Questions about the function of a Radio Shack 15-259 Signal Amplifier

[Dennis Brown]

Fifteen years ago when our house was built the cable person installed coax cable throughout the house. He also installed a radio Shack 15-259 signal amplifier. The input is a coax cable coming from someplace and it is not labeled. There are two outputs, one goes to the rest of the house (I think) and the other to a nearby TV. The input goes to the Outdoor Amplifier, which came in the 15-259 package. The other lead on the Outdoor Ampifier appears to go to an off-air antenna.

I want to replace the 15-259 and would appreciate recommendations for a substitution. Frankly, I don't fully know what this device does. All I know is that when I pull its power plug the signal to the rest of the TV's in house lose signal strength.

Thanks,

Dennis

 

[Ilya]

I think it's just a splitter with an amplifier. It is supposed to take signal from an OTA antenna (or cable) and then split it and boost it so you could feed it to more than one TV set.

What is your primary TV source? Cable? Satellite? Or just OTA antenna?

Sent from my iPad 3 using SatelliteGuys

 

[Ilya]

Assuming you have satellite, instead of splitting the antenna cable and sending it to each TV set, you should just connect it to the main satellite receiver and use the multi-room distribution offered by the satellite company. For example, in case of Dish, that would be connecting the OTA antenna to the Hopper with the OTA module. No boosters would be required in such scenario, and you would be able to watch OTA from any TV, but just one OTA channel at a time.

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[Dennis Brown]

Now I'm really confused. I don't watch OTA channels ever. I have Directv and watch local channels over the satellite. For some reason when I disconnect the amplifier the signal of the satellite feed is diminished. I'm afraid that if and when the Radio Shack device fails I won't have satellite reception on tv's in other rooms. So, I would like to replace it with one from a more reputable manufacturer.

Thanks for your assistance.

 

[Ilya]

We would really need to know more about how your house is wired to give you any recommendation.

But here is my guess: a simple splitter may work better than this device unplugged from the power source. If you have a splitter around - give it a try!

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[Ilya]

By the way, this is not the right section of the forum for this post.
Not the kind of amplifiers we are discussing in the Home Theater forum.
I think you will get more help in the OTA or DirecTV forums.
Let me move this thread to the OTA section. (Or I can move it to the DirecTV section if you prefer.)

 

[Dennis Brown]

Thanks Ilya. I'll replace my Radio Shack 15-259 with the same model if and when it fails.

 

[Ilya]

That will be the easiest solution!
However, if it breaks and you need TV right away, you can simply bypass it temporarily with a simple splitter.