I live about 10 miles from the broadcasting towers. I'm planning on placing an antenna in my attic. Currently, I have an el-cheapo antenna laying on a table beside my TV and it picks up all the local stations perfectly. The only reason I'm wanting to place the antenna in the attic is because when a lot of people are walking about the room, the signal will drop out. I'm hoping an attic mount will give me slightly better quality/strength and less clutter in the house. I'm looking at a simple directional antenna right now. The one I'm looking at is a Terk HDTV0. It's simple and should serve my needs. However, I'm currently in a yellow coded area and that entenna is rated for blue. Will this cause me any problems? * My area code is 27604. Thanks in advance.
Blue Antenna in Yellow Zone?
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Quite possibly. Using anything with a pre-amplifier that close to the signals can easily result in tuner overload, causing loss of one or more stations. For another thing, if I may be so blunt: At $90 or more, the HDTV0 is seriously overpriced junk. (Blue zone? Doubtful!)
If those side-table rabbit ears are working well enough now, why not try putting them in the attic? Buy enough RG-6 coax cable to connect them with the TV and see how they do up there. If they're getting everything "perfectly" now, you probably don't need anything new regardless of location.
If it turns out you need a new antenna after all, the Channel Master 2016 is a compact solution that costs a minimum of $40 less than the HDTV0 and will perform better, even without an amplifier. They're available online. At that point, you'll already have the downlead in place for attaching it to your TV.
If those side-table rabbit ears are working well enough now, why not try putting them in the attic? Buy enough RG-6 coax cable to connect them with the TV and see how they do up there. If they're getting everything "perfectly" now, you probably don't need anything new regardless of location.
If it turns out you need a new antenna after all, the Channel Master 2016 is a compact solution that costs a minimum of $40 less than the HDTV0 and will perform better, even without an amplifier. They're available online. At that point, you'll already have the downlead in place for attaching it to your TV.
Thanks for the reply. That antenna doesn't look like it would work for me. It says that it will not receive channels 2 - 6, and channel 5 (CBS) is very popular in the house.
I did try placing my existing antenna in the attic and didn't receive anything, however I think this may have been due to the fact that I was unable to place the amplifier up there as well (no electrical outlet nearby). I will to get a longer piece of coax later this week so that I can have it reach the electrical outlet in the attic.
In case it's important, here's the el cheapo antenna I'm currently using: Go to walmart.com and search for "RCA Flat Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified Antenna with Amplification" (I can post the URL due to being a newbie here)
I did try placing my existing antenna in the attic and didn't receive anything, however I think this may have been due to the fact that I was unable to place the amplifier up there as well (no electrical outlet nearby). I will to get a longer piece of coax later this week so that I can have it reach the electrical outlet in the attic.
In case it's important, here's the el cheapo antenna I'm currently using: Go to walmart.com and search for "RCA Flat Multi-Directional Digital Flat Amplified Antenna with Amplification" (I can post the URL due to being a newbie here)
You need to go to TV Fool - Home or AntennaWeb Channel 5-1 is actually being broadcast on ch 53 UHF. A TV antenna with a built in amplifier will not do anything with out AC power use an extension cord if you have to to power that antenna.
Sounds like you still might be using the analog channels - might as well buy a converter box and see how your current antenna does with the new digital signals. It just might suprise you - even after you move the antenna into the attic. After the February cut off date only channels 7 thru 69 will be used so that is the reason the new antenna you looked at won't pick up your analog channel 5.
