Channel Master Titan 2 Medium-Gain Preamplifier - TV Antenna Pre-Amplifier, 16dB Gain, Compatible with Non-Amplified TV Antennas, Increases Signal Strength, Indoor/Outdoor

Great product

I this is lengthy, but I’ve gone thru so many steps to improve OTA receptionFIRST we’re am II reside in the LA area with 140+ channel OTA metro area. On a perfect day the vast majority are 16db signal. But they drift on and off. And I don’t get 140+SecondI’ve tried raising the antenna (the antenna has a good reception pattern). Forget distance it’s rated 80 miles but that’s just a gauge that isn’t factual. My antenna is 12’ up now, the HOA limits height and location.Raising it helped, but it’s a hit and miss. And I gain a few more channels.But still getting the pixelation randomly… ugh. Some times the station is just trashI’m guessing it’s the urban blockage of trees, highways, airports, aircraft… just the large amount of radio interference we deal with cell towers, 4 &5G… on and on and on. That goes for urban areas.And now weather plays a role.. rain, just stops signal! Just can’t win.ThirdI tried replacing my cable to a better quality RG6. Figured it’s yet another step to receive a decent picture. And replace the transformer with a channel master transformer.Straight out the transformer fixed several problems. It seem to stop the local under 30 mile from coming and going the original transformer that came with the antenna is just garbage. And the cable I’m sure helped the delivery of the signal DBAnd the coax ( I replaced RG 6 for and better grade) did improve the issues above, but it looks better and ensures top end to end service. But the issues of pixelated channels still was present.Fourth and final…Purchased the preamp Titan 2 and bang everything was solve. Excellent DB signal for all channels, the one 80 miles away are ar 21-25db now.Yea I spent a sum of money in the steps to get excellent OTA, but figure this I cut out $2400 in cable service for just basic cable ( yea I know that’s a ton) the main reason for the process I went thru.Estimate I spent about $300 for the antenna, coaxx2, the preamp.Don’t forget to do the search on your TV to home in the stations. It’s very important. They can drift and you will discover even more channels which I did now 148.All I can say is Amazing.

I got this preamplifier to overcome the loss suffered by a 100-foot run of coaxial cable, the insertion loss of a splitter, and the loss within the 1:4 splitter in a TiVo device. That's about 5dB of loss for the top of the band (600 MHz), 3.5 dB loss for the splitter, and about another 6.5 dB or so for the TiVo's circuitry, or about 15dB in total, give or take, a very good match for the 16dB of gain from this unit.One potential problem I was facing is that we live in an area where we receive VERY strong signals from some nearby stations, but weaker signals from other stations in the same direction (ie, low power stations) and weak signals off the main lobe of the antenna. A common problem with cheaper amplifiers is that they cannot tolerate incoming strong signals and can actually make reception worse because the amplifier saturates, producing a huge amount of noise which the receiver sees as a terrible signal.One also doesn't want to amplify a strong signal so much that it overloads the receivers' front ends.A medium-gain amplifier is ideal in a situation like this, provided that amplifier can tolerate strong incoming signals. I'm pleased to say that the medium gain Titan 2 v3 does a fine job of handling strong signals.One area where this amplifier doesn't do so well is with channel 36, which we actually receive better without the amplifier. I suspect the reason is that Channel Master has incorporated LTE 5G filtering in this unit (or to put it another way, they are band-pass filtering for DTV), and if they're using the same circuitry as in their LTE filter, this unfortunately attenuates channel 36 by about 3dB while trying to block frequencies above 614 MHz. This can be a pretty difficult problem to work around in filter design, so just be aware that if you have a channel 36 that is currently on the fringes, you might lose it with this amplifier rather than make it better.The good news is if this supposition is correct, you won't need a separate LTE filter if you're using this amplifier.Installation is straightforward; CM includes a power brick with a coaxial cable output, and a device which looks like a splitter, but is actually a power injector. It has three coaxial connections- one for the power brick, one that goes to your antenna, and one that goes to your receiver(s)/splitter(s). On the roof you just mount the amplifier to your antenna mast, facing down (so rain doesn't pool on the connectors). Make your two connections, and I also suggest using some self-adhesive rubber tape like Scotch 130C to keep moisture out.For DTV, don't expect your SNR to jump up by leaps and bounds with an amplifier. Remember that SNR is the Signal-to-Noise Ratio. Your amplifier is going to amplify signal, but it's also going to amplify noise at the antenna. It can help to overcome some loss of signal through your cable run. On average, I saw a 1-2 dB gain for our nearby weaker stations, about a 4 dB loss to our channel 36, and our stronger stations remained almost exactly the same. Sometimes that extra 1-2 dB for a weak station can mean a huge difference in stability, and that has been the case for my installation. Also if your receiver doesn't have the greatest sensitivity, amplifying enough to overcome the line & splitter loss can make a big difference to stability.The low-noise accolades for this amplifier also seem justified; were it noisy, I would have expected to see some loss of SNR for our stronger stations, but that has not been the case at all. All indications are this is a well-designed, well-thought-out amplifier.If I could fix one thing about it, it would be the DTV band-pass filter design, but to do so would almost certainly dramatically increase the complexity, cost and size of this device, and this would probably not be worthwhile in most cases.This would be an excellent addition to your cord-cutting off-air antenna installation if you are in a similar situation, with a lengthy cable run and multiple splitters (including those inside a device with multiple tuners).

I bought this to stabilize channels I got and to help bring in the ones that would pixelate. I always have two channels, cbc kingston and global. Towers are within 5 miles so signal is always strong. I can weather permitting pull in over 50 channels mostly at night. The cm7778 stabilized the upper uhf channels that were in and out. I chose this over the cm7777 as after reading it might over amplify the strong channels I have. Just note that this will NOT bring in channels with no signal, only help weak signal ones. This unit is very well built, base made of cast metal not plastic and easy to hook up, the directions are off a bit with the picture of the unit in place, cables are reversed, I just followed the written directions. I now plan on getting a better antenna and maybe a rotor. I have sattelite with no hd, and love watching especially hockey in hd. Amazon is a great place to shop, always great service.

i mounted at the bottom of the tv tower, not wanting to climb up to place it close to the antenna as suggested.Worked like a charm - we now get at least 3 more stations, and better reception from the Buffalo channels.i recommend it.

It work quite well when I am travelling in my RV to get the local TV station

I recently installed a new TV antenna, I live in the windsor area and purchased this to help and bring in more channels and I really hoped it would bring in global TV 29.1 , it does really good in helping most channels come in clear but it don't help my 29.1 problem. I actually get 70 channels instead of 65 but I'm at that just this close situation of my 29.1 problem. But it does help make the channels clear and still don't regret buying it.

Being located at Montreal's south-shore between Montreal, Burlington and Plattsburgh's towers, this amp provides the stability of 29 channels. Pointing my antenna down south, I was getting 27 channels prior but 10 of them were unstable, showing pixilation or blacking out on occasion. All of them are nice and clear now with the exception of 2 of them that are on and off when on occasion when whether is bad. The quality of the signal is so clear on my 4K TV that I didn't even think twice of cutting tv service. Kids missed there specialty channels for a few days but I never heard anything about it since. Remember when you could flip over the channels in less than a minute to see what playing? If needed, the built-in guide from the TV provides show information as the info is encoded in the OTA signal but I find it more convenient to flip through and check out the guide If I want details. Definitely a must for densely populated areas. To get a bigger boost, get the other version of this AMP but it will oversaturate signals if they are already strong.