[Radio Wrangler]

If you're only interested in signals from one site, then you could get more signal from a larger, directional aerial.

Is whatever you using pointed for best signal?

There is loss in coax cable, so is your run as short as possible. Is the cable in good condition? Water can go walkies down the braiding, tarnishing it. This can create a surprising amount of loss.

If the cable is OK and the antenna is a big as you can tolerate, then think in terms of a mast-head preamp. A good sensitive tuner isn't going to be much noiseier than a preamp, so putting a preamp down near the tuners is not going to help much. But not all tuners have state-of-the-art low noise figures, so a preamp even if near them would help.

But what gives the best advantage to a preamp, is getting it ahead of the cable loss.

There is a case of horses for courses. Some tuners are deliberately made to survive operation in high signal areas with lots of big signals whamming around. They will deliberately be less sensitive in order to optimise intermod and blocking performance. Some other tuners are optimised for long range use and have higher sensitivity at the expense of intermod etc.

The Tuner Information Center (American spelling) makes interesting reading, but be cautious, the contributors are a mixture of people with lab grade test and measurement facilities as well as people using ears and making comments about perceived 'speed', 'authority' etc. There are also contributors from areas needing extreme sensitivity and others needing extreme large signal handling.

As you know which camp you're in, you should be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Some more signal from a better aerial is always the best thing, if you can do it. Mast head preamps come second.

If you are interested in stations from other locations, the amateur radio suppliers do antenna rotators. A small one will do.

David