I also agree with most of what jstjohnz wrote. However, some details I cannot confirm.
Where did you get the info from that the Sunahns boosters (golden) are only triggering blue light when transmitting?
I alos do get both blue lights if either the antenna cables are short or I use a second booster on the HD downlink side.
Anyway I will get a RF signal generator/spectrum analyzer next week. This should bring clarity.
I tested shortly one amp on the right side near to remote and one amp for HD downlink near to roof antenna and it seems to work. I didn't test long range yet. In 2 weeks I'll be at a place where I can perform all these long range tests risking to not make it home because of battery shortage.
To summarize: The tests confirm the coax-loss causes the HD downlink side not to trigger the blue light. In any other case it is there. Maybe an LMR400 would work without amp. Thus, I'm using the downlink amp to compensate cable loss.
And: Noise is only relevant above a certain treshold (no package loss repeat here) so the HD downlink amp might increase the noise as it does the signal but it can very well happen that the signal is boosted above the treshold from where on it is readable. This will then give indeed longer range and penetration which the first flights clearly confirmed.
At Sim597: I see the the Inspire v2 as an outdated fix on the Inspire v1. The hardware is for sure better but investing in a matrice 600 might be worth it. I'll get one in September. Guess all these questions will return then.