2Recommended hdtv antenna?

[dquan97]

or get the $80 outdoor slim antenna? There aren't any tall structures around me (Sacramento, CA) and looks like there's plenty of signal around. I'm looking to pay between $50-60, but more if needed.

$20 antenna
$80 antenna

 

[SynthDude2001]

Link to the one you're looking at?

If you're in a big city (and it sounds like you are), you'll probably be close enough to the broadcast towers to pick up all (or almost all) of your locals with a $20 Zenith Silver Sensor, which is generally the most recommended indoor antenna. You should keep in mind that it's a UHF antenna, so if any of your HD locals are on the VHF spectrum (very few are), it won't pick those up except for the upper ones.

Edit: Check out antennaweb.org for more specific information about the towers in your area.

 

[dquan97]

Just bought the Zenith Silver Sensor ZHDTV1 from Amazon for $20 🙂

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: dquan97
Just bought the Zenith Silver Sensor ZHDTV1 from Amazon for $20 🙂

:thumbsup:

That's the one I have and it works great. Well, except for the fact that I now go to school in the middle of nowhere and only pick up one channel that isn't 75+ miles away....but that's not the antenna's fault 😛

 

[xtknight]

Any old UHF antenna will work (yeah, the ones decades ago) for HDTV. I think a Yagi UHF antenna+amplifier is the best you can get?

I use a regular $5 Walmart UHF antenna (no amplifier) and it picks up my locals fine if I mount it high enough. My dad's attic antenna can receive a lot better though.

I have a ghetto HDTV setup here. $5 indoor Walmart antenna mounted (5 feet from floor) on a lamp light with scotch tape, with the wire flowing right down to my tuner below. From there it goes to my LCD's secondary D-sub in port and Audigy2's line-in. Works good, but I have to turn the lamp around to receive different channels. :laugh: I can get 85% signal strength at max most of the time. One problem: if anyone touches my scotch-taped antenna I'm gonna be pissed. It takes so long to position that thing right.

What I wonder is how the 'HDTV'-coined antennas are different than UHF ones. They just come with a built-in amp and 75->300 Ohm converter (whatever it's called 2 prong->CATV) or what?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Any old UHF antenna will work (yeah, the ones decades ago) for HDTV. I think a Yagi UHF antenna+amplifier is the best you can get?

I use a regular $5 Walmart UHF antenna (no amplifier) and it picks up my locals fine if I mount it high enough. My dad's attic antenna can receive a lot better though.

I have a ghetto HDTV setup here. $5 indoor Walmart antenna mounted (5 feet from floor) on a lamp light with scotch tape, with the wire flowing right down to my tuner below. From there it goes to my LCD's secondary D-sub in port and Audigy2's line-in. Works good, but I have to turn the lamp around to receive different channels. :laugh: I can get 85% signal strength at max most of the time. One problem: if anyone touches my scotch-taped antenna I'm gonna be pissed. It takes so long to position that thing right.

What I wonder is how the 'HDTV'-coined antennas are different than UHF ones. They just come with a built-in amp and 75->300 Ohm converter (whatever it's called 2 prong->CATV) or what?

lol, that is pretty ghetto - but if it works, that's all that matters 🙂

I think the designation of "HDTV antennas" is more marketing than anything, since you're right, you can pick up the OTA signals with any decent UHF antenna (or VHF, if your locals happen to be using one of those channels). They don't necessarily have a built in amp either (the Silver Sensor doesn't). I owned a Channel Master 4228 for about a month - huge antenna, 39 inches or so wide - it did come with one of the 75-300 Ohm converters (or the other way around, I can't remember), but in any case I ended up returning the antenna because I couldn't get any more channels with it than I could with my Silver Sensor. I suppose it doesn't help that I was trying to pick up channels out of Waco (75 miles away) and Houston (90 miles away) though.

Edit: Maybe some of these "HDTV" antennas try to do stuff like reduce multipath distortion (which may prevent you from getting a digital signal at all if it's bad enough, unlike analog where there would just be ghosting in the picture), but then again, you'd think that any decent antenna would be doing that anyway. Who knows...