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BEST ANTENNA FOR T.V-PROBABLY OLDEST QUESTION IN THE BOOK & PROB THE LAST!

N

nightfly61

Guest
I'm holding out until after February '09 to get fancy with t.v boxes or cable :D at the house or a dish. In the meantime does anyone have any suggestions on a temporary DECENT t.v antenna rig-up for home use? I remember the old catalog that sold the thing you plug into your wall outlet & it's supposed to "use your house wiring as an antenna". I never tried it but figured it wouldn't work since hooking up the "turned off" cable wire never did any good. The rabbit ears just ain't gettin' it ::) I also heard that antenna's should go by 6' sections...anybody?
 
The "Wall Outlet TV Antenna" was a scam. All you got were weak signals and lots of ghosts. Rabbit ears won't work well for DTV unless you're quite close to the TV transmitters.
You'll need a good outdoor antenna.
 
The "Wall Outlet Antenna" operates like a line cord FM antenna. It's better than nothing but hardly perfect. Hooking up to coax of turned off cable won't work since the center conductor is shielded to keep noise and unwanted signals out. A couple of years back I showed a friend his HD capability using a paper clip and a test lead as an antenna. It was able to pick up several channels, of course elevation helped.

Ironically, the best indoor antenna for UHF HD is no longer made. Channel Master/Radio Shack sold a UHF dual bowtie set top antenna. Its had natural gain as opposed to a wire with an amplifier attached so it picked up a signal instead of amplifying noise. The antenna was sold for many years and was discontinued earlier this decade.
 
Are you talking about analog reception, or Digital?
You might as well go ahead and get your subsidized converter boxes....the coupons may all be gone before February. And, the boxes, themselves, might even become hard to find after the Coupon Program is done.

You need to find out, via the various websites, what channels your local stations will use for DTV. Many markets will be all-UHF band (14-51), but there will also be many high-band VHF (7-13) digitals. A few markets will even have some low-band VHF (2-6). If you have all UHF, then you might get by with something like the "Silver Sensor" UHF antenna. They run about $40, and (as the engineers say) "If the SS won't get a signal indoors, you don't HAVE a signal indoors". If you have any VHF stations, the SS might work with them as well, if they are fairly strong.

Of course, your best bet is a plain, old-fashioned, VHF/UHF combination antenna, mounted on the roof. It'll work for VHF, for UHF, and even FM radio.
 
Many members of my family live in "the sticks" - I'm the defacto antenna guy in the family. I've had the best luck with the Winegard antennas. They seem to be made better than the comparable Channel Master stuff and survive longer outdoors IME. The best combination of price and service I've found over the last few years has been with Solid Signal (link below). I also have had good luck dealing with Stark Electronic. Their site has the old Channel Master antenna guides posted.
-D

http://www.solidsignal.com/
http://www.starkelectronic.com/
 
I think a lot of people think they have to wait until Feb. before they can watch digital TV. With more than 90% of the full power stations already simulcasting, why would anyone put up with an analog picture (noise, multi-path, etc.) when they could have a nearly studio quality picture? I think NOW is the time to get the new ATSC TV or at least the ATSC converter box. Target has ones for $50 that will also pass the analog signal, so the LPTV stations that aren't converting can still be received.
 
The Channel Master is often far more than you need, unless you're out in the boonies.
We're finding that even "rabbit ears" can offer too much signal in the suburbs, often requiring 3, 6 or more dB of attenuators to get reliable reception.

CM and others make a two-bay bowtie that works well around here. But, we have to wait a few years to see how well they work with low-power Digitals in the high-VHF (7-13) band.
 
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