Reddit reviews Antennas Direct 8-Element High Gain Bowtie TV Antenna, 60 Mile Range, Multi-directional, Indoor, Attic, Outdoor, All-weather Mounting Hardware, Adjustable Mast Clamp, 4K Ready, Silver - 8DXB

I've been thinking about setting up an antenna for a backup or emergency, or possibly to eventually cut the cord with cable. My concerns are regarding how serious of an antenna I might need. While I am only about 17-21 miles from the stations (all UHF signals) and they are all about in the same direction, my house is in a valley with a thickly forested steep 130ft hill in the direction of the stations.

I remember back in the 90's before we had cable we had a $100 omnidirectional analog antenna that pulled in a couple of the strongest stations with some static and a couple others that were too poor to watch with the rest being almost all static. I'm thinking with a more directional quality antenna pointed well, we might be able to pick up all of the stations now.

The question is can I pull in all of the stations with an antenna like this? Is there one better that I could buy for my situation? Is there DIY design that would be better than this one? If anyone has any input I'd be grateful.

Attics are good ;-) I put one of these in my attic and I'm getting great reception:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EHWCDW/ref=oh_details_o08_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My attic doesn't have a floor and it's knee deep in insulation. What I did was screw together two pieces of 3/4 plywood and then lag bolted them to a couple of rafters. I bolted on a J-mount for the antenna and that was all it took. I haven't needed to go back up there at all.

If you have 4 feet of head room, you have enough room to do the install. Honest. The antenna went together with a screwdriver and a crescent wrench. You could probably assemble it in the attic, but you'd definitely want to get real familiar with all the pieces and the instructions before carting it up there.

There are chimney mounts, too, so you wouldn't need to put holes in your roof. I know plenty of people have roof antennas, but I'd be worried about winds.


Most of my stations are not as distant as yours. However, after I assembled the antenna in the living room, I connected it to the TV and was able to pick up most of the stations that TV Fool said I could receive, and that was with the antenna propped up against a chair and through the aluminum siding on my house! When I mounted it in the attic, I was able to pick up channels way the hell and gone from me.

If you have a good antenna pointing due south, you should get everything to the east and probably some of the ones on the west, too.

If you have an Android cellphone, look for compass and clinometer applications to get the antenna aligned and at the right angle.

nice post.

His stations are coming from all different directions and are splits between VHF and UHF. He will need multiple antennas and splitter/combiner.

the DIY Db4 antenna is a UHF antenna, and will likely struggle to consistently pull in channels from the 256-290 degree range. For that, I would reccommend a db8. Since this is a practice, and buisness expense (which is tax deductible), I wouldnt recommend building his own.

My recommendations:

1. db8 antenna
   0r [91xG (http://www.antennasdirect.com/store/91XG_HDTV_Antenna.html)
   
   
2. channel master 7777 preamp
   
   
3. antenna mast, coax cable, coax splitter
   
   
4. ground the antenna (so it is not a lightning/fire hazard)
   
5. possibly simple/inexpensive "rabit ears" for PBS on channel 8

You could try an antenna like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-DB8-Extreme-Multi-Directional-Antenna/dp/B000EHWCDW/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1376568410&sr=8-5&keywords=antenna+direct

Should be able to handle stations at 70 miles or more if you mount on your roof. Also I don't see if CBS and ABC are UHF. This antenna only works with UHF channels so anything VHF is a no-go.

EDIT: Looks like you can get get WBNS-TV and WSYX out of Columbus using that antenna if you point at 311 degrees true north according to antennapoint.com. Both are UHF so should work fine with this antenna.

http://www.antennapoint.com/antennas/show?id=45701&commit=Advanced+Search&search%5Buhf_ant%5D=1&search%5Bvhf_ant%5D=1&search%5Bmin_erp%5D=0&search%5Bmax_erp%5D=9000&search%5Bmax_distance%5D=70

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Since I apparently need an omni-directional outdoor antenna, do you think something like this would meet my needs?

Picked up everything listed on www.antennaweb.org for my address using this antenna for $68 back in 2012.

When I owned my house in North Texas, we had a radiant barrier because of all the heat during the summer. We had the spray on kind in the attic.

Here is our tvfool to give you a comparison.

We used this antenna installed in the attack.

It worked amazingly. There was an amplifier which I put between the antenna and the splitter which split the signal to all the coax outlets in our house. I believe we had it set up with a 4 way splitter.

Hope this helps!

We use an Antenna out in Brunswick and get a ton of channels. The issue we have is that we need two antennas to pull baltimore and dc at the same time and then a joiner to join them together. Don't get one of those indoor set top antennas because that shit just won't work for how far out we are.

Here is what we got:

http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-C2-ClearStream-Television-Antenna/dp/B0017O3UHI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1369798861&sr=8-3&keywords=clearstream+antenna

We got ours from Best Buy open box for like $30, but Amazon's price is good. I would recommend something more like this if you are serious about getting OTA TV:

http://www.amazon.com/Antennas-DB8-Extreme-Multi-Directional-Antenna/dp/B000EHWCDW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369799102&sr=8-1&keywords=antennas+direct+db8

The shorter the cable run from the Antenna, the better as well. We have a lot of channels accessible in Frederick, it's just taking a bit of time to do some research and setup the equipment.

I will say that my friends and people who I have talked to that say they have "tried it" in our area, usually have tried it with a shitty tv top antenna or just plain had no idea what they were doing. I can tune at least 15 channels each from DC and Baltimore with the first antenna I listed (though I have to readjust it).

HDTV Omni directional Antennae

How about a DB8?

I installed a DB2 in the attic because all the stations I want are within 25 miles and it does indeed pull them all in.

so for ota tv should i get a crazy long yagi http://www.amazon.com/Solid-Signal-Definition-Antenna-HDB91X/dp/B00CX700EY/ref=pd_sim_e_31?ie=UTF8&refRID=1G51JHS2CRZR6BVAMD40 or a extreme range bowtie like this http://www.amazon.com/Terrestrial-Digital-DB8-Multi-Directional-Antenna/dp/B000EHWCDW/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1393828354&sr=8-9&keywords=long+range+tv+antenna. can you recommend me a hf antenna or maybe an article about various types? and for a satellite antenna it looked like the turnstile was very basic, which would be better the qfh or dca?