MS-2000 Signal varies not constant

[jt1001001]

Hi. I just installed an MS-2000 on my Mother's house. Antenna is approximately 35Ft up on an old satellite dish mount that's in the clear on the eave/peak. The house is located approx 7 miles from one group of broadcast antennas for our region, and about 20-25 miles from the other set. I chose this antenna so she would not have to mess with a rotator to get the farther set of channels. The channels located 7 miles away come in fine, but the farther away ones, the signal strength will constantly change, causing pixilation. On the farther away stations the bar graph will show GREEN initially (5 bars) then will drop to RED (1 to 2 bars) for a few moments (5-10 sec) and then come back to GREEN (Her TV doesn't have a signal strength measurement just a bar graph.) The closer stations show a constant GREEN, but change as well from 5 bars, down to 3 bars (again for 5-10 seconds) then back up. I am wondering if there is something wrong with the amplifier in the antenna?? I've check the coax cabling and the power injector and everything seems fine. I am getting a constant 15v dc at the antenna end of the coax. If you have any suggestions I would appreciate them; otherwise I will have to return the antenna.

[winegard]

Good morning jt1001001,

Winegard does not recommend an amplified antenna less than 20 miles from the TV stations because you can actually over load the amplifier with too much signal causing harmonics to fall out all over the TV spectrum and ruining the channels. Return the MS-2000 and exchange it for the MS-1000 non amplified antenna and if you feel that you need to amplify the signal use a HDP-269 preamplifier.

The HDP-269 preamplifier has less gain and a much higher input level so you should not have the distortion problem. Also try raising the antenna higher of the roof because you can get reflections off the roof into the antenna causing multipathing of the signal. You might try rotating the antenna in 10 degree increments to see if that will help. Even though the MS-2000 is omni directional not all of the channels patterns are a prefect 360 degrees.