question about antenna Pre-Amplifiers

[crumb snatcher]

I have a square shooter in my HDTV setup.  The reception is pretty solid for most channels, with the exception of Fox 6 and a couple other channels.  Would it help if I installed a pre-amplifier to help boots the signal?  I'm debating between the following pre-amps....Channel Master Model 7777 Titan2™ Mast Mounted Pre-Amp or Winegard introduces the HDP-269 pre-amplifier.  The channel master has a higher gain on both VHF/UHF - 23 on VHF and 26 on UHF.  THe winegard has a gain of 16dB on both UHF/VHF.  My questions is....will the Channel master be better because the gain is higher?  Will any of these amplifiers help my situation?  Newbie question.

[mhz40]

part of the problem is that the signal you are trying to capture is sandwiched between two higher-power stations.  amplifying alone will not change the differences between them.

to answer your question directly: higher gain in an amp don't make it better.  go with the weingard.  if 16 db of gain won't get you stability, signal level is not your underlying problem.  good luck!

[foxeng]

If you think you should be about to get WITI-DT (you are within the coverage area) you might want to consider a fixed channel filter for the two channels on each side of the WITI-DT. It will knock down the signal strength of the two stronger stations and give your receiver a better shot at picking up WITI-DT. Of course you would need to be careful that the filters do not roll off too much on WITI-DT's channel, thereby deforming the digital square wave signal of WITI-DT and thus defeating the whole purpose.

[Gregg Lengling]

But of course then he would have to be able to switch the filter in and out between WITI-DT and WISN-DT (channel 33 and channel 34).

[mhz40]

... and for that kind of quality you would have to blow several hundred bucks.  Maybe even over $500.