In reply to:
On my Sony 32 crt all channels are perfect above 13 on cable. 2-13 (all the networks) are very bad. More snow and slihouttes than you would think.
Alrighty, finally back to a topic I can chime in about. What you're experiencing, Bug, is overmodulation of your cable signal. Chances are you have some lower bandwidth capable cable in your place, and as higher and higher channels came out, someone (perhaps a previous owner) complained that the higher channels were snowy. The cable company's knee-jerk reaction is to "cook up" the signal strength to make up for the falloff in the higher frequency ranges, but that overmodulates the lower frequency ranges (channels 2-13 VHF) that don't get attenuated by the cable in your house.
Same thing happened when I moved in here, all the cable was original (back in the 2-13 channel TV dial days) badly shielded RG59, which carries 2-13 very well, but rolls off in the higher channels. When I replaced it all with quad-shield RG6, which doesn't exhibit the same rolloff characteristics,
ALL the channels were overmodulated and showed "ghosting" (which is actually bleed through from adjacent channels)... I called the cable company and let them know that I wanted them to lower the signal strength on their side, by using a variable RF "pad", I determined the best signal was at 6dB lower than what they were currently driving.
The cable company is very resistant to come out and tweak the signal strength that they're sending, it's kind of a "you gets what you gets" situation for them. It took two or three calls and finally me throwing up my hands and telling them if they wouldn't adjust their signal for the best looking off-air quality for me, that I'd switch to the digital cable through the phone company where it wouldn't be an issue. They came out, padded my cable at the pole, I took my pad off and all has been right since.
Not much you can do if all your in-wall is rated for less than 900MHz, but if it is, a little testing with either variable or static pads may give you a bit more insight.
In reply to:
My satellite quality was a little better on SD, but not a lot
Chances are that you have one "satellite capable" (usually into the gigahertz range) run of coax from the satellite to your set top, which would further reinforce that theory.
This is one of those mid-investment in labour (pulling new cable through walls), small-investment in money (coax is cheap), big-return type things. People tinker with getting that... maybe... just... a little... no, wait, I think I hear it... return on $6000 interconnects and then overlook something as reasonable as this.
Bren R.
