I just replaced the antenna on my roof yesterday. Reception is great. Cancelled cable years ago. Saved tons of cash and I don't have to listen to their lying propaganda.
I only use RU-vid. Broadcast TV and cable are both complete wastelands. Unfortunately TV has invaded RU-vid to a large extent as well. Even so, it's still better than anything else.
So do I. I didnt fall for the gimmicks. I can pull stations from over 200 miles away on it while everyone else struggles to keep local stations on screen..
I cut the cable nine years ago and I never looked back. I still get at least 35 channels and I only watch 1/3 of them at most. High def is still high def. The only drawback is that reception can be spotty at times. BUT at zero dollars a month, who cares ? Not like there's anything worth watching anymore anyway. Besides, there's always RU-vid.
Agreeing with @brian pontiff I dropped cable and switched to an antennae about 5 years ago. I have one of those "flat" models, and I hung it on a push pin in several locations, until I found the best on. Now, it's on a wall in the living room, behind a mirror. If you don't look too carefully, you won't see the thin black cable hanging down. Oh, and I save $132 p/m.
Wow, CR is behind. I went back to an antenna 5 years ago. First one was hit by lightening last summer, so I replaced it with a new digital antenna that has 75 mile range, and work in all directions. Means I get 50+ stations in New Haven, NYC, and Hartford. Streaming is what I have been doing as well.
Yes, I have to admit tgis has gone to the point where its just plain crazy $180 a month for internet and cable tv. Far to expensive for the product you receive. Time to let it go
Funny that this video just showed up. My cable bill just went up again, and is now at $220 a month for TV and internet. Everything is increasing rapidly except wages.
I "beta" tested running a OTA system for over a year. Using a HP210z workstation (purchased online for under 300.00), I added a 4 tuner PC card and using Windows Media Center, I was recording over the air tv. I then forked over a few more bucks for a program called MCEBuddy that takes the WTV files (windows TV files) and it converts them to MP4 files and removes the commercials. I've made the PC available on my network but found it easier to off load the converted files to my 16tb WDMycloud box so all my roku's, and smart TV's can access them. I can also watch them on the road. I did install two 2tb "enterprise" drives in my PC since it's on 24/7, those drives will give me the longest life before failure.
Does anyone remember when they first started putting in cable, & they said.. "There won't be any commercials, because the customer is already paying for the service.?" Ha Ha. .... That lasted about 2 weeks.
I cut the cable 9 years ago. I live in a rural area so I need a outdoor antenna. I tried a outdoor clear stream antenna and took it back , didn't work as good as my old school aluminum one. My old antenna was good but was falling apart so I built a Gray- Hoverman antenna. Fun project and it works great. I'm hitting 90 miles with it.
If you’re not in an urban area, use a directional antenna outside with an amplifier. For example, I’m about 50 miles from Orlando, Florida and I receive 62 channels over the air with this method.
I got a great antenna from a Heartland America catalog many years ago. It was said to be an outdoor model but I just mounted it in the apex of my attic to keep the weather off it. Looks like something from Radio Shack of the 70s but has a wired remote to rotate it. We can pickup channels (about 30+) from 3 states. Was a steal at $35.
This is old news. First of all cable did this to themselves by having 200 channels and nothing on. Second you couldn't chose which channels you got. And streaming let's you watch what you want when you want.
Cable just does not get it. They need to stabilize their prices and stop jacking them every six months. Its not like the programming gets any better. The cost is stupid for a bunch of channels with too many commmercials that you don't want in the first place. Aiming the antenna is most important. In the city of Dallas, Texas you can get 106 free channels with a good antenna aimed properly.
Installed an antenna in 2006. Had to get a digital converter box. 56 channels. 2016 added FireTV. No Limits, now. Antenna for local News, Weather and Sports. Streaming for entertainment. All free, no Prime, no subscriptions. Kind of fun to "Screw the Man", when possible.
