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outdoor antennas

S

Sach

Banned
can someone tell me if outdoor antennas are any better than indoor ones? i would assume the reception would be a lot better for an outdoor antenna. maybe someone who has had both can help me.

thanks
 
Generally speaking, all other things being equal, an outdoor antenna is better than an indoor antenna. I hope you are not talking about indoor "rabbit ears" vs. a honkin' big Yagi on the roof, you know what the answer is there......

I have had excellent results with an "outdoor" antenna mounted inside the attic of my wood-framed house. It's a 10 foot long beast from Radio Shack (however, they DON'T make very good antennas) and I can pull in stations from 60-70 miles away, over relatively flat terrain.
 
was it easy to install? i've had about every indoor antenna available and they all give poor reception. i saw some outdoor ones on sale at Wards this weekend so it got me thinking. they even cost about the same as an indoor one.
 
It wasn't too hard to install. I hung it from the attic rafters with polypropelene rope instead of mounting it on a mast, and used more of the rope to sort of swing the antenna into proper aim (which is narrow end towards the transmitter) and anchor it in place.

Then I used a 300 ohm -> 75 ohm adapter to connect the antenna lead to an RG-6 coax cable, which I then snaked down through the wall (luckily an interior wall, but I had to drill through the top plate 2x4) to a new F-type connector wall plate I cut into the wall. If you need the connector on an outside wall, it could be more difficult - you might have to run the antenna lead outside the house and then drill through the exterior wall. That's still cleaner than mounting the antenna outside, too.

The whole installation took me an entire day, but it turned out most excellent. I got all the parts from Radio Shack, and the only tools I used were an adjustable wrench, a scissors, a power drill with a 3/8" bit, a screwdriver, and an old hacksaw blade clamped in a vise-grips to cut the hole for the wall plate.

The key is to measure, measure, measure, and measure again, BEFORE you cut or drill anything. If you are semi-handy with basic tools, it's a pretty easy job.
 
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