TV antenna

Any advice concerning an outside TV antenna. I am gettin tired of the monthly satilite bill. I have had satilite tv for quite a few years now and have decided it is a waste of money. I am about 100 miles from Detroit and 50 miles from 2 other major cities.

50 miles is about the limit for antenna tv. Would need about the biggest you can find. I also added a booster . Helps if your house is on a hill. Hurts if its not. Ours still has problems with some of the stations that produce marginal signals. Worst thing that can happen, is that you just turn it off.

When I set one up six years ago I found several helpful sites, of course that was six years ago and there may be more available now.

First: www.antennaweb.org
for general information.

Second: www.tvfool.com
for station location,distance and direction.

Third: www.solidsignal.com
for advise and a good company to buy from, part of the antenna was damaged and they sent another without any argument and told me to keep the first one, a very good 14 ft long one.

I live about 50 miles from the broadcast towers in Dallas. I live in a wooded area where I had a lot of trouble with reception until I put the antenna on a 60' tall tower. I bought the biggest antenna Radio Shack sells.

I am in Eastern Iowa, have 2 kids and no cable or dish. We get about 20 channels on the air. I bought an antenna that was supposed to be good for 75 miles.

Along with what others here have said... when You putting it up... Be SURE to Put plenty of Silicone grease in the Coax connector on the Antenna, to Keep out Water... You'll be good to go then,, Larry KF4LKU

I am also on a tall hill and have a booster.

We used to get channels from Grand Rapids, Lansing, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Kalamazoo, etc. Since the signals went digital we can't get many of them any more. This is with a 30' tower and a booster. Give it a try, but you may ot get as many as you used to.

Herbert,
I just looked up your location. I think you might be pushing it trying to pick up stations from Detroit. But I don't know where the actual transmitters are. That leaves you with the Flint and Saginaw stations. You might be on the fringe though. By line of sight, you are not much closer to Flint than Detroit.

By the way, I only use a set of cheap rabbit ears that have been around the house since who knows when. I can pick up one Detroit station and one Lansing station, and all the Flint area stations. The other Detroit stations are un-predictable at best.

You may have better luck with a tower.

Rick

I asked this question a while back, do a search on the tool talk section. AG in IN gave me a ton of advice. My attenna fell apart but was picking up more once switched to digital. A lot of the antennas being sold are tuned for the Chinease TV bands and don't work well. Make sure to buy a American made antenna that is tuned for our stations.

I use an approximately 30 year old UHF,VHF,FM antenna and rotor, the same one as before the change to digital signals, wired with coax cable and for UHF signals only since digital tv signals are UHF signals. I use my older TVs with converter boxes and receive 35 to 40 channels depending upon weather conditions. I pick up some stations that are 100 miles away, but most are 20 to 50 miles away. Hope this helps.

As previously stated.Tower, rotor, antenna mounted amp, low loss LG-6 cable and a box that is both sensitive and selective.
This isn't a $100 project.
You want the deepest fringe channel's 7 to 51 antenna. An antenna with channel 2-6 capability just soaks up broadcast FM signal which causes interference with the TV signal. Channel 52 to 69 capability just makes the antenna longer and catch more wind and ice.
What kind of connectors on the back of the TV ?

(quoted from post at 00:17:42 11/08/11) Any advice concerning an outside TV antenna. I am gettin tired of the monthly satilite bill. I have had satilite tv for quite a few years now and have decided it is a waste of money. I am about 100 miles from Detroit and 50 miles from 2 other major cities.

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100 miles is going to be a stretch. The curvature of the earth would work against you anywhere at that distance. It may very well be possible depending on your circumstances. If you're on a hill, and not behind one, it would help. It helps when the desired station(s) are operating at max. power, and/or from a high elevation, too. Because all channels are now crammed into channel 51 and lower, co-channel interference (2 or more stations broadcasting on the same frequency) can be more common than it was before. This can make reception more difficult, too. Even 50 mile reception from areas where towers are shorter and/or power levels are lower or patterns are more directional may not be easy. You'll definately want your antenna(s) outside and not in an attic.

Go to tv fool: http://tvfool.com/. Check your address for what's available and try running your address at different antenna heights. Higher is usually, but not always better. As a general starting point, I would figure anything below about -100 to -105 dBm or so in the signal power column to be less than 100% reliable even with a proper "deep fringe" antenna and pre-amp. That doesn't mean everything above that would be perfect or anything below that would not be perfect. It's simply a reasonable ball-park starting point. Trial and error in the real world or some testing equipment would be your only real way of seeing what you can receive.

