Originally Posted By: DBMaster
Forty miles is OUTDOOR range. Putting it in the attic, as I have read, cuts signal strength by about 50%. You may need to experiment. My old, large outdoor antenna, mounted in my attic, with an RCA brand "distribution amp" (Sorry, can't find a DB rating on it.) gives me adequate strength to get all the local digital channels from the towers that are at least forty miles from here. If you mount it inside you might be OK without the amp. Try it first.
It's actually uncanny how much this antenna looks like a scaled down version of what I have in my attic. The UHF portion is still the same size, though, and in my area most of the digital broadcasts are in the UHF spectrum.
Yes, I'm thinking I'd probably need a pre-amp if I put an antenna in the attic area above my garage due to the signal reduction of it being inside. Plus I want to feed the antenna signal into a cable splitter (where the Comcast cable comes in), so I'm thinking my signal will be pretty weak by the time it hits the TVs in the house if no pre-amp is used.
I was looking for a pre-amp that had an adjustable gain, but could only find this one on Amazon. IMO, it would be nice to be able to adjust the gain of the pre-amp in case it was putting too much signal out to the TVs.
15 to 30 dB adjustable gain. Has mixed reviews on performance and reliability.
http://www.amazon.com/Antra-AT-PAA28-Pre-Amplifier-Adjustable-Excellent/dp/B008NC8IB0/ref=pd_sim_e_3