what did the thunderstorm do?

[classic cartoon fan]

Early tuesday morning strong thunderstorms come through the area with high winds and heavy rains. Ever since OTA has been weak or no signal at all especially the ones coming out of cincy. Dayton is fine prolly because its so close.
I went up on the roof and checked the cables and they seemed to be fine along with the antennas. My rotor is working fine too. I don't know if its a problem with the pre-amp or what. Pre-thunderstorms the cincy stations came in at 80-90% signal strength.

If someone could give me some suggestions about what to do that would be great.

 

[Wesro]

First I would contact the stations you are trying to get and make sure they didn't have any problems with the same storms. They may only be running at half power if something was damaged on their end.

 

[Splicer]

I'm in Blanchester and all the Cincy & Dayton stations still come in as they always have...You could have water in a connector or the preamp could be bad...Hard to really say...I know I had numerous power surges and lost track at 15...Foryunately I have EVERYTHING powered thru my APC H15 power conditioner and it made a believer out of me that these things are necessary...We had similar storms about 3 years ago where I lost some (not all) of my equipment connected to a standard surge protector/power strip...It could be some interference with the signals due to a fallen tree...

I would check any UVSJ or splitters for water...Same as all connectors...Check the baluns as well...Check the pre amp and the power supply...Hard to say with the limited info given...


:

 

[classic cartoon fan]

I forgot to mention that the light is on to where the pre-amp connects. Does that mean it still could be bad? This is a winegard HDP-269 pre-amp

I will try to check the connectors today.

 

[TNGTony]

I can tell you that the signal strengths for Cincy locals here in the northern Cincy burbs are the same as they were before the storms rolled through. I am having no problem getting Dayton stations so that rules out atmospheric conditions.

See ya
Tony

 

[Tower Guy]

First I would contact the stations you are trying to get and make sure they didn't have any problems with the same storms.

That's extremely unlikely.

Possible problems are:

A lightning surge damaged the preamp.
The wind ruined the aim of the rotor.
Water got into the coax.