# OTA antenna recommendation?



## Lord Vader

I posted a similar thread on the AVS forum but received zero responses, so I thought I'd check here.

It has been several years since I purchased an OTA indoor antenna, which is a discontinued model but still in use at my primary residence. I'm looking for a recommendation as to the best OTA antenna to use indoors in the following setup:


2nd floor apt. of a 3-story bldg.
far NW side of Houston (Jersey Village, specifically)
apt. unit faces south
Indoor antenna could be either powered or non-powered, whichever is best
To be used on an HR20-700 and/or via a splitter to an AM21 connected to an HR24


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## Stuart Sweet

Let me see what I can figure out for you.


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## SayWhat?

I'm considering this, but I don't think it will fit in your living room.


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## Lord Vader

OK, thanks, Stuart.


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## Lord Vader

"SayWhat?" said:


> I'm considering this, but I don't think it will fit in your living room.


Maybe I'll put it on my balcony & piss off management even more. :-D

That thing is HUGE!


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## veryoldschool

I needed VHF-Hi & UHF so I use a HD Blade and it works very well.

http://forums.solidsignal.com/forumdisplay.php/29-HD-Blade-Support

You'll most likely get the best information here:

http://www.solidsignal.com/p/ota.as...n=GAN&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=k244266


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## Lord Vader

I think my building is some 30 to 45 miles away from the antenna farm, which appears to be south/southwest of the city, and I'm far northwest of the city. 

What often confuses me is the whole VHF/UHF thing. It always seems am antenna will get one or the other well but never both.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> I think my building is some 30 to 45 miles away from the antenna farm, which appears to be south/southwest of the city, and I'm far northwest of the city.
> 
> What often confuses me is the whole VHF/UHF thing. It always seems am antenna will get one or the other well but never both.


I stuck this "mat" antenna high up on a wall, as I too am on the wrong side from the towers.
30-45 miles is well within my range, as I'm getting one station from 70 miles away.

either seek help for what frequencies you need or check TVfool.com and find out.


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## Lord Vader

That signal blade looks rather nice. Definitely less of an eyesore than most. 

So all you did was just stick it up on a wall somewhere, huh? Nice.


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## Stuart Sweet

Lord Vader said:


> I think my building is some 30 to 45 miles away from the antenna farm, which appears to be south/southwest of the city, and I'm far northwest of the city.
> 
> What often confuses me is the whole VHF/UHF thing. It always seems am antenna will get one or the other well but never both.


There are plenty of antennas that get both.

There is a misconception that you don't need VHF for HDTV, so there are a lot of UHF antennas sold.


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## SayWhat?

If you look at the one I posted, you'll see it looks a lot different than older units. The radials are no where near as long. This one is supposedly tuned to High VHF and UHF, channels 7 and up. There really isn't much any more below Channel 7 (Low VHF) in most markets, so there is no need for the longer radials.

I still have a major player on actual channel 12, so I can't go straight UHF for an antenna. And with them being close to 70 air miles, I need all the pull I can get. I'm getting them now about 80% of the time with a shorter boom antenna and a mast mounted pre-amp. I'm hoping this change will help bring it closer to 100% coverage.


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## Davenlr

A channel master 4221 with the addition of a 18" pair of whiskers connected to the antenna feedpoint if you have any channel 7,8 or 9 there.


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## Lord Vader

The NBC channel is channel 2 here.


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## SayWhat?

Probably not on their true broadcast channel. They're probably UHF mapped down to Ch 2.


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## Lord Vader

I'm not sure. I did look for any other NBC broadcast channel here, & that's the only one I saw.


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## SayWhat?

If you feel inclined to post the station call letters, somebody can look it up.


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## Davenlr

NBC in Houston is channel 35 according to TVFool.com


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## Lord Vader

Then they're probably mapping it to 2, because that's what I have to tune to in order to view it.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> Then they're probably mapping it to 2, because that's what I have to tune to in order to view it.


Post a zip code and I'll check TVfool


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## moghedien

Lord Vader said:


> The NBC channel is channel 2 here.


KPRC real channel is 35. The only VHF stations you have to worry about are KUHT (PBS 8) and a DAYSTAR station on channel 7.


