depends,
What kind of signal strength are you getting without a pre-amp?
How far are you from the Antennas your are trying to receive? (go to tvfool dot com to see where they are in relation to you.)
You have to also realize that a pre-amp will only amplify the signals that your antenna can already get. It will not find new signals that were not there.
Where I live, I am 32 miles from the Antenna Farm that hosts all of the City of Houston's OTA TV broadcasts. I am in heavily wooded area and using antenna in the attic. Most stations came in with a signal strength around 60 to 70 but a couple were below 50. Using a pre-amp I am now getting signal strength at 70 to 90 for everything and am very happy.
My pre-amp only adds about 17 to 20db to the signal but it gets me where I need to be.
I would say to first you need to make sure you need a pre-amp by looking at the signal strength you get without one.
If you need one then get the pre-amp with low noise and preferably lowest DB gain that will get you to 80 to 100 signal strength. (you don't want so much gain that it actually can cause reception problems)
If you are just trying to reach out farther to grab longer distance signals then get a better antenna and get it up well above your home. again a pre-amp only adds signal gain to signals it already sees, it does not find signals it could not get previously.
What kind of signal strength are you getting without a pre-amp?
How far are you from the Antennas your are trying to receive? (go to tvfool dot com to see where they are in relation to you.)
You have to also realize that a pre-amp will only amplify the signals that your antenna can already get. It will not find new signals that were not there.
Where I live, I am 32 miles from the Antenna Farm that hosts all of the City of Houston's OTA TV broadcasts. I am in heavily wooded area and using antenna in the attic. Most stations came in with a signal strength around 60 to 70 but a couple were below 50. Using a pre-amp I am now getting signal strength at 70 to 90 for everything and am very happy.
My pre-amp only adds about 17 to 20db to the signal but it gets me where I need to be.
I would say to first you need to make sure you need a pre-amp by looking at the signal strength you get without one.
If you need one then get the pre-amp with low noise and preferably lowest DB gain that will get you to 80 to 100 signal strength. (you don't want so much gain that it actually can cause reception problems)
If you are just trying to reach out farther to grab longer distance signals then get a better antenna and get it up well above your home. again a pre-amp only adds signal gain to signals it already sees, it does not find signals it could not get previously.
