Looking for advice on good digital TV antenna

8 13 2015 | TV LAND

[dennisw]

 

Looking for advice on good digital TV antenna. If it says 25 miles reception, do they mean it? And these new type antennaes work indoors? Has anyone rigged one up outdoors?

http://yourfreedtv.com/    What TV you have in your area

http://www.antennaweb.org/Default.aspx   How far TV tower transmitter is from your house

Selection of TV antennas
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tv+antenna

So what TV antennae have you used that you like?

 

[steve86]

That’s probably too directional for my needs (transmitters on different hills about 30° apart) but looks neat. Stacked YAGI?

[steve86]

I had at least four double bowtie UHF antennas from years ago in the shed — have put two back into use.

[scrabblehack]

OK, so the converter box is a separate device from the digital antenna.

[trebb]

When I bought my house in '92, it had an antenna that had been there since 1985 (30 years ago). It is still up and it does just fine receiving HD programming from local stations and sometimes picks up stations from Mobile, AL which is 40 miles away.

I would guess any decent HD antenna would work fine and the only possible "option" to get would be a signal booster for the fringe area stations.

[4yearlurker]

I bought a chintzy Homeworx cardboard antenna on line for 8 bucks. I hung it from the curtain rod in my window and I pick up 28 channels nice and clear. I live about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh,PA. A old set of rabbit ears will work just fine too!

[4yearlurker]

I would also suggest going on YouTube and type in "Digital TV antenna." There are a lot of videos that walk you and talk you through the process. Good luck!

[Moleman]

Yes I agree. I have the old outdoor rooftop antenna that we grew up with in the 70’s and early 80’s. Broadcast hasn't changed, antenna works great. Many broadcast in 1080i much better than cable or satellite.

[mad_as_he$$]

&0 feet? Wow! Do you have an telescoping tower? Or one that just lays down?

[sheana]

I have the alien looking Yagi style one that I use on our boat. It’s on a small stand and I just set it outside the companionway and it gets great reception. My neighbors have the black flat square looking one and their reception sucks.

[sheana]

That’s almost the same one I use on our boat. I set it right outside the companionway on the deck of the boat and get great reception.

[midnightcat]

but if you get a Roku, you need internet access in order to make it work, right?

[Daffynition]

LOL...the good-ole-days! ;)

[usconservative]

I played around with this sort of thing, but I thought the conversion used to be from a 300 ohm twin lead antenna line to a 75 ohm coax input line

You're correct. It's a 300 ohm twin lead to a 75 ohm coaxial input. I stated it incorrectly.

[usconservative]

70 feet? Wow! Do you have an telescoping tower? Or one that just lays down?

My tower is a fixed height. It's 50 feet from bottom to the top, and is a heavy-duty Rohn HDBX that can support up to 5x the windload I have installed on it. I have 20' of heavy duty mast extending out the top of my tower. I have a Mosley Tri-Bander (ham radio) antenna at 52 feet, a Cushcraft 13B2 2M beam (ham radio) at 65' and a 2m/440 vertical (ham radio) all the way up at the top being 70'.

The home brew TV antenna is just under the 2m/440 vertical antenna, probably more like 68' not 70.

I do have a rotor installed in my tower so I can turn the directional antenna's any which way I want. I'm still reasonably close enough to Chicago (@25 miles out) and at a high enough elevation that it's really easy for me to pick up Chicago TV Stations. Occasionally I can pick up into Milwaukee which is about 95'ish miles north of me. I can also pick up South Bend, Indiana, out to Rockford IL, and down to Champaign, IL. The antenna I built probably maxxes out at about 120 miles or so. To increase the distance all I'd have to do is extend the boom of the antenna and add more radials to increase the gain.

Not going to bother with that. What I have works just fine.

The really fun stuff is the 120' end to end horizontal fan dipole I have underneath the beam that reaches to the farthest points of my property. I can pick up AM radio stations all the way out to Los Angeles. I also use that as a multi-band ham radio antenna.

[mad_as_he$$]

Serious antenna “farm”. We get 100+mph winds on a regular basis so most guys here use telescoping towers so they can retract when it gets nasty. I have been toying with the HD antenna idea of the DIY flavor. 25 miles and some terrain between my place and the primary source peak. So it will have to be more than an Amazon one.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Thanks - won’t have to go looking for new parts - probably have what I need in the basement....

[dennisw]

I have read many posts and gotten good advice. Thanks! I WAS GOING TO GO INDOORS BUT NOW ANTENNA WILL BE OUTDOORS.

[stevio]

It has a motor to rotate it. I have it in the house right now. It doesn’t look like it can take too much abuse, but I might put it under the porch roof.

[usconservative]

Serious antenna “farm”. We get 100+mph winds on a regular basis so most guys here use telescoping towers so they can retract when it gets nasty.

My antenna's are really pretty basic. It looks more impressive on paper than it really is. I have friends here in my area that do have crank-up towers that reach 100 feet plus and don't require guy wires.

One of my friends has a 120' self raising/lowering tower. He pushes one button and up it goes, or down it comes. He has 22 antennas on his tower (I counted) for everything from the VHF bands, HF bands and into microwave and gigahertz. His shack is damn' impressive too. He restores old Collins equipment which takes up two walls in his 15'x15' shack. The rest is all Kenwood. Everything's on a remote control too. The guy's a genius.

[JennysCool]

Yup. Roku requires the ‘net.