Indoor TV Antenna

[Cypress]

I searched this site for information on Indoor TV Antenna and found all postings several years old.

Has anyone installed an indoor HDTV Antenna, perhaps in their attic and found that TV reception is good quality? What did you buy and how is it functioning?

I really do not watch enough TV to justify the cost of basic cable which is creeping up to $30 with limited viewing. Time to make a change and put the money to better use. But, does the technology work?

I live in a fairly rural area and not sure about how to determine if I could pick up affiliates in Springfield MA and Hartford CT.

As always, I appreciate your responses.

[rodeosweetheart]

Cypress, we have this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-Direct-C2-V-CJM-ClearStream-Outdoor/dp/B007RH5GZI/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1401205444&sr=8-4&keywords=indoor+television+antenna

and it has been fantastic for several years now. Price is less than what we paid, too. We lived out on an island, 50-75 miles from stations, and it picked up 7 channels in SC. Up here, in Northern Michigan, we get several, not sure which ones, but certainly PBS and whatever carries Jeopardy, and NBC news--that seems to be all we watch for some reason.

[lac]

I have 3 digital antenna's in my house. One is a Terk (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/terk-omnidirectional-flat-panel-hdtv-indoor-antenna-black/1439997.p?id=1219051875628&skuId=1439997)amplified antenna which works the best. I having it sitting on a sitting wall near the TV and I receive a lot of channels over the air. I also have two basic RCA antenna's which work OK but not as good as the Terk. I have to move them around sometimes to get a signal on certain stations. All three are flat panel antenna's.

[Cypress]

Thanks for these replies. I am hoping these items are at Best Buy. There's a local store and if the device doesn't work, I'd rather drive back than deal with shipping and returns to Amazon. My cable bill is due June 6, I'd love to call them and say no thanks :)

I also read good reviews on a Winegard model at a considerably less price. The two replies cost about $80.

[ToomuchStuff]

I have an old antenna up in the attic but haven't used it yet. Why, because I need to get up there in all the scratchy stuff, and swap the old flat ribbon cable, with the coax adapter.

A lot of the antenna's are going to need that adapter (flat ribbon screws to it and it adapts to coax), and it is inexpensive at Radio Shack. But I found a smaller wall antenna for less then $5 (cost me more to make the one I am linking to, timewise), so I bought that and have been using it for a while (passed the testing stage at this point).
Hanging it up on the wall and I have gotten good reception, although digital signals are more interuptable then the old analog signals.
You can experiment yourself by building one (lots of sites from Youtube, to instructables, etc), here are a few:
http://www.tvantennaplans.com/
http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2011/12/05/how-to-build-your-own-hdtv-antenna/
http://www.instructables.com/howto/antenna/

Also, some people think those old antenna's won't work anymore, so I have seen some on craigslist.

[herbgeek]

For what its worth Cypress, I'm slightly closer to Boston than you and I've tried a couple of indoor antennas and neither of them did the job. I'm just too far away. The indoor antennaes usually indicate their range- even the one that said it'd go 50 miles was not enough. I could not get Springfield or Hartford stations either.

[bUU]

Here's a good resource for helping determine what kind of antenna you need for decent reception, or even if there is any chance of having decent reception, depending on the distance, terrain and obstructions between where you live and the transmission facilities.

http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx

Western Massachusetts is somewhat underserved in terms of OTA channels. Brimfield, for example, returns a result of "Due to factors such as terrain and distance to broadcasting towers, signal strength calculations have predicted no television stations may be reliably received at this location." The dividing line in that direction is between Wilbraham and Monson, due to elevation changes, primarily.

By comparison, Southwick fares much better.

[Spartana]

I have a $10 antenna on my TV (rabbit ears) and it picks up all the same channels as the much more expensive version (both made for HDTVs). I had bought both to try them out and the $10 one worked better than the $100 one - which was returned. I live about 50m miles south of LA so pick up many of the channels from there. Besides the main nerwork channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB, etc...) I also get a bunch of different PBS stations (about 12) and tons of foreign language stations and weird channels that show old movies and TV shows.

