Jonathan Epstein wrote:

Hi,

I'm sorry if I'm in the wrong newsgroup, but you folks seem to know
more about antennas than anyone else on usenet.

The previous owner of my house installed a fairly substantial roof
antenna for radio reception, because his favorite FM radio station was
50 miles away. Here's a pictu
http://epsteinmania.com/jonathan/public/antenna.jpg

I now would like to receive HDTV off-the-air programming at my house.


HDTV can be more sensitive to nulls caused by reflections on the antenna
feedline
from the antenna and receiver. One way to reduce this is to use a
preamp mounted
at the antenna to drive the feedline. This isolates any antenna
mismatches from the
feedline. The preamp should present a more controlled impedance to
match into
your feedline, thus reducing reflections from any mismatch in the
receiver.
Select a lower gain preamp if you live in a high signal strength area.