"Mr. Land" wrote in message
...

snip


I'm not well-versed in typical digital tuner design, but I would
venture a guess that, since the digital channels are carried by
traditional UHF channels, that the first thing an antenna signal
encounters after it enters a digital tuner is an RF amplifier stage
(an analog amplifier.)

If I'm right, then I would further guess that some 1st stage RF amp
designs will be better than others in terms of gain, noise, etc.

I haven't investigated to see if manufacturers quote numbers like
these in their specs, but that'd be the first thing I'd want to
compare if I were choosing between different tuners.

All this assumes you'd be using an antenna for your source, as opposed
to cable/satellite/fiber/whatever.

The relevant tuner spec is "noise figure" or NF. It is expressed in
decibels, the lower the better. In the receivers, I haven't seen the spec
much myself, but the mast-mounted preamplifiers practically always quote it.

If you have strong local signals, a poor NF isn't going to hurt you much.
If you use a low-noise preamp it will establish the system NF adn overcome a
poor receiver noise figure. Warning: some low-noise preamps can be
overloaded by strong local signals. Sorry ... there is no one, perfect
situation.