

 

[CowboyDren]

Antennaweb sucks; TVFool.com has much more useful information and includes GRAPHICS! Anyway, picking an antenna isn't the problem here, it's aiming and locating.

 

[Bradtothebone]

I have the vip722 and a small Radio Shack UHF antenna in the attic. I have two feeds coming off the antenna (two of those little flat antenna wire to coax converters). The run to both my 722 and to my internal PCI-x PC tuner are very close to exactly the same length.

My 722 cuts out a lot on one of my channels while my internal PC tuner on the same channel never has a problem.

Is there anything I can do so that the 722 gets a cleaner/better signal so it stops cutting out?

Thanks,
George

One other (cheap) thing you can try. Get rid of one of the baluns that you have hooked up to the antenna, and put in a regular splitter to feed the two runs of coax. You MAY have an impedance mismatch at the antenna with the two baluns in parallel - the antenna is seeing two 300 ohm baluns in parallel as a 150 ohm load. Not sure if this is a big problem, but it's worth a try.

Brad