Antennas. The Good, Bad, and Downright Ugly
The antenna is the most important part of the off air DTV home system. Getting mislead here will cause you hours of frustration and headaches, and cause you to write emails to the station beginning with “Dear stupid dumb @#&&$”. Actually, that’s pretty clean compared to some of the viewer emails I have responded to, and yes, we do respond personally to each one. I already know antennas are going to be an issue, so I want to cover this now. Not only antennas, but amps, splitters, and unused wall jacks will affect DTV signals. The good news is that most problems can be eliminated by doing some simple tests.
Will rabbit ears work? Yes, maybe. There’s no guarantee they will be perfect, but in the right spot, they can work fine. A “digital” antenna and the antennas we have used for years are the same. Off air RF signals travel in straight lines, can bounce like a ball on a pool table, can not bend over hills, and can be absorbed by trees regardless of whether it’s digital or analog. The difference is that as the signal strength gets weaker in analog, the picture gets snowier until it is barely visible. With digital, it remains crystal clear until it drops to a point the receiver can’t remain locked to it, and then it is gone. That’s called the digital cliff. Rabbit ears have always been better for VHF, and less effective for UHF, and since the market is moving to a mostly UHF delivery, that’s the part of the antenna to pay the most attention to.
An outdoor antenna is the best way to get any TV signals, and can be the most expensive option. If you don’t like the look of an outdoor antenna, you can hide it in the attic, or mount it on the side of the house out of view. Mine is not visible from the street, and I have a rotor, so I can move it to watch other stations. If your attic is big enough, you can mount the rotor up there and get the same benefits.
We’re pretty lucky in Raleigh. All you have to do is point your antenna towards the Wake County /Johnston County line on US-70 East. All the major networks are at the same spot. For PBS however, you will need to point towards Chapel Hill, Roanoke Rapids, or Greenville, so a rotor is a handy device to have. Ion, formally PAX, is near Louisburg.
The outdoor antenna does not need to be the 120 mile rated super VHF/UHF combo crossfire mammoth requiring a small tower to support it. These can be worse for digital since there is so much area for bounced signals to be added from the sides. The Channel Master 4228 antenna has been proven to be the best unit for this area. It is a bowtie design, and can be mounted anywhere. It is only a few inches from front to back, so it rejects bounced signals very well.
That’s the key, getting the best direct line of sight signal and no multipath interference. Multipath causes ghosting in analog, but it kills digital. You can have a strong signal strength and not be able to see a picture if 30% of it is “garbage”.
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Can you please explain what Rabbit Ears Are?