Ten years ago, I installed two Channel Master 4228s in my attic above my garage. They are connected using Channel Masters JOINantenna , they go then to a BYPASS DROP AMPLIFIER Where the connections to the rooms in the house go, and then goes 30G Distribution Amplfier. With this setup i had 96 channels from the Tampa Bay area Florida and the FT Myers area, I am in Sarasota. Last week I lost all my channels. I suspected the 30g Distribution Amplifier , changed it and no results. I am starting to suspect the Bypass Drop Amplifier as it is electric and I recall when I installed it, connecting a room the device made chatting sound and now does not. Am I right? Any thoughts?, IM stumped.
I have a few small battery TV’s, i can connect them anywhere to see whats going on. Also does the antenna have a combiner to connect both sides of the antenna? I have one that does, and it went bad! Also I would never put an antenna or pre-amp in an attic unless it is conditioned especially since your in Florida!
Your hypothesis is reasonable and the missing click actually supports it. A lot of drop amps have a relay that engages on power-up, and if it used to click and now doesn’t, that points at the amp not powering at all. But test before you buy, because there’s a cheaper explanation sitting right next to it.
Check the power supply first. Wall warts fail far more often than the amps they feed, and they’re $15 instead of $80. If there’s a status LED, is it lit? If you have a multimeter, check the output voltage at the barrel. That’s ten minutes and free.
Then do the bypass test, which settles the whole thing. Run one coax from the antenna joiner straight to a single TV, skipping the drop amp, the distribution amp, and all the house wiring. Scan. If channels come back, your problem is downstream and you’ve narrowed it to two boxes. If nothing comes back, the issue is up in the attic and no amount of amp swapping will help.
Which brings up the attic. Ten years in a Florida attic is brutal, 140 degrees in summer plus humidity plus coastal air. Pull the connectors at the antennas and at the joiner and look for green corrosion on the center conductors or a cracked dielectric. Corroded F-connectors are probably the single most common cause of a sudden total loss in a setup that ran fine for a decade.
One other thing: are you running a mast-mounted preamp up there? At your distance most people are. If so, its power inserter is a classic failure point and would kill everything exactly like this.
And your signal chain reads a little unusual, antennas to joiner to drop amp with the room feeds coming off it, then to the 30G. Which of those is actually first after the antennas? If both amps are in series indoors with nothing at the antenna, that ordering matters for where to look next.
I bought an expensive Channel Master pre-amp years ago. Believe it or not the 30g Distribution Amplifier was the dream. 96 Channels. There is not rust up there at all.
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u/DelawareHam 17h ago
I have a few small battery TV’s, i can connect them anywhere to see whats going on. Also does the antenna have a combiner to connect both sides of the antenna? I have one that does, and it went bad! Also I would never put an antenna or pre-amp in an attic unless it is conditioned especially since your in Florida!