[bUU]

I have a $10 antenna on my TV (rabbit ears) and it picks up all the same channels as the much more expensive version (both made for HDTVs).You live in what CEA refers to as a yellow zone (which may seem strange, since their yellow zone gets easier access to signals than their green zone - their scale goes yellow, green, red - but their zoning is looking in two dimensions, power and directionality, so has more colors than a traffic light and isn't intended to follow the traffic light pattern at all).


I had bought both to try them out and the $10 one worked better than the $100 one - which was returned.The $100 antenna was probably either directional (and pointed in the wrong direction) or amplified (and you didn't need the amplification so with amplification the signal was corrupted). When I have my amplified antenna on the "right" side of the house, I have to turn the amplification way down (but not off) or I don't get anything. On that side of the house, I can use the $10 antenna with no problems. On the other side of the house, with the entire house between the antenna and line-of-sights to the transmission towers a few dozen miles away, the $10 antenna gets nothing, and I can get somewhat decent reception with the amplified antenna with the amplification turned way up.

Folks who live in areas where they have to receive signals from different directions are in the most difficult position, since they cannot exploit the advantage of directional antennas, and if they're remote, only the biggest omnidirectional antennas will be worthwhile.


I live about 50m miles south of LA so pick up many of the channels from there.Television transmission across a flat desert works very differently from across hills and valleys, such as what Cypress encounters in western Massachusetts.

[Cypress]

The web link provided gives my area a no to indoor antennas. In my neighborhood, several residents are switching to dish TV. There was an advertisement through AAA for a pretty decent price with certain restrictions and a limited time span of two years. However, when I read the fine print, and I needed my spy glass to read it, there were all kinds of howevers, $$$, and costs associated with this service. I am pretty sure if I put the name of the dish network+complaint, the page would be flowing over with consumer comments on poor quality of service. It's up to me to pay or give up the telly all together. Thanks so much for all the advice.

[Spartana]

Television transmission across a flat desert works very differently from across hills and valleys, such as what Cypress encounters in western Massachusetts.Yeah I can see that being possible. But I live on the coast and have a couple of big hills between me and LA but still get good reception from my rabbit ears. Thought maybe they bounced the signals off some kind of tower. I also had rabbit ears when I lived about 10 miles outside of Boston and got reception too but that wasn't as hilly as Western Mass and also closer to the big city. It wasn't as good as here but I attributed that to lack of TV stations compared to LA.

[bUU]

Mount Wilson hosts numerous transmitters for the Los Angeles area. Elevation 5,713 feet.

By comparison, transmitters for the Boston area are on the Needham flats. Elevation 162 feet.

[Spartana]

Mount Wilson hosts numerous transmitters for the Los Angeles area. Elevation 5,713 feet.

By comparison, transmitters for the Boston area are on the Needham flats. Elevation 162 feet.That's probably why I get good antenna reception. I'm about 70 driving miles from Mt. Wison but only 40 "as a bird flies" miles from there. I also can pick up a few San Diego channels too but they are often staticy.

[bUU]

I remember reading once that line of sight from a typical home antenna, on a perfectly round earth without hills and valleys or trees, was approximately 63 miles (i.e., due to the curvature of the earth). Raising the transmitter (or the antenna) higher extends that distance. Obstructions obviously cut that distance off, possibly precipitously.

I remember in New York there were even more complications. Of course, the transmitters were on top of the World Trade Center when I lived there, and we were very close to Manhattan, so distance was not the issue. But what tripped us up was multipath. This is the phenomenon whereby the transmission signal reaches the antenna through two paths, and generally out of synch with each other, resulting in signal corruption. This happens generally when signals bounce off the atmosphere, water, mountains or - as was the case for us in New York - buildings.