There are several failures in this presentation (I give Consumer Reports an “F” grade and I’ve been a subscriber since the 1950s when I got my first experience with antennas for FM radio and television). (1) There is no such thing as a “digital antenna“. (2) The antenna “rabbit ears” rods for stations transmitting on RF VHF channels (not the virtual channels that are indicated on the TV and in guides) should be oriented horizontally 90° toward the TV station’s transmitter and they should be short for RF VHF high band (7 - 13) and long for RF VHF low band (2 - 6). (3) Because digital television is mostly an all-or-nothing picture reception, you don’t look at the picture when locating, orientating, and “aiming” the antenna, you look at the TV’s (or the recorder’s) signal indicator (the best ones have signal strength plus, even more importantly if you’re fortunate to have one, the signal quality indicator). You try to find the optimum antenna position for all the stations you want. Try for the big 6 national networks: ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, PBS. (4) The number of stations is more significant than the number of channels because each station can have as many as 5 or more channels. (5) There are significant differences in tuner performance and when Consumer Reports tested indoor antennas they made the mistake of not doing the tests on the same make and model television. This is a shocking failure in methodology. I an a TV antenna consultant and I have free information on eBay. Search “Winegard Antennas For HDTV” using quotes or: rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F223362022968 And more information here: rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F223402678159 The best website to know what TV stations/channels are possible at your exact address is the FCC’s DTV Antenna Reception Map. Stay away from the others that are badly designed and have advertising and too much confusing information: www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps
Yaay! Consumer Reports has a channel! AFAIK, they always do costly, exacting, methodical work, and they don't take goodies (read "bribes") from any manufacturers. I can offer no higher compliment.
I get 134 Channels off of Mt Wilson, most in perfect HD, using the indoor antenna made by the old consumer division of AVID, the company that makes the equipment for editing films and TV.
Before the switch from anolog to digital signal to free up band width, weather had very little effect on the signal. The analog was more stable for sure. It amazes me that the media makes it appear that free over the air clannels are being brought back from the grave when in reality the majority of Americans never stopped using antennas.
Since the introduction of digital TV in the early 2000s, most broadcasters televised their digital signal on a different radio frequency (RF) channel than their analog signal. The FCC allowed use of "virtual channels", so Channel 5 would display as digital channel 5.1 even though it broadcasts using UHF channel 23. After the analog shutoff in 2009, some broadcasters moved their digital signals back to the VHF band. About one-fifth of US digital TV stations actually broadcast on VHF, usually the high-VHF channels 7 through 13. FYI, the Seattle area has 14 television transmitters (over 60 different program channels), 3 of those 14 broadcast on VHF channels (9, 11 and 13). The rest broadcast on UHF, even though the set displays a "virtual channel" like 4.1, 5.1 and 7.1.
the best antenna is a big outdoor antenna like a channel master 3020. those tiny models like they showed get half the reception of the big ones. i have tried both
They should have spent more time discussing roof- top antennas since they will significantly outperform indoor antennas, and should be your first choice.
Depends on your location. If you live in a rural area then yes an external antenna is required. But most live well withing 20 miles of broadcast towers so these indoor antennas work fine
I bought an antenna a couple weekends ago and returned it on the same day. Every time I moved the antenna I lost signal on one channel, but might have slightly gained it on another. Roku to get content is much better.
I switched to an outdoor antenna 4 years ago and added a TIVO DVR. I don't miss cable or the cable bills anymore. I also get 70+ channels over the air. Seems like they add more channels every month or so.
The problem with TV antennas is that the digital signal is easily interrupted. Analog broadcast TV might not have had high definition, and weak or distant channels may have had a grainy picture, but analog broadcasts were far more reliable than the digital broadcast we have now. With digital broadest TV, the picture frequently becomes pixilated and/or unsynchronized with the sound due to air traffic, heavy rain or show, any type of severe weather, or a small flock of birds; even too many trees between your antenna and the source can cause interruptions in the signal. All of this while using a signal amplifier! I have an outdoor digital antenna, an indoor/outdoor digital antenna, and a variety of indoor digital antennas. I get the best results using two of the flat square indoor antennas, with one mounted north and south, the other mounted east and west; and with both antennas connected to the same signal amplifier. Do Not use more than one signal amplifier, or you may damage your TV.
Back when stations were analog my family had good reception on almost all channels, now with digital we get 3 channels if the weather's nice, and there are no birds or airplanes around, and nobody sneezes. It would be lovely if we could just standardize back to NTSC analog transmissions, but unfortunately more people care about getting fancy HD than letting rural areas actually get any TV at all.
Since CR is in an urban (Yonkers, NY) area, testing NEEDS to be done in a RURAL SETTING, so those of us who live rurally, like I do in upstate New York, and live in apartments or houses we rent, which is the best OTA antenna for us.
Be nice if you could pick a choose channels, but can't because , example ... Disney owns ABC, ESPN and a slew of other stations, you have to purchase their whole package.
