Hi Chris

I think others have pretty well answered your questions.

My gut feel is that given the manufacturer even mentions NF is a good
thing. ie those that don't may be of poor performance in this area. As
others have seen be careful of overload due to closer stations. I once
lived in a VHF TV area where signals on 165/180MHz were strong but most
people also wanted one on about 49MHz. Many a preamp had problems with
the strong stations. I ended up setting up some 1/4 stubs on the preamp
input that notched the strong signals enough to stop the bleed through.

Cheers Bob

szilagyic wrote:

I have (for reasons that you mentioned) been thinking about replacing
the preamp (Radio Shack 30 dB). The manual for it doesn't give the
specs for noise, or anything useful for that matter. I have been
looking at a Winegard AP-8275 (29 dB gain VHF, 28 dB gain UHF, 2.9 dB
noise VHF, 2.8 dB noise UHF). Would this be a good alternative as far
as a low noise amp?? We do not live near any stations, I believe the
closest is 15 miles, so I am thinking a high gain preamp would be a
good fit.
----

On Jul 2, 1:49 pm, szilagyic wrote:
Hello:

I have been trying to find the answer to my question on the front-to-
back ratio onUHFantennas, and so far have been unsuccessful.

I think I understand what the front-to-back ratio is, but the specs on
my Winegard PR-8800 (8 bay bowtie) show negative front-to-back ratios
(-9 dB @ ch 14; -17 dB @ ch 32; -11 dB @ ch 50; -9 dB @ ch 69). The
"dB over reference dipole" is: 10.7 dB @ ch 14; 12 dB @ ch 32; 11 dB @
ch 50; 12.5 dB @ ch 69. How can the front-to-back ratio be negative,
and is this good or bad? I am assuming this could be bad in my case
as I would like the signal at the back of the antenna to be minimal.

I am currently trying to improve our HDTV reception. I currently have
the PR-8800 antenna in our attic hooked to a Radio Shack 30 dB mast
amp. This antenna works very well overall. But from time to time, on
a couple channels the HD signal strength will drop all the way down,
enough to drop the signal or cause break-up. I've been considering a
Winegard HD9095P or PR9032 to use in conjunction with the PR-8800
since they have a higher gain than the PR-8800, then rotate the
PR-8800 the other way to receive some different stations.

I really appreciate the help and feedback on this!!

Thanks,
--
Chris

Thanks to all for the help. I have replaced my Radio Shack 15-1109
preamp with a Winegard AP-8275 preamp (I know the recommended model in
this thread was the AP-8700, but I want to put in a splitter and feed
about 5 separate devices at some point). After doing a direct swap, I
noticed a slight improvement in signal quality. We gained about 5-10%
signal strength for HDTV feeds, and about the same for our FM
reception.

Best,
--
Chris