Antenae for weak signals?

[techwanabe]

I don't know how soon I might get cable TV, but are there any antena's I can get and put in a window and boost the signal and run the wire to the TV from there? I live in a ground level, partly sublevel, apartment and my local broadcast reception is pretty poor.

 

[mshan]

I would first go to http://www.antennaweb.org and see how far you are from the hdtv transmitters and what direction the signal is coming from.

You can pick up a real cheap compass in the camping section of Walmart.

I'd probably also recommend getting a cheap 25 - 50 ft. length of tv coax cable from Monoprice.com so you can move the antenna around and see where you get best reception.

You have to figure out if your main problem is multi-path, or just a weak signal being transmitted from the tv stations.

Zenith / Phillips Silver Sensor HDTV antenna is "the" hdtv antenna and is supposed to be very good at multi-path rejection.

I've also got a Terrestrial Digital DB-2, which is supposed to have higher gain, but I still tend to prefer the Silver Sensor: Link

My personal observation is that the tuner chip in your HDTV is very important (I'd recommend a 5th generation tuner, at least, as these are supposed to have very improved multi-path rejection).

YMMV.

 

[sivart]

Get it outside (patio, etc) and point it at the towers if possible.

You might want to check with your apartment to see if they have a shared antenna like some did back in the day....

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: sivart
Get it outside (patio, etc) and point it at the towers if possible.

You might want to check with your apartment to see if they have a shared antenna like some did back in the day....

Good idea. I haven't heard of that but you never know. I need to check if I can put a dish out there too, for direct tv.