I live in the Poconos and a friend of mine has a garage that is kinda a motorhead hangout. Someone gave him a brand new old school antenna and mast from the 1980's that they bought and never put up. He put it up beside the office and ran the wire in to a big flat screen on the wall. His picture is beautiful, I think it's better than most of the cable around here. The mast is only 30 - 40 feet high and his garage is in a low area between the mountains.
Perfect. This is exactly what we did as a family. Cable prices went up so we got an HD antenna for local stations and streaming for the rest and never looked back. One of our antennas I put in the attic and it works great. I am thinking about getting one powerful HD antenna to put in the attic to replace the main cable line to all my rooms so I can just plug in TVs to the antenna via the existing coaxial cable from the old cable service. I love the freedom of getting free HD over the air but for some reason most of my channels are in Spanish and I live here in the US. What is going on with that?
Very useful video (although the music made it difficult to process what people were saying). I didn't know that re-scanning, periodically, was important. But why no mention of the fractal technology in the new antennae?
Would like to try one of the attic style units. None of the smaller ones have worked for me. So far the best luck i've had was with about ten feet of speaker wire split and curled up in either direct taped to the wall. It looks horrible though.
Antennas are wonderful .... I am saving over sixty to eighty dollars a month on TV Costs... I'm thinking about installing an antenna on my roof so I can reach to touch more Broadcast Towers. 📶📶📶📶
I recently built my own "Gray-Hoverman" style outdoor directional TV antenna. I am in the Inland Empire of Southern California, and 69 miles away from the main cluster of TV towers. I am getting 100 channels - 50 of which are in English. The other 50 are Spanish and various Oriental languages. Just mount your antenna ABOVE nearby rooflines, and use a DIRECTIONAL antenna for best results.
After Hurricanes Irma and Maria damaged or destroyed much of the electric power grid in Puerto Rico, cable TV went with it. Even today, antennas are being sold here, as recovery of the electric grid and cable have not kept pace with one another.
Streaming services were supposed to kill the cable model, instead we’re transitioning back to the cable model and now it’s upon us to subscribe to all these companies, as opposed to going to one place. 😩
I've had a channel master 3020 mounted on my roof for 10 years now . I've had people come in my home and comment on how good the HD quality is . They ask who my provider is . I say this is just a simple antenna . Free tv . It blows their minds everytime 😁
All mine OTA picks up is informercial and QVC channels. Also, too much signal interference. Live in an apartment and can’t add an outdoor antenna. Indoor antennas don’t seem to have as much range as advertised. Really helps to have one, though, when the cable or internet goes out!
Eh, what? The antenna have always been with us. All wireless devices broadcasting any form of signal over the airwaves uses at least one or more antennas and that includes devices like your walkie-talkies, wireless routers, cell phones, notebooks and so-called 'Smart' TVs and yes, they come in all shapes and sizes but they are antennas nonetheless. Generally speaking, more higher-end devices like high-end wireless routers or receivers will come with larger, longer and more powerful antenna(s) that looks alot like traditional TV antennas.
A free idea for someone: If you make two amplified TV antennas and place them at some distance to each other and combine the outputs, you should be able to make an extremely directional antenna. You can fine tune the direction with a "trombone" just before the combiner. You just run two cables the same length to near the TV and use one of those low cost splitters as the combiner.
Not really "extreme". The most you get is 3 dB more directivity. The logical conclusion to this is to just buy a Yagi, which are effectively 6-12 antennas combined.
My husband made us homemade antennas and we get 18 channels. Which is pretty good considering that we live in a rural area 60 miles from a major city. Plus our apartment is made out of cinder blocks, which make it hard to receive signals through.
This is useful information. I use a antenna with a DVR box (TiVo), and a couple streaming services myself. At the moment. 😊 I seem to get a lot of programming/ channels off the antenna alone; in Indianapolis. I use a rabbit ears antenna with a amplifier in my apartment.
We ditched cable TV over 3 years ago and never looked back. We did pick up Hulu Plus and we added and OTA DVR to our antenna so we could record shows and watch later. We never watch anything in real time anymore and skip commercials. The money on an antenna in the attic plus a Tablo DVR was recouped in the first 3 months off of cable. Better pictures and we get all the major networks rain or shine. We were the only house on our block to have TV going during our last hurricane. Everyone around us was listening to the radio. We did keep our internet for our son who is going to college and lives at home.
