01-13-2009, 03:56 AM
105 miles is going to be really tough, curvature or not. Not sure VHF or UHF signals can travel that far even under ideal conditions. I'd probably not attempt it unless willing to consider the cost and effort strictly an experiment. Then again if I were rural I'd be tempted to pony up for a big dish, if they haven't completely eviscerated the programming there ...
if I preamp it
I'd caution against thinking like that. They can't take the place of a more sensitive antenna. If they could, we'd all be using tiny, inexpensive antennas inside the house. No one seems to mind buying an additional black box to fix a problem, but installing a larger antenna up on the roof is like real work.
If an antenna isn't sensitive enough (thanks for the correx, RAMd®d) all by itself to deliver a good signal to a TV connected directly to it, amplifying the signal will produce no benefit, no fix. If the signal's weak, all you get is more noise essentially.
The only real benefit to using a mast-mounted amp (and they are the best kind of signal amp) is to take the good signal from an antenna and raise it further so that by the time the lines inside the house and inevitable splitter eat up some signal you've still got some left.
if I preamp it
I'd caution against thinking like that. They can't take the place of a more sensitive antenna. If they could, we'd all be using tiny, inexpensive antennas inside the house. No one seems to mind buying an additional black box to fix a problem, but installing a larger antenna up on the roof is like real work.
If an antenna isn't sensitive enough (thanks for the correx, RAMd®d) all by itself to deliver a good signal to a TV connected directly to it, amplifying the signal will produce no benefit, no fix. If the signal's weak, all you get is more noise essentially.
The only real benefit to using a mast-mounted amp (and they are the best kind of signal amp) is to take the good signal from an antenna and raise it further so that by the time the lines inside the house and inevitable splitter eat up some signal you've still got some left.