My experience with preamps has been that they amplify the background noise
just about as much as the signal. Unless your receiver lacks front-end
gain, they are pretty much useless.
The exception might be if the antenna has extremely low pickup such as a
small whip or loop, the preamp might raise the signal a dB or two relative
to the noise floor. At least in theory. I have yet to see a preamp that
has ever improved the s/n ratio of a signal in my station. This includes
both tube type and solid state preamps.
Don K4KYV
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