I keep having to replace the splitter that I use to get over the air HD reception. These are not cheap splitters (Monster Cable). I've had to do this 3 times in the last 2 months. I certainly can't blame it on lightning since it is winter here in Michigan. The splitter is located down in the basement along with all my other cables that come in from the outdoors. What gives? Any help would be appreciated.

Are you using a preamplifier? Are you passing the preamp power through the splitter? Is the splitter marked for a power passing leg?

If you are passing power through the splitter and it is not designed to pass power it could be damaging the splitters. Just a guess.

Hope this helps,

Dave T

What I have is the cable from the antenna comes into the preamp, out of the preamp to a 4-way splitter. It is this splitter that keeps going out on me.

Hard to explain why the splitters are going bad. Maybe Monster had a bad batch in production. I would switch to a cheaper splitter, no reason to use Monster splitters, and see if the problem reoccurrs.

Dave T

So the splitters just plain die?

Contact Monster about this. I have never seen a splitter die unless it got water in it. I don't even think DC should affect it -- it should pass DC, short it to ground, or not pass it at all, and either the splitter would fail within hours, or never.

What happens is everything works fine when I first install it but after about a week or so I only get partial HD broadcasts that I used to get all the time. I take the splitter out of the loop and hook direct to my receiver and I get all the channels again, so it must be the splitter.

Can anyone suggest another brand of splitter for me to try?

Its possible that weak signal is the problem and not bad splitters, you stated that when you pull the splitter the problem stops, whats happening is you're quadrupling the signal to that receiver. If your signal is borderline small changes in weather conditions could effect your reception causing it to come and go leading you to believe you have bad splitters. Do you have four HDTVs needing signal or are you using one antenna for analog and digital? If so you may what to install a digital (UHF only) antenna for your HD tuner. I'm in the Detroit area and have installed hundreds of antennas for HD reception and I've used a pre-amp only a couple of times for installs way out of the city. I've found if you don't really need a pre-amp it makes the reception worse.

media1's answer reminds me that what is happening is not always what we think is happening.

When a splitter goes bad and you replace it, have you ever tried the old splitter again just to see what happens? If you replace the splitter the next day and signal conditions are better, your new splitter might look like it is working...but the old one might, too, if you tried it then.

And he is right -- if you remove a 4-way splitter you get four times as much signal to the one TV that is connected; signals on the edge of being poor quality might work directly but not through a splitter...sometimes.

You need to do some testing to take that "sometimes" out of the equation.

As for the preamp, I once used a satellite preamp with a guy's signal because he insisted on it. The signal level (which is really signal quality, and not necessarily related to signal level) went down some fifteen points when we put the amp in the line.

So back up a few steps. Connect the antenna without the amp to one TV and see if you always get good reception. If the splitters seemed to fail at particular times of day, check station signal levels at that time of day to see if the signal varies. Then, knowing that a 2-way splitter reduces a signal by about 4 dB (3 would be in a perfect world) and a four-way by about 7 or 8 dB (6 in a perfect world), put in a splitter and see if things work without the amp.

Bueller?

From now on, let's use "Bueller?" as a replacement for

(bump)