Stay away from the Yagi. They are a cheap rip-off the Winegard series.
I got the Winegard Platinum Series HD7694P Long Range TV Antenna
It pulled in NYC stations I was not able to get with other antenna. It is mounted in the attic.
Stay away from the Yagi. They are a cheap rip-off the Winegard series.
I got the Winegard Platinum Series HD7694P Long Range TV Antenna
It pulled in NYC stations I was not able to get with other antenna. It is mounted in the attic.
This is what I'm using in my attic. Works awesome and never have any dropouts. Works great for my ATSC 3.0 signal as well.
"Yagi" is a type of antenna, not a brand name. If you stay away from Yagi antennas, you'll be excluding a ton of antennas.
Yes, I have two Yagi antennas. One pointed at Baltimore towers and the other at DC. All channels are perfect. All at 100% symbol quality. All of the local stations are at 100% signal strength too. No kind of amplifiers are used anywhere. These antennas are directional and will work significantly better than an omni-directional antenna as long as the towers you need are in the same place. You just need to point them in the right direction. I think they are better than any other type of antenna.
I think he was referring specifically to that RCA Yagi he provided a link for. I changed to a Yagi style and it was a huge improvement. Towers are 35 miles away and all in the same general direction. Winegard YA-7000C
I have this one on m roof (NOT above tree line) and I get 50+ channels. They do make a vhf addon if you accidentally purchased the one without vhf antenna like me.
I actually tried that one in my attic and it was awful. I'm in metro Atlanta only 15 miles from the towers. I went with the one linked below and it works flawlessly. It even pulls in high VHF really well.
As always, YMMV.
Just set it up and did a channel scan. It's doing great. I'm about to install it in the attic, pray for me!
Try this when you are aiming it
You can get the right location that gives you the best average signal strength over multiple channels
I got super lucky. I’m able to pick up all the channels I need with this crappy antenna. Just don’t sit there. Will implement a more permanent solution when it gets a bit cooler.
Ha! Glad you are getting the channels! The attic is not so bad. I scaled a rickety extension ladder that I borrowed to get up on the roof. But if you can already get the channels indoors on a lower floor, surely the attic will be an improvement.
@slampman mentioned Signal GH, which you surely know about in addition to a few other ways to monitor the signal while trying to aim the antenna, including the HDHR pages.... but a good monitoring app does make it easier to flip between channels on multiple tuners and monitor everything in real time. You should build something like that into Channels.
Also, I am glad that finally a Channels dev is using an antenna! You should have set this up from the beginning, but I am glad to see that antenna users are getting more attention!
Drink lots of fluids!!!
You're posting to other topics so I guess you survived your trip to the attic and we can pause our prayer vigil. How did it go otherwise? Don't leave us hanging man.
It worked out great. I have the antenna now powering a Connect Quatro and an old Connect Duel.
The only issue I have is that my CBS station seems to be broadcasting some static in the rear right channel. I'm not sure if that's a signal issue or what.
What, no pictures? Did you at least vacuum that carpet?
Reception is first a matter of distance, then obstruction(s), antenna gain, and antenna location more or less in that order. What works for one person's location, etc. has little or nothing to do with anyplace else.
A good place to start is a signal search on www.rabbitears.info for your address. No computer model is fine-grained enough to describe your particular situation, but rabbit ears gives signal strength averages for your stations and a useful "signal margin" of how much "excess signal" you have, if any.
A signal margin of 0dB means you live on the coverage limit of a station and you might get it 90% of the time at 50% of the antenna locations around you, not necessarily one of your choice or on your property. That's assuming you have the 10dBi outdoor antenna and 50' of coax the FCC used when planning coverage for the digital transition. More signal means more margin and higher probabilities, so this is seldom a problem in cities where a full service station may deliver as much as 80 dB of margin.
In rural areas however, there may not be enough margin on some stations to cover a less than 10 dBi antenna or more than 50'' of coax or splitter(s) without a preamp. Another 16 dB is needed to reach 98% of locations, e.g. your choice, 98% of the time. Another 3-6 dB may be needed to penetrate your attic as long as the roofing isn't metal. Even more is needed if you have tree canopy in the path. In a rainforest, that reportedly could be as much as a half dB per foot. I'm losing around 40 dB to trees and my roofing, but fortunately the stations are close enough and a high performance antenna makes up the difference.
Obstructed signals are one caveat. The distances on a rabbitears.info report are links that will show you what's in the way, if anything, for each channel. Fortunately, the shadow of an obstacle isn't totally dark for some distance beyond it, but the average is clumped into sweet spots of above average signal and dead spots no antenna can overcome. This "diffraction" effect happens at wavelength scale, so a few feet up, down, or in any direction can make the difference between all or nothing. Unfortunately, the sweet spot may differ for every station, making a better antenna for 98% preferable.
Multipath, formerly "ghosting" is the second caveat, caused by reflections off nearby structures such as your neighbors' aluminum siding. There's no antenna that will fix it other than raising its elevation out of the range of the reflections. Thirty feet might be enough ...nor not.
So it comes down to distance, obstruction(s), antenna gain, antenna location, experimentation and luck. Good Luck
TL;DR: There is no such thing as "best" for everyone. Antenna selection is highly location dependent and channel dependent. One really needs to us a transmitter locator tool, such as https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html to figure out what will work.
A few things I learned while researching a replacement for my 20-year old antenna that died (!) earlier this year:
A decent antenna selection tool that requires you to enter your coordinates (or zipcode) will take all of the above into account.
Within your house,
Personally, I have a "Channels Direct ClearStream 4MAX" antenna mounted out of the way in my attic to protect it from the elements (including kids), and a ~30 ft RG6 coax that connects it to my HDHomeRun which is much more conveniently placed in my house. If you live in my zipcode, this is a good choice, but YMMV.
Gotta respectfully call you out on both of these. Your signal is not 50% with a 2 way splitter. Each leg only looses 3.5dB. Depending on the signal you start with, loss is not always bad. I am 12 miles from the towers in my city. I actually have to attenuate my signal about 9dB before my 4way splitter. So all legs of that splitter are -16dB from the source. I am feeding 3 hdhomeruns without issue.
Again, depends on what signal you start with as to actions you have to take to end up at a good level at the device. Splitters don't automatically cause issues. They can but if you design your setup properly, they can be used with absolutely no issues. There is no way in the world I would have multiple antennas to feed multiple hdhomeruns unless I was trying to pick up stations in different markets.
I've been retired for awhile but, best I can remember every 3 dB drop is a half power point.