Best Medium Directional Antenna for 1st floor of apartment complex

[durandtheman]

Hey Everybody,
I've been doing my research on medium directional antenna's. I live on the 1st floor of an apartment complex facing the Freeway. I have a patio but don't have any metal objects to attach an antenna to.

After using antennaweb.org i'm noticing that my building will block some of the steams, but the majority will be coming from the direction my patio see's but does not face directly (224 degrees). That direction however does have more buildings covering it. Essentially I'm in a little nook of a street that has apartment buildings on all sides and a freeway onramp in front. I can see above the freeway onramp to the sky, but that's about all the sky i can see.

Oddly enough, I purchased an indoor antenna prior to getting my TV and didn't read anything about antenna strength. I did receive one channel very clean. 14.1 from heading 110 degrees, which on antennaweb has it coming in as Blue UHF and blocked by a bunch of buildings, where the antenna is rated as much as green.

So my question is, What is the best option I have for both installing an antenna (has to be on the patio, can't be placed on the roof, no roof access) and what are my best options for antenna's $100 or less. I would consider drilling into the plaster that is my patio, but would prefer not to damage much of my apartment doing this.

Thanks for all your help and input everybody!

 

[boba]

Call you local cable company and subscribe. Take the "rabbit ears" out to the patio and see what you can get. You don't give any milage to broadcasters but the odds of reflected signals at ground level is huge in your setup.

 

[Mr Tony]

please post the tvfool report...that is more accurate than antennaweb

TV Fool

 

[durandtheman]

Well, the whole point is to not be paying for local cable. I'd rather not give comcast all my money for extra channels that I'll never watch.

Thanks for the TV Fool website. I never knew it existed. RCA gave me antennaweb's website after purchasing one of their antenna's. Here's the image from the site.

I was able to extend the antenna cable with the indoor antenna I had to allow it to stay outdoors. I definitely got more channels than keeping it indoors.

I would like something a little more permanent, what are the chances that my indoor antenna will fail if I leave it outside and it gets rained on? I forget the model number, but it is a simple RCA HDTV antenna bought from Best Buy. There is no power supply for the antenna, so it won't "short." Just curious, I would still rather use an outdoor antenna.

 

[boba]

Well, the whole point is to not be paying for local cable. I'd rather not give comcast all my money for extra channels that I'll never watch.

Thanks for the TV Fool website. I never knew it existed. RCA gave me antennaweb's website after purchasing one of their antenna's. Here's the image from the site.

I was able to extend the antenna cable with the indoor antenna I had to allow it to stay outdoors. I definitely got more channels than keeping it indoors.

I would like something a little more permanent, what are the chances that my indoor antenna will fail if I leave it outside and it gets rained on? I forget the model number, but it is a simple RCA HDTV antenna bought from Best Buy. There is no power supply for the antenna, so it won't "short." Just curious, I would still rather use an outdoor antenna.

94107 zip shows all major networks are 4-6 miles from your apartment complex 14.1 is 33 miles away. It would really be nice to know what RCA antenna you have, RCA makes many antennas from cheap junk to very good products. As close as you are to the broadcasters you are going to have too much signal. With your drawing that signal is going to bounce around that complex and cause ghosting, reflected signals interfering with the main signals. This may sound stupid but strip about a foot of shielding off the end of a coax cable just leaving the bare copper center wire exposed. Now connect it to the TV and see what you get for reception, you have much more signal than you need being so close to the broadcast towers.

 

[No Static At All]

The smallest outside antenna that would be appropriate for you would be the RCA ANT-751. I am only 4 miles from DC & have experimented with the ANT-751 just sitting on top of trash can in the back yard & it worked well.

 

[jayn_j]

If you don't have a railing, many people have mounted mast type antennas and dishes by filling a 5 gallon plastic bucket with concrete and placing a pole in it. The concrete adds enough mass that it won't tip over or shift. All parts are available at Lowes or Home Depot and won't cost an arm and a leg.

 

[durandtheman]

Thanks for the tip on the RCA ANT751. Right now i have a basic RCA ANT121 sitting outside, and that's working quite well, just won't hold up to the elements as well as hoped. I'll probably purchase a ANT751 and test mounting it with some exterior doublesided tape. If that doesn't hold up to the elements, like I'm expecting it not to I'll definitely go to the bucket in the pole as suggested by jayn_j. Thanks for all the help everybody, looks like I definitely went to the right place advice, otherwise I'd have 3-4 antenna's, be out a couple hundred $$ and still have no signal.

 

[roashru]

need any antenna

Hello, There is a not well known antenna that could be tried they are called an "absorption antenna" they only work in the UHF band mostly used commercially in cellular phones or wireless networks. You should be able to be on the back side of an apartment building using a new style type ATSC MIMO mimicking receiver (multipath resistant) it should work!.

 

[durandtheman]

"Smart Antenna"

I did a search for the ATSC MIMO antenna idea and couldn't come up with any actual products desigened as such. However, I did notice that there is a product called a "Smart Antenna" out there, although it seems as though no company really creates any at the moment.

Are you aware of any products listed under ATSC MIMO antennas for TV? I am also a little curious about the "Smart Antenna" idea. I did notice that a smart antenna-enabled digital converter box is required, yet none of the items that were marketed as Smart Antenna's exist anymore, and most of the forum posts or items I found were all marketed around 2008 and are all discontinued.

Anyone else have any feedback about those? I'm aware of some of the pluses and drawbacks to the smart antenna, but now I'm a little more curious about it.

 

[mclapp]

There are a few people making smart antennas, they are basically able to receive from multiple directions and then the smart antenna able receiver searches and picks the best signal and uses that for reception.

Many of the newer generation receivers are now able to use multi-path signals and combine them for better reception, severe multipath is still a problem though even with those.

I would suspect in the city with lots of buildings and strong signals that could be a big problem only to be solved with a more directional antenna and careful aiming picking the best reflection I'm not sure how directional the smart antennas are in any 1 direction. Usually more directional and small don't come together.

 

[mjmsr53]

Hello,

I use the Antennas Direct Clearstream 2 connected to my 2nd floor balcony and it works very well. I am about 30 or so miles west of Chicago and I pull in about 42 channels. I had to really fine tune the direction I pointed it to get channel 2, but all the channels look great.

I did try a few inside antennas that pulled in about 30 channels but I could not get channel 2 at all.

 

[roashru]

hello durandtheman, if you really want to try a directional antenna and you have a balcony just put up a di-pole tap at the center of the guard rail everything must be properly di-electric.