Looking for advice on good digital TV antenna

You bring up an interesting point I realized I forgot to mention in my post. The digital antenna you mention that is tuned to the HDTV broadcast spectrum you mentioned will not work well for the VHF stations, of which there are four in the Sacramento market and my understanding is most markets have at least one.

This was part of the confusion over ‘digital antennas.’ There was a common misconception that HD would be exclusively in the UHF band and that just isn't the case. There may indeed be ‘tweaks’ to certain antennas that ‘may’ do something to improve reception, I'm not qualified to argue that point. However, it likely has nothing to do with digital or HD per se. The old analog system (NTSC) and the new digital system (ATSC) still use the same frequencies, though some channels went away to make room for cellular.

If you get a “digital’ (or any) antenna, that is limited to UHF (400-700 MHz), otherwise known as channels 14 - 51, you will be disappointed if you have VHF stations, channels 2 - 13, in your market. There is a difference between VHF and UHF antennas and you need both or a combo if you have a VHF station in your market that you want to receive.

To make matters more complex, we have virtual channels now. This is where the station goes by its historical channel number, but its new digital channel is another number. Your TV generally figures this out automatically, but one of the those numbers may be in the VHF range and the other in the UHF range and the distinction is important if your antenna only works well with UHF.

http://www.stationindex.com/tv/ can help you identify the virtual and actual channels in use in your market.

To sum up, don't focus on ‘digital’ or HD, but determine whether you need VHF in addition to UHF.

I wonder whether a Digital Antenna can replace the STB box?

One way to find out is simply borrow one of those indoor HDTV antennas and a digital to analog converter from a friend, plug it all in, and perform a scan of the available stations in your area. It will give you a good idea if its good for you and worth persuing. I personally don't need a million channels, since I'm not a big tv person, but like to have basic local news, and a handful of network stuff, which includes a few shows I like (big bang theory etc). Free over the air digital tv does that for me nicely. And the picture quality, even on a pre-digital tv is great.

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