HDTV antenna choices

[thundermax]

I want to buy an HDTV antenna but I am confused because I do not know which one to buy.

www.checkhd.com tells me to use a ‘yellow’

www.antennaweb.org tells me to use a ‘red’

who is right? are there any other sites or places to call?

my zip is 60130, 2 story house

[cat6man]

always use the bigger antenna if there is any doubt at all....there are
so many variables associated with signals propagating through the air
that these estimates are just loose estimates....

you don't want to put up an antenna and find
it doesn't get all the channels you need.

[dlandrum]

... and get an amplified antenna. This will help with signmal strengh which is critical if you split your line for multiple OTA tuners.

[Harold]

AVS Forum has a whole section devoted to OTA HDTV antennas. The thread is probably 90+ pages. Lots of good information there.

[thundermax]

whoah, I am definitely overwhelmed by those AVS forum posts. I logged in using an account from bugmenot so I could search the forums. Turns out the account was banned and now my PC can't access the avs forums anymore, aaaargh. Somehow 'log out' is disabled.

I was hoping that somewhere there would be an easy way to figure out what kind of HDTV antenna would work for me.

[cat6man]

thundermax,

the winegard company makes a range of antennas assoicated with the
color codes you found.

i'm getting a winegard hd7084p installed on friday (my current outdoor antennas are about 40 years old and i'm not even sure the coax isn't totally
corroded at the connection....and i'm not about to climb out there,
hence the installer is coming friday)

my colors came out red and blue, so since blue is the bigger antenna,
that is what i chose. all of my stations are in the same general direction
so i know where to point my antenna.

in your case, you have only 1 station in blue but it is not in the
direction of the other stations anyway, so you may or may not
get the gary pbs station.

the winegard 7080p is a 'red' antenna that you could use.
you look pretty close to your antenna towers so that one should be fine.
if you hire an installer, you could ask their professional opinion as well.
if you wanted to be extra extra safe, you could use the 7082 or 7084
but they may not be needed.

[thundermax]

thanks! I will look into those

[rakeshagrawal]

Thundermax, we posted a pretty decent article here which, among other things, includes information on antennas along with images, which are very useful:

http://blogs.snapstream.com/2005/09/...80%a6part-two/

Also, when Beyond TV 4 launches (and maybe sooner) we'll have an HDTV setup center -- a series of web pages and maybe some wizards that will walk you through the process of setting up HDTV.

Finally, I asked PBMax, our resident hardware guru, extreme early adopter, and tester extraordinaire for specific recommendations for HDTV antennas and this is what he came back to me with:

Here are a few indoor and outdoor antennas. These antennas are reasonably priced. All of these antennas are directional antennas and some are UHF only. If a user needs a UHF and VHF antenna then they would have to get their own VHF antenna.

Indoor Antennas

Zenith ZHDTV1 HDTV/UHF Digital Indoor Antenna (Silver and Black)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...06533?v=glance ($24) UHF Indoor Directional

Philips PM-HDTV1 Silver Sensor HDTV Indoor Antenna
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=541966 $25 UHF Indoor Directional

Terk Technology HDTVi VHF/UHF HDTV Indoor Antenna
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=541966 $24

Outdoor Antennas

Zenith HDTV/DTV/UHF Analog Outdoor Antenna
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=541966 $50

Terk Technology TV32 Outdoor HDTV Antenna
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=541966 $70

[Harold]

I recently installed a CM 4228. It is a little bigger than I would have liked, but seems to be doing the job. I am about 25 miles from the transmitters in Houston. It is "cut" for UHF only, but still pulls in the local PBS station (broadcasting on VHF 9) just fine. It does not require an amplifer.

AVS Forum has extensive (close to 90 pages) discussion of OTA DTV antennas. Also HDTVPrimer has gain plots and excellent background on the topic.

Antennas are tricky animals to get right. Placement is everything. I was able to get my PBS station with some twin lead wire cut to the right length for the frequency, but it had to be in the middle of the room to get good signal.