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The Ultimate Digital TV Antenna Guide. This article details how to watch network television using over the air digital signals. For a more comprehensive guide on everything, you need to know about enjoying all the TV and movies you want without a cable TV subscription, check out my guide to cable TV alternatives. Update: If you want to hear my account of what using a TV antenna entails, check out our TV Antenna episode of the Grounded Reason Podcast.

It’s free! Click this link to listen on i. Tunes. If you don’t have an i. OS device or i. Tunes installed on your PC check this show notes page for other options.

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Over the Air TV or OTA TV signals allow you to watch HDTV for free. This guide explains what to consider when buying an OTA digital TV antenna. A Pittsburgh man has been arrested after he was found crawling around a family’s attic with a power drill in hand. Last month, Jerome Kennedy, who lives in the home. According to Techcrunch, it’s possible to enjoy all the football you want, though you’ll need a combination of live TV streaming plans, NFL-specific streaming.

Over the Air (OTA) TV signals are what many of us grew up watching before Pay TV convinced us all we needed cable. Did you know you can still OTA TV for free?  Did you also know that broadcast TV signals are in crystal clear HD? Furthermore, it’s free!  We can all watch local TV channels without cable, all you need is an OTA TV antenna and digital tuner. Watch The Grey Online Fandango. The majority of you already have a digital tuner built into your TV. Any television made after 2.

U. S. law.  If your TV is older than 2. Before we continue, check if there is an antenna already on your roof.   Find the cable coming off your roof, and locate where it comes in the house.  Connect that cable to your TV and scan for channels. Be aware you should ensure the antenna is properly grounded. If you don’t have an antenna or need a better one, read on. Click on any of the topics below to navigate to that part of the article. Contents of this Guide. How to Choose The Best TV Antenna.

When I chose our TV antenna I used the using this channel locator tool from Mohu.  Ultimately, I went with the Mohu Sky 6. However, different situations may require different TV antennas. This article will consider those variables and help you chose the best TV antenna for you or your family. First, you will need to get a signal report to see which channels are available to you. Get a Signal Report. Signal power is one of the most important factors when choosing a TV antenna. To discover the signal power in your area use this great tool from tvfool.

Once you enter your address, you should receive a signal report like the one below. While the report is color coded to see which channels require an indoor vs outdoor antenna, there are a number of factors that this color coding doesn’t address.

I’ll go over the details of what this report means in this guide. However, I’ve put together an episode of the Grounded Reason Podcasts that walks you through using TV fool. For the purposes of this guide, you want to note the “Netwk” column. For every “must have” TV network in that column, write down the values below. Real TV Channel is in the “Real” column. The channel that you see on your TV is the virtual channel.

Stations do this to keep their channel brand while broadcasting on a higher powered virtual channel. Noise Margin or NM (d.

B) is the amount of signal loss or attenuation the TV signal can withstand and still be received. Many things can cause signal loss and I cover that later in the article. The important thing to know is once the noise margin hits 0, the channel will not come in.“Dist miles” is the distance in miles your house is from that channels TV tower.

The true direction of the station or the “True” column is the compass direction the TV tower is located. These values will help you pick the best TV antenna. Before covering my antenna recommendations there are a few things we should consider like indoor Vs outdoor, UHF\VHF, and the importance of direction and gain. Indoor Vs Outdoor. An outdoor antenna will always be better at receiving TV channels than an indoor TV antenna. I always recommend going with an outdoor antenna when possible.

However, you will usually be able to pick up a TV channel with an indoor antenna as long as the noise margin or NM (d. Watch Lake Placid Vs. Anaconda Megavideo. B) column is greater than 4. That said, there is a reason I advise against blindly trusting the color- coding on TV fool.

The biggest is the difference between UHF and VHF channels. UHF Vs VHFTV channels are split on to three different bands.

Channels 2- 6 are on the VHF- Lo band. Channels 7- 1. 3 are on the VHF- Hi frequency, and channels 1. UHF frequency. The majority of indoor TV antennas are designed to pick up UHF channels. Below is the chart from my TV fool that breaks down the spectrum. When it comes to indoor antennas, I’ve had the best luck with old fashioned rabbit ear antennas when it comes to receiving a VHF signal. This is due to requiring long pole elements to capture VHF signals.

To make matters worse, many signals in today’s digital world interfere with channels in the VHF spectrum. However, I recently did a review of the new Mohu Leaf Glide, which excels at receiving both UHF and VHF channels. Generally, I recommend using an outdoor antenna if you are dependent on receiving VHF channels. Although, there are antenna hacks like using a UHF/VHF signal joiner to combine your UHF antenna with a pair of rabbit ears for VHF channels. Directional Vs Omnidirectional.

Directional TV antennas are antennas designed to pick up signals in the direction you point them. Omni- directional antennas are designed to pick up channels in all directions. This tradeoff off is done by focusing the antenna gain, which is different from amplifier gain.

With a directional TV antenna, the gain is built into the TV antenna to focus reception in the direction. This gain is measured by adding the gain value of the antenna to the noise margin (NM db).

For example, a channel with a noise margin of 3. TV Fool report can be read as 4. B gain toward it. Omni directional antennas balance their gain to pick up channels in all directions.

Click Here to Return to Table of Contents. The Best TV Antenna for You. Watch Finding Noah Online Iflix on this page. Now that we have a general idea about the things that matter when it comes to antenna reception, we can get into the best antennas to consider for given situations. Of course, if you want to know more about concepts like noise margin, I go a bit more in depth later in this article. UHF channels with NM above 4.

BIn this situation; you should be fine with an Omni- Directional indoor antenna. My favorite is the recently released Mohu Leaf Glide. It does a great job of pulling these channels. Antennas like the Mohu Curve older Mohu Leaf and the Winegard Flatwave are also good options. The Curve and Leaf are very similar in function. The choice here comes down to aesthetics.

It’s possible for these solutions to work for VHF- Hi channels as well, given they are with no more than 1.