HDTV Expert - Useful Gadgets: Super-Flat Indoor TV Antennas

[720pete]

With the growing interest in ‘cutting the cord,’ finding an indoor TV antenna that actually works is not an easy job.

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[Rodolfo]

Thanks for the tests Pete, a couple of weeks ago I accepted from the manufacturer a Walltenna antenna for a test but with my CES planning I did not have the chance to actually do so. Although I plan to do some informal tests I really appreciate your comparison tests to give me an idea of what to expect.

My current house is not in the ideal location for over-the-air reception, but my previous house was located in a worst place and in 1998/99 I still received HD from 65 miles away Baltimore stations, with a Channel Master in the attic and a huge tree line in between, with the dinosaur ATSC tuner into the DirecTV DTC-100 receiver, if you recall that warhorse.

The idea of using over-the-air as a cord-cutting solution may not be attractive to viewers that appreciate more than evening soap operas mixed with tons of advertising, but the economics factor in bad times play a large role in tolerating free low quality content just to bring some kind of entertainment to a home that is struggling to survive, for which cable and satellite, or even Netflix streaming, could be expensive, and unfortunately there are millions of those souls in the American dream.

I agree also with you with your position in other articles in that the FCC should re-analize what are they trying to fix with the idea of reassigning the part of the broadcasting spectrum they plan to make available to cellular services, which could not be as efficient as over-the-air broadcasters in delivering content to millions of viewers in broad areas with a single antenna, not to mention the impact to the broadcast industry effort of introducing mobile DTV when sharing a 6MHz channel bandwidth that may disappear or be affected by the channel merging.

Thanks again.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[mdm08033]

I tried the Leaf and the Walltenna at my home in Haddonfield New Jersey, 15 miles from antenna farm, and came up with a different mixed bag. The bottom line was the tuners in my TiVo Premiere were much choosier than the tuner in my two year old Samsung plasma panel. On my Samsung the Walltenna and Leaf pulled in the same wide range of channels as the $11 Radioshack bowtie and 75/300 ohm converter. But when I tried them on my new TiVo Survivor on WCAU/CBS/26 was glitchy and WPVI/ABC/6 and WHYY/PBS/12 were missing in action. After playing with both antennas for a few weeks a threw in the towel and invested in a roof mounted Antennacraft 5884 UHF/VHF antenna. Reception is borderline perfect with only a stray dropout. The lesson learned is, for anyone trying to cut the cord in the Philadelphia market with it's mix of UHF, low VHF and high VHF nothing outperforms a traditional roof antenna. With a strong signal, cutting the cable cord and relying on over the wall streamning and over the air HDTV can keep you distracted from losing the huge variety of cable channels.