So far I’ve tried three antennas for local HDTV reception, none of which has worked very well. My goal is to be able to get Fox and ABC without moving the antenna; if I get CBS or NBC, that would be nice but I rarely watch either of them. The local PBS affiliates aren’t broadcasting HD yet. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
- The Zenith Silver Sensor is highly directional but butt-ugly. That wasn’t a big problem, because it’s also fairly small. The real problem was its inability to get a signal from more than one station at a time. If you look at the Antennaweb map of my location, the locals are clustered between 59°-68° magnetic from me, but this antenna was so directional that I had to move it to get channels whose towers are fairly close to one another. Rejected.
- the Jensen TV920, a flat bar-style amplified antenna. It got zero channels with the amplifier off; when I turned it on, I could pick up NBC and CBS. Its shape made it impossible to rotate in the spot I had available for it. Rejected.
- The Terk TV42, which clips onto an 18″ satellite dish and uses a diplexer to send the OTA signal over the satellite cable. Even though the AVS Forum HD boards are full of “don’t buy Terk” advice, I had high hopes for this because it was an outside antenna that would be mounted above the roofline. However, once I got it wired correctly (a small adventure in itself), I found two things: it would only get Fox, and it screwed up my satellite signal, apparently by blocking the current sent to the LNB to switch it between horizontal and vertical polarization. Rejected.
I have two more candidates in mind, both from this review. We’ll see if they work any better; if not, it’s time to put the beam up in the attic.
Update (29 February): I’m finally ditching my Radio Shack indoor unit in favor of an attic antenna, either a small omni or a Yagi with a rotator.
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