I guess I was expecting more from this video due to the CR connection. I have used an antenna on my non HD tvs for more than 10 years. 2 antennas looked like that plastic square and did OK while I lived in a metro area. I now live 50+ miles from a metro area. Was hoping to find advice on best antenna for long distance reception. BTW, its my experience that just because you scan 35 channels, as shown in this video, you may not receive a strong enough signal to watch programming. My TV scanned nearly 2 dozen channels but only about 1/3rd can be viewed. However, that increases during fall/winter as the ionosphere drops closer to the ground.
Still using my huge Radio Shack antenna in the attic bought 18 years ago works well though that said i rarely ever watch tv i may watch some old comedies on dvd vhs.
I bought a good antenna from Radio Shack over twenty years ago to replace a damaged one. The old one is still in my garage feeding the tv out there. I get about 60 channels from my roof mounted model.
I've got an antenna for my 58 Philco Predicta. I have to connect it to an HD converter box that I got when the government was handing out vouchers when they were planning on stopping analog TV broadcasts.
By FCC rules, cable companies must broadcast their content over the air. To get around that, they broadcast on frequencies that the common digital TV can't receive. You may find a converter that will receive the over the air broadcasts and it's a one-time cost. There's also a converter to receive local stations as well if you don't have a digital TV.
This is a good video, and mostly on target. But one word of warning about amplified antennas (the ones you have to plug in) : you can only amplify a weak signal so much. In many cases, the amplifier only amplifies the white noise, not pure signal. The best solution for a weak signal will always be an outdoor antenna, mounted high, directional toward the incoming signal. And I always add this : ALWAYS GROUND AN OUTDOOR ANTENNA, YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT.
Some parts of the country don't have good antenna reception. I live in a mountainous area and I'm limited to one VHF and one UHF station. They use the same tower, and it's line-of-sight to my house. All other stations are not line of sight and most of the time reception is poor. I've tried several different antennas and whether they are amplified or not doesn't seem to make any difference.
A few tips from a broadcast engineer here. I know everyone loves to put their antennas behind the TV to try and conceal them. But that is one of the worst places to put a antenna. As seen in this video.. TV's tend to put out radio frequency (RF) noise from the internal electronics to the back of the TV and to the front. (But who puts anything in front?) They are shielded to some extent depending on manufacture, but inches away you are still going to get interference. That noise from the internal electronics will back feed into the RF input, especially now that you have a wide band amplifier built into some of these antennas, exacerbating the problem further on reception. It's best to have the antenna further away or at least to the side, but not behind. It may work fine if your close to the transmitter on some full power stations, but others that are weaker won't be receivable. This would be especially true for translators in small communities. The transmitter maybe nearby, but the power level of that station is quite a bit less than a full power station that that translator is assigned to. On rabbit ear antennas, since nearly 99% of VHF stations are on channels 7-13. You only need to extend the aerial antennas 13 to 16 inches maximum on each side. As the top frequency of channel 13 is about 12-13 inches at 1/4 wavelength, and ch.7 is 16 inches. Almost no digital stations are on channels 2-6 on the low VHF portion that would require more length of a classic rabbit ear antenna. Anyway, my biggest suggestion is to put the antenna nearest a window facing the transmitter site and even better yet, get an outdoor antenna to put up if you can. Use tvfool.com/ to find the stations and what antenna is best and what you should expect to receive. It's a great website with good resources to find out what will work in your area. As pointed out in this video any outdoor antenna is going to be vastly superior to an indoor antenna of any kind. Homes have all kinds of noise generating devices and signal dampening walls to reduce the overall signal strength and quality of that signal. Houses with stucco outside walls that use chicken wire or more likely galvanized woven wire netting really cut back on signal strength. It's almost like being inside a Faraday cage that blocks all kinds of signals from the outside. What I find misleading about this video is the suggestion that over the air broadcasting went away with cable and satellite delivery. When that was never the case, cable and satellite might have become the primary delivery method and TV station group owners would love for you to always pay for cable or satellite. Since they get compensation from carriage fees, at least in the U.S. they do. So it becomes another revenue stream for TV group owners. Another interesting tidbit is that satellite would have never grown to the size it has without local stations, i.e. local into local satellite reception. Before Local into Local, satellite growth was mostly rural and those wanting better "digital" quality of DBS (and it was better at the time with less compression) for their home theater or higher end setup etc. But the subscriber numbers didn't really shoot up until after the late 90's and early 2000's when local into local was being added market by market. Most everyone who had a big dish, switched over to DBS because of it's low maintenance and ease of service, and that was about a million subscribers at the peak of the Big Ugy Dish, or BUD. Then DirecTV and Dishnetwork came in with DBS and supplanted BUD. The rest were early adopters who didn't mind paying $700 for a receiver and 18" dish. Before they came up with subsidized service and longer term contracts to pay for that equipment etc.. Interesting times those were, everyone and their mother who got a DBS dish were all asking for waivers to get NY, Chicago and LA stations because they realized they didn't get any network stations with the system unless they put up an antenna or payed for minimal basic cable. Finally when local into local got rolled out, those viewers stopped calling about getting waivers. That was a relief, they were all quite insistent that they couldn't pick up any stations. When living in the same city of as the station was they were calling about.. Now it's all about streaming. Sports rights are still a nightmare, can't stream any highlights in your own news, so you have cut your video off during that time on your own website's stream..