Do check the "pending applications", too. Stations could be changing channels which could possibly require you to have a different antenna, and stations could be upping or lowering power output levels, moving to a different tower, moving higher or lower on a tower, or changing antenna patterns that may require adjustments on your part. Just because an application is pending doesn't mean the station will follow through with it, though.

You can also do an address search at rabbitears: http://www.rabbitears.info/search.php. Rabbitears is better when it comes to whether a station is actually on the air and broadcasting, and has tons of information about network affilates, subchannels, and other great info, too. Rabbitears doesn't use Nielsen market rating areas.

Do not fall for small "miracle" or "wife-friendly" antennas that claim 150+ mile reception. They're all over Ebay and elsewhere. Many have "shill" reviews that are absolutely comical. Some have real reviews that are absolutely comical, and not in a good way. Some of the real reviews are fair, and an occasional good review, but most reviews rate these as poor to junk. They follow in the footsteps of millions of other sub-par products imported from Southeast Asia that only live up to their claims for a few of those who purchase them. If one of these would function for you, odds are quite good you could still do much better with a proper antenna. The laws of physics aren't as easily broken as some of these products would lead you to believe.

Some of the better UHF-only antennas claim they have a 60-70+ mile reception range for UHF. Some of the better UHF/VHF combos and older VHF-only antennas claimed a 100-125+ mile range for VHF. Alot still depends on your location and topography and station power levels, though. My experience locally has been that long-distance VHF reception doesn't seem to be as great with digital as it was analog.

There really isn't such thing as a "HDTV" or "DTV" antenna, either. It's mostly a marketing gimmick. In a perfect world, antennas would be smaller to get rid of the now unused channel 52-69 elements, but only a few have been made this way.

The "new" Channel Master CM4228HD is a good example of an antenna that wasn't made better when the manufacturer tried to improve an old antenna. The old 4228 was a much better antenna, the "HD" version has some faults which can be remedied by the owner. Out of the box, the older version is better. The older version is NLA.

Like antennas can be "stacked" to improve long-distance reception, too.
Example: Old CM4251 (NLA, sorry) parabolic dish tv antenna quad-stack http://www.rocketroberts.com/cm4251/images/cm4251_4stack.jpg

You may want to look to a local installer if one is available. Many can make custom antennas or "area specials" that might make reception better. They should have test equipment to help ease some of the guesswork.

The bottom line is what works for any of us may or may not work for you. What works for your neighbor may or may not work for you. What the Chinese claim as 150+ mile antennas probably won't work for you. They probably won't work for them, either. (They're probably importing modified Winegards.)

AG

winegard.com

You'll need a pretty good antenna ($100 to $200)for the distances you mentioned. Installation should be $125 minimum. Non-HDTV's and VCR's will need a converter box ($40 to $60 each).
Plan to spend $400 to $800 for a good system without a tower, about what you's spend for 4 to 12 months of satelite service. The biggest change will be fewer channels are available from broadcast TV. Check that out ahead of time to make sure your family can be happy with that.

You've received a lot of good advice from the other responders. You'll definetly need a strong amplifier (20+dB $50 to $100) for the 50 mile stations and a rotor ($100+) if you want to change directions. Winegard and ChannelMaster both make very good amplifiers and antennas.

Recieving stations 100 miles away is doubtful even on a very good day unless there are booster towers closer to you. Some broadcasts signals are on VHF frequencies and some are on UHF frequencies. I'm 65 miles from a 1200 foot broadcast tower and the VHF signals break-up in bad weather.

It helps to select an antenna for the signal types in your area. Web sites like rabbitears, tvfool and antenna.com help a lot for identifying what signals are available. Hills, woods or anything that blocks the direct line of sight to the TV transmitter will drastically cut your signal strengths. You could already be on the fringe for receiving the 50 mile stations if terrain works against you.

Talk to some local TV antenna shops to see what works well in your area. They have done all this 100's of times before and can give you an estimate to install a system that will work well for you the first time. You will pay them list price for the components plus installation costs, but it could be worth it. You can save 25% to 40% by selecting and installing it yourself, if you do your homework and can do that type of work.

Good Luck