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## Lord Vader

"veryoldschool" said:


> Post a zip code and I'll check TVfool


77041

Thanks. I'm mobile all day today, so I appreciate all the recommendations.


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## SayWhat?

Depending on your device, you might be able to view it on 35 also. A couple of my boxes lock in on both the real and virtual.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> 77041
> 
> Thanks. I'm mobile all day today, so I appreciate all the recommendations.


"If I were you", I'd go with the HD Blade for indoor use.


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## Lord Vader

"SayWhat?" said:


> Depending on your device, you might be able to view it on 35 also. A couple of my boxes lock in on both the real and virtual.


Real & virtual, huh? Sounds surreal.


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## Lord Vader

"veryoldschool" said:


> "If I were you", I'd go with the HD Blade for indoor use.


Sounds good. I had looked at it earlier & will give it a shot. After all, it can't hurt to try.


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## jimmie57

I am in Texas City, south of you. I have a small powered antenna on the den wall that is about 6 feet off the ground and I get a ton of channels here.
The 2 that I have a problem with is (*Delete PBS*), channel (*Delete 8*) channel 11 CBS and 13, ABC. 
Channels 2, (*Delete 13, ABC*), 20, 26 and 39 come in fine. There are several Spanish channels that I don't watch because I do not speak the Spanish, but they come in also.

You are a lot closer than me and way higher off the ground. I would think most anything would work fine for you, provided there is nothing between you and the towers.

Edited to fix channels.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> Sounds good. I had looked at it earlier & will give it a shot. After all, it can't hurt to try.


"mine" and this is on the south [wall too] end of the complex and all the towers are to the north.
I need/use "real" channels 7 & 11


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## Lord Vader

jimmie57 said:


> I am in Texas City, south of you. I have a small powered antenna on the den wall that is about 6 feet off the ground and I get a ton of channels here.
> The 2 that I have a problem with is PBS, channel 8 and CBS, channel 11.
> Channels 2, 13, 20, 26 and 39 come in fine. There are several Spanish channels that I don't watch because I do not speak the Spanish, but they come in also.
> 
> You are a lot closer than me and way higher off the ground. I would think most anything would work fine for you, provided there is nothing between you and the towers.


CBS, huh? Funny, but that's the same network/channel with which I have problems in my primary residence in suburban Chicago. In all the years of living 30 miles west/southwest of Chicago, I was never able to tune in WBBM CBS Channel 2. Never. No matter what I tried.



veryoldschool said:


> "mine" and this is on the south [wall too] end of the complex and all the towers are to the north.


Almost looks like a big nocotine patch on the wall. 

BTW, that's such a tiny TV!


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## Davenlr

Lord Vader said:


> In all the years of living 30 miles west/southwest of Chicago, I was never able to tune in WBBM CBS Channel 2. Never. No matter what I tried.


That is funny, because I lived 25 miles southwest of Milwaukee, and I got WBBS real good. Almost as good as I got WLS and WGN.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> Almost looks like a big nocotine patch on the wall.
> 
> BTW, that's such a tiny TV!


yeah a 46" 1080p from 6' is all I could fit.

BTW it's "up there" because multipath was a problem in all other locations and other indoor antennas.

I don't have multipath issues anymore


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## Lord Vader

Well, I'm going to test it out on my bedroom HR24/AM21 first. If it works well there. I'll order another to connect to an HR20-700 in the living room.


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## jimmie57

Actually I made an error in my previous post.
The channels I have problems with are 11, CBS and 13 , ABC.
If you go to this site I think I found the problem. This little powered antenna does not get the VHF stations and 11 and 13 are VHF. All the ones I get are UHF.
http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx

I just tested with a very old set of rabbit ears and I can get 11 and 13 with those.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> Well, I'm going to test it out on my bedroom HR24/AM21 first. If it works well there. I'll order another to connect to an HR20-700 in the living room.


"Smart"

You'll be surprised at how many different directions/ways it works.

Vertical and laying it down flat.


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## veryoldschool

jimmie57 said:


> Actually I made an error in my previous post.
> The channels I have problems with are 11, CBS and 13 , ABC.
> If you go to this site I think I found the problem. This little powered antenna does not get the VHF stations and 11 and 13 are VHF. All the ones I get are UHF.
> http://www.antennaweb.org/Address.aspx
> 
> I just tested with a very old set of rabbit ears and I can get 11 and 13 with those.


