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I'm looking for a good tv antenna. I'm about 50 miles away from all the local broadcast antennas for my area. Nothing but a few trees in between them and my house. Are any of you able to use an indoor antenna of any brand/style that you've been able to reach that far and get most of the available channels, or do I have to get a rooftop antenna? I have a window that points in the right direction.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Originally Posted by ejisme
I'm looking for a good tv antenna. I'm about 50 miles away from all the local broadcast antennas for my area. Nothing but a few trees in between them and my house. Are any of you able to use an indoor antenna of any brand/style that you've been able to reach that far and get most of the available channels, or do I have to get a rooftop antenna? I have a window that points in the right direction.
I got one (Staygold) with advertised 300 mile range from Amazon that was only about $30 but we are only 25 miles from transmitters in Seattle and despite lots of trees it worked fine. I would look for something with a much longer range than you would seem t need, 800 or 1000 miles. The problem is that you will pay about $60 but won't know how it will work until you try it, but at least with Amazon you can always return it.
I seem to remember reading that one of the reasons the FCC forced the new digital TV standard was to put a cap on the transmission range of the signal so that channels can be put in nearby markets with less chance of interference. I'll admit I didn't follow up because we cannot get over the air TV from any major market because of intervening ridgelines.
There are some nice small rectangular(ish) antennas with signal amplifiers available. We have one (a Mohu Sail) in our living room window, and the closest transmitter is about 56 miles. It works great. We got it at Best Buy; they had multiple brands, but check out reviews first.
NO television antenna will have a range of more than 100 miles these days. Digital did change signals from getting some that were watchable but sometimes snowy, to - either it comes in or it doesn't, or pixilates horribly.
Antennaman on YT is good, but if you aren't a geek, your eyes can glaze over after a while.
I'm 60+ miles out, rooftop ChannelMaster AND amplifier. You might get away with an indoor antenna if you have a line-of-sight shot to the transmitting antennae. My backup system uses one of the little antennas that he hates, and it is indoors. It works on all channels when conditions are right, gets at least one or two stations in bad weather (think tornado time) but I extended the resonators with strategically placed coat hangers in the signal path.
Thanks folks. I'll check out the Antenna Man on YouTube. I figure I'll just have to bite the bullet and go rooftop. I'll also look at the other options on Amazon and BestBuy webpages.
I have tried rooftop and the results were not as good as the indoor, amplified antenna. The ones that are really good are the flat, rectangular ones (mentioned above). Some are square and thin. Placed high on the inside of a window seems to work best. I am getting about 93 channels currently.
Get yourself one of those $20-$50 digital amplified antennas. Read the reviews and get the one you like. We were getting maybe 14 channels on a regular outside TV antenna, and when we went to an indoor amplified antenna (which was quite small and just stuck to the inside of our glass door) we started getting 60 to 80 channels!
Keep in mind that many of those channels will be Spanish language, religious or both. But you end up w/ at least 2 dozen channels that you can watch movies on, and you should be able to get all the old programs like Dragnet, Star Trek, Beverley Hillbillies etc. Be prepared for many, many commercials, which give you a chance to get the popcorn out of the micro wave and top off your Bourbon.
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