PBD HDTV Preamplifier, TV Antenna Amplifier Signal Booster, HD Digital VHF UHF Amplifier, with 4G 5G LTE Filter, Professional-Grade Signal Booster

Wow, it’s official, I love my PBD Digital HD Yagi Antenna and PBD HDTV Preamplifier combo! I installed them on my roof in Eastern Iowa 2 weeks ago and have had flawless digital TV reception since then. I struggled with intermittent spotty TV reception and image pixelation for years on my favorite channels. My PBD antenna + preamplifier combo solved these reception issues and I can watch any of my 39 channels anytime with clear reception. I waited for 2 weeks to write this review so I could experience reception in a wide variety of weather conditions and reception has been great throughout this entire period. I highly recommend getting & installing this equipment. A huge bonus is the tremendous customer support and practical guidance I received from Bill and the PBD team. Working with Bill and installing & using my PBD equipment is the best online customer experience I have ever had. I started my PBD journey by installing their preamp to boost the signal of my existing antenna, located on a 5-foot pole on the peak of my roof, 20 feet above the ground. The antenna cable from my roof routs to a 2-outlet splitter mounted on the exterior of my house with one cable going to the basement and one to the main floor. I needed to change this splitter to get one that allows power pass so that the PBD preamp located on the roof can receive power through the splitter from the power source inside my house. Bill helped me with this via email & even offered to send me a free PBD splitter with power pass, but I had already purchased one for $6. Once the preamp was installed, I continued having reception problems and Bill determined my existing 2-antenna (see old antenna photo) array on a single pole was probably causing signal interference. Bill suggested using the compact PBD Yagi antenna (see Yagi antenna photo with black preamp attached to the pole just under the antenna) and told me to set it facing Northwest. After watching PBD’s assembly and installation video, I was able to easily install the Yagi antenna on my existing antenna pole. From the moment I rescanned channels on both TVs, after installing the PBD antenna & preamp, my reception problems vanished and I have enjoyed glorious, interruption-free reception. The compact Yagi antenna also looks much better! Both the PBD preamp and Yagi antenna are well made, with easy installation instructions and come with all the necessary cables, brackets and materials to make installation a breeze. Bravo to PBD for great products & support.

This was one of many TV antenna preamplifiers that I considered and opted for this one. I bought it to improve the reception range of a few long-distance TV stations 90 miles away. It's a solidly built and durable preamplifier. I've had this for almost three years and still going strong. I was amazed that it still worked after I saw rainwater dripping out when I temporarily took it off the mast to do some work on the MATV system and forgot that it was still on the roof. I opened it (already past the warranty period - don't do it when it's under warranty) and drained the rest of the water out. After letting it dry out and putting the cover back on, it still worked! Noise level and performance is to specifications. Easy to connect (power goes through cable going to TV or distribution amplifier, other goes to TV antenna). Picture quality is good, but it's totally dependent on factors such as antenna height, distance, direction, and even weather. Most of the time the three fringe channels have no pixelation and are a joy to watch. Other times I get some pixelation and dropouts when it's windy (the only time it gives me problems. It's a great inexpensive preamplifier that won't disappoint you.

Installed last Fall, Inspected a little bit ago. I always check the tightness of the coax cables every year or so. The coax connector on the power supply cracked the case when I snugged the cable with my 7/16th wrench. Taped it up with some electrical tape. Went up on the roof and checked the coax connectors going into the amplifier box and very lightly snugged the coax and heard a small cracking noise and stopped before anything broke. Plastic cases may not fare to well out in the weather. But it's still working great, so no issues. Just be gentle!

UPDATE: Lowering to 1 star: I kept wondering why I wasn't getting VHF channels reliably. I even took a laptop and TV tuner up on the roof, hooked it up there, and saw that I was getting okay reception. That's when I replaced the bad included cable that came with the amp. But even though it helped some, it was still not as good as it should have been. Finally I realized I should do a test again bypassing the amp altogether. I left the amp installed at the antenna but instead of going through the power injector, I went straight from the antenna download into the TV tuner. Well, those troublesome channels were now coming in great. I went up on the roof and took out the amp entirely and it's even better (without the extra loss of having the unpowered amp in the circuit of course). Well, to summarize, it was doing okay at first but seemed to slowly get worse. VHF was basically unusable even at the start, but even the UHF channels were starting to suffer. I thought I was getting a decent amp considering the price, but lesson learned. I'll get something with higher quality. I do get signal loss on the cable run, so I do want an amp, but this is not the one. ---------------- Original review: I have about 90-100 feet of coax from the antenna to my distribution system, and even though it's a good quality quad-shielded RG6, it was losing a lot of signal along the way. I finally got around to adding an amp on the roof at the antenna itself, and this unit seemed like a good fit. I started out by testing signal quality at the antenna directly (took a laptop up there with a USB tuner so I could scan and get the actual signal levels). Then I wired up the amp and repeated the process at the end of 100' of coax. Initially I was underwhelmed. Some channels were fine, but some actually did worse! I got back on the roof and noticed that the short cable that came with the amp (that goes between the amp and the antenna) was kinked pretty bad in a couple spots. Maybe it was a result of the way it was coiled up for shipping, or maybe these cables are just not that great. Whatever the case, I dug out a quality coax cable from my stash and used it instead. Lo and behold, the signal at the end of the long coax run was great now on all channels. I threw the included cable in the trash where it belongs. Remember that an amp like this can't boost a bad signal, so if you're not getting a good signal at the antenna itself, this amp won't help you one bit. But if you have a long cable run like I do, or maybe you're feeding a splitter to run to different TV's, this amp will take that good signal you already have and make sure it gets where it's going at the other end. Summary: Good amp, terrible jumper cable so make sure you have your own just in case.