HD Antenna

J

JackEd

Well-known member
I received a $50 gift card from work for Amazon so I bought an HD Antenna. Says it has 400 mile range but when I set it up I only get 49 channels. It’s has a USB cord as well that’s supposed to boost the range. I plug that in and the regular screw in connector. Same thing, 49 channels. Somehow it brought up PlutoTV which is 100% free and a ton of channels but nothing live.

we watch everything via streaming anyway and I can get the local games with the antenna. My wuestion is, why does it say it has a 400 mile range with a range booster and I’m only getting 49 channels?
 
 
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Zunardo said:
Guessing that’s under optimum conditions with the antenna on the roof, rotated to the best direction. Where did you place it?
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under optimal conditions on a normal roof, "line of sight" might get 150 miles. Actuall line of sight is much shorter, these are weakened refracted signals. Sitting on a small mountain or with a temperature inversion, a VHF signal might reach from 400 miles. It's probably at 400 miles the signal dissapates to the theoretical lower limit that can be detected from a station operating at whatever power they're permitted to transmit. In reality, the antenna would never see that signal. Or it could be a complete lie.

49 channels is pretty good.
 
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vamp2syd said:
The Earth is round so no matter how great of an antenna one gets it will still be limited.
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That's... not exactly true. It has to do with the frequency. AM radio bounces off upper atmosphere and travels with little attenuation. At low frequency, its energy is not absorbed by water in the atmosphere. So we can get the occasional foreign AM station, a single transmitter to a single antennae. AM is subject to distortion by other signals and electricity in the air. TV VHF and UHF are a much higher frequency, a straight shooter, much quicker to be absorbed by the water in the atmosphere. With repeaters, which receive, clean, amplify and send on, the signal can go as far as anyone cares to send it. Local stations generally don't want the expense. It's send and forget. Plus the bandwidth is allocated so they don't interfere with other stations. We don't want 93.5 in Pautuxy to interfere with 93.5 in Dallas. But it can be done.
 
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I get about 25 channels with the one I bought at Walmart for about $25-30. I also get the same channels on the one I bought from Menards for less than $10 for a spare TV in the bedroom. I stream the rest of TV I watch. Had them for years now but I think they were 100 mile range.

Work for what I need.
 
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winbypin said:
I get about 25 channels with the one I bought at Walmart for about $25-30. I also get the same channels on the one I bought from Menards for less than $10 for a spare TV in the bedroom. I stream the rest of TV I watch. Had them for years now but I think they were 100 mile range.

Work for what I need.
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What channels? Local (ABC, NBC, CBS?). What else?
 
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winbypin said:
Those plus PBS (that's like 5), CW, Fox, Bounce, Ion, Dabl, TBD, charge, myTv, comet, escape, MeTV, Laff ....

Most of them I cruise past....some have good old shows, movies, etc.

Just reinforces to me there isn't much on TV these days.
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Same here. Have antenna in attic from Walmart . I get news from it primarily. 20-,30 channels from Dayton or Columbus, Cincinnati sometimes as well. Have no cable service and still watch more TV than is necessary. Wife has purchased a few streaming services but I dont usually watch those as it could take my Yappi time away to do so.

Personally, there is no way I would ever pay for cable when antenna TV is free. But then, I am cheap.
 
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