I did my best to do an apples to apples between my rabbit ears and this HD blade, here:
http://forums.solidsignal.com/showthread.php/1726-Which-is-better-HD-BLADE-or-old-school-rabbit-ears


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## Lord Vader

veryoldschool said:


> "Smart"
> 
> You'll be surprised at how many different directions/ways it works.
> 
> Vertical and laying it down flat.


Sounds good. BTW, for my bedroom, I do have the ability to mount it outside, because one of the entrances to my balcony is through the master BR.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> Sounds good. BTW, for my bedroom, I do have the ability to mount it outside, because one of the entrances to my balcony is through the master BR.


I played with my rabbit ears in every location I could think of, and found what I thought was my "sweet spot".
A/B'd the antennas in this location.
Since the blade does have more [measured] gain, I went with it, but would still get some multipath [not real bad but enough to piss me off :lol:].
Then I got the idea to "go high" as pictured. "Done".


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## Lord Vader

Hmmm. Maybe I should run it through my ceiling, up through the unit directly above me, and onto the roof. Screw the people upstairs. This is OTA I'm talking about!


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## jimmie57

veryoldschool said:


> I did my best to do an apples to apples between my rabbit ears and this HD blade, here:
> http://forums.solidsignal.com/showthread.php/1726-Which-is-better-HD-BLADE-or-old-school-rabbit-ears


That is very good work.
Thanks

What is weird is that my antenna says it gets VHF and UHF.
I searched to web and found that 11 is 31 ?? and 13 is 32 ??. I do not know if that is correct.

I wiped out my channel list and had it rescan and it does not get 11, 13, 31 or 32.
It is no biggie because I would only use it if the satellite is out for some reason and I needed to know about bad weather or similar and one of the other channels will have that information.


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## veryoldschool

jimmie57 said:


> That is very good work.
> Thanks
> 
> What is weird is that my antenna says it gets VHF and UHF.
> I searched to web and found that 11 is 31 ?? and 13 is 32 ??. I do not know if that is correct.
> 
> I wiped out my channel list and had it rescan and it does not get 11, 13, 31 or 32.
> It is no biggie because I would only use it if the satellite is out for some reason and I needed to know about bad weather or similar and one of the other channels will have that information.


What model antenna was this?
TVFool shows:
KHOU CBS as 11.1 which is "really" 11
KTRK ABC as "really" 13
KUHT PBS as "really" 8

So your antenna does need VHF-Hi + UHF


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## jimmie57

This is the one I have. The signal strength on a 1 to 10 scale is an average of 7 on all the other channels that I do get and no signal at all on 11 and 13.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...090102&p_id=4730&seq=1&format=3#specification


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## Davenlr

jimmie57 said:


> This is the one I have. The signal strength on a 1 to 10 scale is an average of 7 on all the other channels that I do get and no signal at all on 11 and 13.
> 
> http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...090102&p_id=4730&seq=1&format=3#specification


That is an amplified fractal panel antenna. Its a scaled up version of the antenna inside smartphones. They work fairly well for gain with their built in amp, but are utterly terrible for multipath.


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## veryoldschool

jimmie57 said:


> This is the one I have. The signal strength on a 1 to 10 scale is an average of 7 on all the other channels that I do get and no signal at all on 11 and 13.
> 
> http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...090102&p_id=4730&seq=1&format=3#specification


Like so many "amplified" antennas, the gain listed is about 75% [or more] from the amp, and not the antenna itself.

The size is limiting its "low end". The blade measures over a foot in each direction, so the internal elements are longer than in "that antenna".

Your "1 to 10", would be what my TV shows as 0-100, but it also shows signal to noise [ratio] in dB, which were the numbers in the article.
"Figure" noise is the constant, so signal to noise ratio is a sign of how much gain the antenna has.

Amps are good for cable loss from the antenna to the TV, but if the signal doesn't get picked up by the antenna itself, you can't amplify it and "magically" get it, since the signal and the noise both get amplified.


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## veryoldschool

Davenlr said:


> That is an amplified fractal panel antenna. Its a scaled up version of the antenna inside smartphones. They work fairly well for gain with their built in amp, but are utterly terrible for multipath.


