TV Antennas

Joined
Aug 8, 2008
Messages
8,863
Location
Cali
Replaced an old (20+) yr old outdoor antenna with a new Clearstream 4MAX that has a 70 mile range and boy what a difference, picked up more channels and the picture seemed clearer, watching the NFL this weekend (y). Picked it up at Lowes with my gift cards. Over the air never looked so good. :D
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New.
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Yup. Here in the "Valley Far, Far Away" everyone grew up with 2 channels. Our neighbor installed a fancy, REVOLVING antennae ca. 1962 and got a weak signal of a third.

We didn't care as we didn't watch too much TV but did get a "digital antennae" 2 years ago. Voila', 18 stations.

Neighbors were paying a lot for satellite TV packages. Now that online service is here (this year) the streaming services can compete.
 
I have a $30 GE on the side of my house. I only get good reception early and late. I'm thinking of moving it up onto the eve. I think it may work better with open space behind it, even though it's pointed at the towers? It worked just as good propped up on a lawn chair in the middle of the porch.
 
This has been my attic antenna set up for around the last decade. Bought it in Lowes for $100. Been free of Spectrum pay TV ever since. Get all the major stations with better picture through the antenna plus about 20 side stations, this is distributed throughout the home to five TVs. Also stream with 5 Roku players and 1 Roku TV (6 TVs in all, one TV in not hooked up to antenna). Pay Hulu Basic subscription, Netflex and Apple TV. Total TV bill roughly $20 a month plus of course the cost of internet.
Tons of sites on the internet that will tell you with way to point it using a compass. Just search TV antenna aiming, even a government FCC site.
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I have a $30 GE on the side of my house. I only get good reception early and late. I'm thinking of moving it up onto the eve. I think it may work better with open space behind it, even though it's pointed at the towers? It worked just as good propped up on a lawn chair in the middle of the porch.
Increased height will nearly always improve reception.
 
Ha! The big old house I grew up in had a rotating antenna in the attic. We'd crank the dial on the controller that sat near the TV and race up to the attic to see it slowly turn (when dad wasn't around). Got 3 channels. Now I have a similar antenna in a similar attic as alarmguy that feeds one TV. HOA rules prohibit visible antennas so I respected that and put it in the attic. Since we moved in in 2018 antennas have appeared on quite a few houses in the new neighborhood with no consequences, they're still up so I might move mine out to get more height, maybe even put a rotor on it to pick up a few more stations. Haven't paid cable in over 10 years.
 
HOA rules prohibit visible antennas so I respected that and put it in the attic. Since we moved in in 2018 antennas have appeared on quite a few houses in the new neighborhood with no consequences
 

I knew about that and decided to not be a butthead right off the bat. At the time I didn't see any other antennas around the neighborhood.
 
I have the half size version that Malo83 posted. It works better than several antennas I was using. I am not to far from my TV broadcasters. Even so the cheap antennas I had could be fuzzy at times.
 
Reception in my area is poor, and nextgen ATSC 3 is launching on the 25th

Tempted to drop $200 to be an early adopter since many stations I should get no longer come in.
 
Increased height will nearly always improve reception.
Just raised our roof antenna an additional 5 feet (was just slightly above the roof peak). Got a very nice 10 point signal strength increase across all existing channels and getting many more channels now. Was not expecting such a large and solid boost. Used the RCA antenna mast that is available at Lowe’s. Attached that to an existing J-mount. Very happy with the result.
 
Ha! The big old house I grew up in had a rotating antenna in the attic. We'd crank the dial on the controller that sat near the TV and race up to the attic to see it slowly turn (when dad wasn't around). Got 3 channels. Now I have a similar antenna in a similar attic as alarmguy that feeds one TV. HOA rules prohibit visible antennas so I respected that and put it in the attic. Since we moved in in 2018 antennas have appeared on quite a few houses in the new neighborhood with no consequences, they're still up so I might move mine out to get more height, maybe even put a rotor on it to pick up a few more stations. Haven't paid cable in over 10 years.
I remember the old Genie tenna rotor...we had one too also a UHF convertor box...
 
Ha! The big old house I grew up in had a rotating antenna in the attic. We'd crank the dial on the controller that sat near the TV and race up to the attic to see it slowly turn (when dad wasn't around). Got 3 channels. Now I have a similar antenna in a similar attic as alarmguy that feeds one TV. HOA rules prohibit visible antennas so I respected that and put it in the attic. Since we moved in in 2018 antennas have appeared on quite a few houses in the new neighborhood with no consequences, they're still up so I might move mine out to get more height, maybe even put a rotor on it to pick up a few more stations. Haven't paid cable in over 10 years.
In central wi we had a rotor on the roof

Big MFr

We could easily pick up
7,9,12,20 (back in the day)
Later fox 55

Early morning or late evening
2, 13, 5, 6 would come in

For the most part just a duplicate cbs/nbc/abc

Now late 80’s it was a treat to pickup a distant Iowa based fox channel as it was many years later that fox came locally but sadly the station was only viewable 3-4 hours a day.

Never had cable until I was in college, never got it again after that either.

Sadly the rotor shorted out late 90’s and wouldn’t spin, had to remove the antenna 2015 because it was causing a leak on the roof where it mounted
 
It was big in like 1984 when we went from 1 channel broadcast off Mt Washington nearby to 3.5 channels with a rotor antenna.

I just pay a bit to cable company for basic reception with internet coupled and don’t think much of it.

If I did not have to use cable company for internet I’d look into what you all do.
 
This has been my attic antenna set up for around the last decade.

It looks like someone used pliers to crimp the end on that cable going into the left of the RCA box (is it an amplifier?). In my toolbox is the correct hex crimper for those ends, which I haven't used in years. I use those PPC compression connectors instead.
 
Just raised our roof antenna an additional 5 feet (was just slightly above the roof peak). Got a very nice 10 point signal strength increase across all existing channels and getting many more channels now. Was not expecting such a large and solid boost. Used the RCA antenna mast that is available at Lowe’s. Attached that to an existing J-mount. Very happy with the result.
Awesome.
 
It looks like someone used pliers to crimp the end on that cable going into the left of the RCA box (is it an amplifier?). In my toolbox is the correct hex crimper for those ends, which I haven't used in years. I use those PPC compression connectors instead.
Yes for both.
That was me using a pair of pliers on the end of the cable going into the RCA box🙃
I don’t have a crimp tool and honestly it’s now been gosh well over 10 years I think that I had to crimp another connection.
Yes again that is a low power, expensive RCA amplifier.
Out of the 30 or so channels at the time I had one borderline major network station which was Fox that was a little bit on the weak side. I like seeing close to 100% signal strength on everything and depending on season once in a while I would get pixelation on Fox.
So I bought the most inexpensive low power amplifier in Walmart I think at the time it was like $14.
It’s not that I’m cheap but you don’t want amplify signals when it’s not required, all other stations were 95 to 100% and I think Fox was in the 70s if I remember correctly. After I put that an expensive amplifier in everything was 100 and maybe Fox 97 or there about.
 
Can't stand the big wire footprint antennas. These are great if you are in a proper range to towers....I have one roof mounted. Works in snow storms, everything.
 

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Yes for both.
That was me using a pair of pliers on the end of the cable going into the RCA box🙃
I don’t have a crimp tool and honestly it’s now been gosh well over 10 years I think that I had to crimp another connection.

I got the compression tool for the PPC connectors a long time ago, used it quite a bit after my house was built, putting the connectors on the coax I ran while it was under construction. I've only ever once used pliers to crimp a coax connection :)
 
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