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How good are amplified indoor HDTV antennas?
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03-05-2011, 12:34 AM
I found a good deal on a Samsung flatscreen today at Best Buy so I brought it home. Picture is great but it doesn't pick up a few of the lower channels, including PBS, which is a deal-breaker. We do not have cable and hooking the TV to our rooftop antenna doesn't help, so I thought maybe an amplified indoor antenna might do the trick. Anyone had any luck with these?
03-05-2011, 12:41 AM
Ammo wrote: The antenna on your roof should be better. Do you know the type of antenna on the roof? Can you describe it? Has it picked up channels in the past? Did you select the correct tuner setting in the TV?
03-05-2011, 12:45 AM
I had other tv's on a radioshack amplified rabbit ear, and circle that did not pick much in the amplified mode. Plain Rabbit ears worked better.
I have a phillips compact SDV2710/27 from target or best buy, that was around $19 that is working great for my new sony lcd. I am getting a lot of channels. The box says this is optimized for HDTV, whatever that means. I bought it a while back and liked it because it looks sleek and modern. I have no rooftop antenna, and I am in the middle of Atlanta.
03-05-2011, 12:47 AM
03-05-2011, 12:57 AM
Amazon review info is good
Step one, when buying and setting up any antenna is to check for your stations @ antennaweb dot org and tvfool dot com. Antennas are directional. Use the websites to determine where your towers are and face the antenna appropriately (unfolded flat side facing towers.) There is actually an ideal tuned antenna length for VHF. For my area the rabbit ears work best about 1/3rd extended and facing 180 degrees apart. We pick up all the stations rated Yellow on antennaweb with this antenna. This was the only antenna I tested that did this consistently. Others were too directional so they had to be turned back and forth or they broke up on some stations and still others didn't pick up VHF at all. Another review Here in the Cleveland metro area/burbs, I needed an inexpensive and compact, but still decent VHF/UHF antenna for my small HDTV kitchen set. I tried all kinds of antennas, including 'rabbit ears' and even some more expensive 'powered' antennas. Imagine my surprise when I hooked up this small PHILIPS, and pulled in 27 digital HD TV stations! Previously, I could not pull in the NBC and FOX affiliate, whereas now I can easily. Even the PBS station (that is split up into several sub-channels) comes in perfectly, with no signal dropouts. The key to success with ANY of these antennas is to try several different positions (position the unit in various different physical spots) with the unit itself, and with the telescoping elements. Then try your HDTV's 'automatic channel scan' a few times, and take note which position enables you to receive the most stations, and with the strongest reception. All in all, considering the low price, and the performance, this small HDTV antenna is a GREAT choice! Money spent seems to not matter for a good antenna. Placement in, near window seems to matter, placement and direction towards stations matters, landscape, etc. I might order another of these for my sony crt .
03-05-2011, 01:07 AM
Mine gets me a half-dozen more stations (about 30 sub-channels) than un-amplified.
03-05-2011, 01:08 AM
I made one of these, and it works great
http://current.org/ptv/ptv0821make.pdf Good site to see the directions and distance to your TV towers http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx HDTV Digital channels are on the UHF band.
03-05-2011, 01:10 AM
03-05-2011, 01:12 AM
Best buy sells Terk now.
I wonder if I could get anymore channels with a "good" amplified antenna. I am getting about 50 or so, some just radio. Chak - what brand are you using? |
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