What I'd say, you're saying is an eighth wave antenna with an amp, may work, but a quarter wave antenna may not need the amp.


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## Davenlr

veryoldschool said:


> What I'd say, you're saying is an eighth wave antenna with an amp, may work, but a quarter wave antenna may not need the amp.


A 1/4 wave without amp is always going to outperform any other smaller antenna with an amp, since the amp cannot amp unless the signal is there in the first place, as you know. The benefit of the fractal panels (I used the word gain, when I should have used the word broadband) is that they have a wide frequency bandwidth, and can cover the entire UHF band at once with < 3:1 SWR, whereas a 1/4 wave would only be accurate on one or two channels, and then SWR will rapidly rise. The bow tie is an excellent cross between the two, and for an indoor antenna, would be my antenna of choice. Your bow-tie between plastic sheets being a good example of max gain for size and wide enough bandwidth to be effective.


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## Lord Vader

veryoldschool said:


> "mine" and this is on the south [wall too] end of the complex and all the towers are to the north.
> I need/use "real" channels 7 & 11


Just got the "HD Blade" in today and put it up when I got home a few minutes ago. I've been toying with it to see how it performs. Question--is a glass window worse than a wall when it comes to multipath issues? I ask because I have the ability to affix it to a window that is permanently closed, but I couldn't remember if glass causes problems for such signals like it does for DBS signals.


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## Lord Vader

Addendum: Got it up high on the wall in the master BR. It appears to be working VERY well. I can get all the subchannels available, including CBS, which has always been a problem.

My next question--I'm going to order one of these for the living room. It will be connected to an HR20-700. However, I have two HR20-700s in the living room and was wondering if I'd need 2 HD Blades, or if I can go with only 1 and use an OTA splitter.


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## coolman302003

Lord Vader said:


> My next question--I'm going to order one of these for the living room. It will be connected to an HR20-700. However, I have two HR20-700s in the living room and was wondering if I'd need 2 HD Blades, or if I can go with only 1 and use an OTA splitter.


All you will need is a good splitter.


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## Lord Vader

No amplifier needed? I know there a ton of splitters from which to choose on Solid Signal's site alone.


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## veryoldschool

Lord Vader said:


> No amplifier needed? I know there a ton of splitters from which to choose on Solid Signal's site alone.


I use my HD blade to feed my TV & my AM21, so I use a splitter, but I also use/need an amp.
You might try just the splitter and then add an amp if you need.


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## trh

Lord Vader said:


> Question--is a glass window worse than a wall when it comes to multipath issues? I ask because I have the ability to affix it to a window that is permanently closed, but I couldn't remember if glass causes problems for such signals like it does for DBS signals.


Your Blade is small enough, move it around and try both locations. Some glass (LowE), has a metalic reflective coating, so that could possibly impact your signal strength. But there are house wraps and radiant barrier roof sheathings that also use a metallic layer that could do the same. But it sounds like you've already found a very good location.


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## jimmie57

jimmie57 said:


> This is the one I have. The signal strength on a 1 to 10 scale is an average of 7 on all the other channels that I do get and no signal at all on 11 and 13.
> 
> http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...090102&p_id=4730&seq=1&format=3#specification


After reviewing all the posts I decided to try and relocate my antenna once again. The place I wound up placing it was only about 4 feet off the floor and inside the window sill with the antenna rotated so that it was horizontal instead of vertical like all the pictures show it when it is installed. I now get channels 11 and 13, but just barely by 2 bars and all the others have a 5 to 8 strength.
I am 32 miles from the towers and this has a range of 25 so it is a good thing that there are no tall building between me and them.


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## Lord Vader

veryoldschool said:


> I use my HD blade to feed my TV & my AM21, so I use a splitter, but I also use/need an amp.
> You might try just the splitter and then add an amp if you need.


OK, will do. BTW, do you have any recommendations as to whether a specific splitter is better than others, or would any 2-way or 3-way splitter work?



trh said:


> Your Blade is small enough, move it around and try both locations. Some glass (LowE), has a metalic reflective coating, so that could possibly impact your signal strength. But there are house wraps and radiant barrier roof sheathings that also use a metallic layer that could do the same. But it sounds like you've already found a very good location.


Yeah, it looks like I have. It's high on the wall in the corner and seems to be working well right now.


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