OTA and poor HD reception

[Hotshoe]

We have D* and Tivo. (The receiver is labeled DirecTV and TiVo.) We receive the HD package and all looks good. We used to get the HD football games and that looked good. However, our OTA hd signals for the local channels are poor. Our picture looks good, but we get constant rain fade-like symptoms, with freezes and pixelation.

We'd like to pinpoint just where our problem is. Since the D* hd feeds seem fine, could a better antenna help? We have a Jenson OTA antenna that sits on top of the tv. I'd hate to open the can of worms that purchasing a rooftoop antenna and the subsequent installation unless I knew it would solve the reception issues.

Is it possible that we're not getting a good signal from the networks? Or does the fact that we get the picture at all mean that we're getting an adequate signal?

 

[dturturro]

Indoor antennas are spotty at best. Go for the rooftop antenna and professional installation, you won't regret it!

 

[wolfman]

I had a Terk indoor antenna and returned it the same day I purchased it. The reception was horrible at best. I purchased a Winegard rooftop antenna and have no problems receiving local HD channels. They have a variety of models depending on how far you live from the stations.

 

[Hotshoe]

Thanks for the info. We had a feeling it would be the antenna.

 

[Lorenzo]

Sounds like you're right on the edge for HDTV reception. Have you really tried moving the antenna for better reception? Moving it closer to a window that faces the transmitter direction would help for instance. Usually it's easiest to choose an analog UHF station on the same tower as your HDTV signals for orienting the antenna. Look for the least snow and the least amount of ghosts in the analog video. If you enter your zip code at "choose an antenna" at http://antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx ...it will tell you the direction to your transmitters as well as reccommend an antenna type and also which networks are VHF and which UHF. The Jensen antennas I see are more like rabbit ear antennas- some with amplifiers. For a very highly rated, reasonably priced UHF ONLY indoor antenna google Zenith Silver Sensor. For not much more than $20 it blows away the rabbit ear type indoor UHF antennas.