I would like to ask you , if I can connect two CATV amps in chain. I want to connect cable feed on first amp - then first amp out to second amp in and from second amp out to whole house tvs. I saw this hook up once with Channel plus and picture looked very clear.Picture in my customers house looks much better with one amp ,but it is not 100% clear (only 8 tvs in the house). I want to use either Channel plus or Open house products.Thank you for help. Rob

Yes, you can, but there are things to consider.

First, an amp with too high of an input will distort. This shows up as herringbone on analog channels. I have no idea how it shows up with digital channels, but once when I amplified a reasonable DirecTV signal, the signal quality meter in the receiver showed a LOWER signal quality even though the signal was hotter. It must have been distortion.

So the second amp might mess up if its input is too high.

For that matter, the first amp will distort if its input is too high from the cable.

But hey, why do you want to do this?

Do you just need lots of gain and you have tried one amp and it is not enough? Well, the cable company is responsible for presenting you with adequate signal strength, so there should be no need for an amp at all. FOR ONE TV. An eight-way splitter often will work on a good cable feed without the need for amplification. (An eight-way will put out eight signals, each about 10 dB lower than the signal fed into it, so a perfect signal going to eight TVs might need a 10 dB amp.)(not counting the real world losses due to cable length)

So let's back up: if you connect the cable to ONE TV and it looks like crap, your cable company has a problem. Ditto if only some channels look bad. Do this.

As for input level, consider this: if a 10 dB amp and a 20 dB amp can handle the same input level, you have a big problem using two 10 dB amps because the second 10 dB amp will be seeing a signal 10 dB hotter than a 20 dB amp would in this situation.

Also, each amp will add noise to the signal...better to
a)call the cable company because it sounds like they are not giving you a good signal
b)choose one appropriate amp if necessary.

Thank you Ernie for quick response. If I hook up only one tv - picture is very clear , but when I start to add other tvs , picture is not bad , but not 100% clear like with one tv only. I know - it is never going to be same. This house wired some electrician (not Larry) and he used maybe not so good RG6 wire plus a lots of staples. I rewired two jacks and picture in these two locations looks better now.This house owns builder, so I want to try my best . The reason , why I want to try two amps is only because I remember this hook up from one house , where customer had excelent picture and when I hooked up tvs on first amp , picture was worst. So I am going to look for different amp tomorrow. Thank you again Ernie

It would be pretty strange for the picture to look worse with one amp, then better with two. Unless something was wrong with the first amp and it actually attenuated the signal.

One thing to know is that an amp with no power is usually a pretty good attenuator!

If you are using an eight-way splitter, a 10 dB amp ought to bring the signal back up to what it was. A 15 dB couldn't hurt, especially if you split the signal at any TV to feed a VCR or a DVR, but I wouldn't go further than that unless you have LONG cable runs.

Perhaps you should look carefully into the ends of the F connectors that the other guy put on. Sometimes, if a stripper knife is a little dull, one wire from the shield can get wrapped around the center conductor. This doesn't kill the picture, though you would think it would, but it sure makes it look lousy! If you find such a thing, clip off the old connector and redo it.

If the center conductor is too short anywhere, all cable downstream from that connection will be good from channel 7 - 13 and 23 on up, but real poor on 2 - 6 and a bit better on 14 - 22.

Funny thing for me was I had my cable company come out one time, and they said in my area the typical dB was 6 and when they were doing upgrades in my area and checked my line, I was pulling in 18 dB!!!. Luckly, I had an installer who didn't really care and didn't question it, although I am sure he knew I had lots of splits and amps...

I find that depending on the amp, and where it is in the connection, sometimes it helps and sometimes it hurts... We have in our house, 12 TVs (including TV tuners for computers and hand held TVs) and I find that if I place an amp after a 6 way splitter I have instead of before, I get better reception on lower channels, as it 're ups' the lost signal...