I have the flat leaf-type antenna and position does matter. I put it in a book, usually a dictionary, and use the weight of the book to hold it in position. Sometimes I have to lay it flat for ideal reception, and sometimes I have to prop it at an angle away from the XYZ axes.
I have an attendant similar to what you showed in the beginning at the house which really works well I don't see how people are spending like you said $55 to $300 a month! That's cost in between $550 + $3,000 a year and you don't have to be home 24/7 because you do get good stations originally with all TVs that have antennas but because they changed it you have to connect one of those antennas on it so you can get the good stations for free thank you for your support as always Consumer Reports 100% thumbs up
Dropped cable when I retired. Like others here, I was paying way over $100 a month. I built two bow tie antennas for a couple of bucks each (Google "DIY Bow Tie Antenna" for plans). I have one pointed East to Boston, one pointed South to Providence. The signals from these go into a combiner (located near the antennas in the attic), then a cable to the basement, and into a distribution amplifier with 4 outputs. With this setup I get about 60 stations, including all the major networks, along with a bunch of other stations. The combiner and distribution amp weren't very expensive, so the whole setup was way less than one month's cable bill. We have added Netflix and Hulu to get movies and such, and for the most part have been happy with the move.
I went OTA long ago, now I help others do it also. Lady on fixed income paying 75 dollars a month to cable just to watch local station. I set her up for less than 60 dollars and she gets 12 channels.
I’ve had an indoor digital antenna for years now. The few that I’ve owned get great reception. Except for one thing. And it’s not the antennas fault. But the HD signal can get wonky if you live in the vicinity of a major airport. I’m about 20min from Detroit Metro airport. When planes are coming in for a landing, it makes the signal pixilated when they are over my house. Other than that, no complaints.
I live in "the lightning capital of the world." Lighting does affect the signal. The picture and audio will pause for a split second when using an antenna. I did go through a few antennas. I good rule of thumb that I came to live by is that you should expect the range to be about 1/2 of the advertised range on the box. I ended up with a roof mounted model and could not be happier. The picture is very clear and while running it through my home theater PC I can also set it to record 2 channels at a time (or record one and watch another) and use the PC like a DVR. FYI...commercials suck just as much on an antenna as they do on cable. Being able to record and skip them is very nice.
Where we live in Arizona we only get two stations. Despite that, I still refuse to pay a high cable bill. We go with Hulu and an Amazon TV Firestick to watch programs.
I never stopped using my Chimney Mounted antenna that I installed in about 1993. It has a rotor and I replace the twin lead with a balun and 75 Ohm Coax decades ago. I feed that OTA signl into my two Dish Satellite Receivers and those Sat receivers allow me to see the guide for both Sat and OTA signals - as well as set timers for up to two OTA stations as well as multiple Sat stations - while simultaneously viewing prior recordings that I have stored. On those rare occasions that I lose Satellite Signals, I can view OTA. I do not use the Rotor, as my DC Stations are received well by looking in one direction... however, I can swing the Antenna to the North and view all of the Baltimore Stations.
I've always had an antenna. I live about 30 miles from Atlanta and in a valley, so I have to have it outside about 30' in the air. Still I get around 40 channels, including two 24 hour news channels. I have cable for a few months when Direct TV Now had their promo, buy three months of service, get an Apple TV, cancelled it after the trial, now I get tons of free streaming services.
