Question: Do RF Amps need to be replaced on a schedule?

[ Jerry — MacSolutions]

> On Jul 24, 2018, at 12:26 PM, James Sentman <james at sentman.com> wrote:
> 
> It’s possible it’s unrelated to the amp at all, I sometimes have periods where my reception contracts a little for no reason that i’ve ever been able to discover and then goes back to normal. Sometimes they have lasted several days. Cosmic rays or the aliens hiding in the shed doing an upload to the mother ship or something ;) 
> 
> The other most likely candidate isn’t actually the amp itself but the power supply. Is this one of those that has the power injector and a wall wort connected to it without a plug? You may have to snip the leads (unplug first or it will short and die) and try connecting in a new higher quality power supply of the same or similar output. Wall Worts like that definitely fail. 20 years is about all those cheap capacitors in there are good for. Or it might have taken a lightning hit or something.
> 
> And yes, if it’s not powered at all then it would be attenuating the signals rather than just passing them through. You’ll want to check that failure mode for the power supply too.
> 
> -James


James,


Yeah… My outlying sensors sometimes just stop responding but this was worried me as my sensor in the Master Bathroom, which detects that we’re out of bed and doing what we’re supposed to do, wasn’t responding.

Since my note, I’ve had the two sensors in front of the house start responding again.  (It’s been close to a week since the front sensors responded.)  So perhaps the cyclical “dead zone” that you spoke about IS what is happening here and my moving the antenna during our renovation changed the angle and distance from the sensors.

I’d sure like to figure out what might be causing so much interference.

Michael,

I might have to incorporate more than one antenna in my set-up again.  I don’t have a spread like you have with multiple buildings and I can hopefully keep mine inside and without rust.  ;)

Jp
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