Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire TV antennas

We live far enough out that our only option is satellite TV. For many years we did without then we decided to give it a try and now, a few years later, I look at the bill and figure what I pay for tv. It really is obsurd. We pay about $800 yr and that is not the high end package.

I am thinking about doing away with the satellite and going back to a standard antenna.

What are you guys using ? I have an electric pole that used to hold my wifi receiver that I plan on using for the antenna.

Unless you're close to the broadcast, antennas may not do you much good.. Once they all switched to digital broadcasts, it limited the range by about 50-60% of what you could get with analog..

I'm 30 miles from the Shoreview Towers where most of the Twin Cities broadcasts from and I can get those.. But the one I really want to get (CH-13 Eau Claire) is impossible now. It's about 50 miles east..

I'm interested in this also. We had cable, then satellite and recently got rid of all of it. We just have Netflix and an indoor antenna now (not sure on the make) - it works okay, but not great. We get a handful of channels but reception cuts in and out on some. I don't miss cable / satellite at all (except some of the ESPN stuff once in a while). There was a thread here not too long ago that discussed antennas - indoor vs. outdoor, etc. A search might bring that back up...

1) Do a scan for your address.
2) Use Titan TV for your "TV Guide"...(in the link)
3) Antenna info is in the link as well.

https://www.antennaweb.org/

Just did a search and results were up to 44 channels could be viewed using that setup. That's very tempting.

Thanks for posting that link.

4 Stations/13 channels here

This thread is a couple years old, but has some info and links:

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/8902972/1

^This.

And this: https://www.amazon.com/GET-Digital-...mp;keywords=digital+amplified+tv+antenna

Or other powered/amplified digital TV antenna.

I'm guessing you can't get Lynchburg either...

7[your fav ]
10
13
15

I get
7
10
15
27
38

No way to get 13

My bad,
it was 27[not 13].

Digital TV actually gets along with lower signal levels than the old analog TV. That's because the data stream uses an error correcting code, and because the bandwidth of the signal is narrower.

There is no such thing as an HDTV antenna. Antennas cannot tell the difference between an analog signal and a digital signal.

As a quick and dirty test, hook a short piece of TV cable to your antenna jack, and 2-3 ft piece of wire to the coax center conductor, with the free end of the wire attached to the cable outer conductor to form a loop antenna. On the TV menu, choose the antenna as your input, and have the TV do a scan to see what it detects. If you can detect a few channels, that's very promising.

A good general purpose antenna for HDTV is one with two "bow ties", one above the other, and a reflector screen behind them (~$50). If your channel detection test didn't detect anything, you may want to go to a four bow tie antenna.

You will almost surely want an amplifier at the antenna. They are cheap, and they get their power via the coax. They are important because coax is fairly lossy at UHF, and without an amplifier, only a fraction of the signal will make it down the pipe to your TV.

We ditched cable. We enjoyed it, but not $105 per month worth. We're happy with free broadcast TV and Netflix and Amazon Prime.

0 stations, 0 channels

Look into translator (relay stations) in your area that rebroadcast TV from Wichita, KC, or Joplin.

We get the same stations as Anchorage, but via local translator stations.

My house is a little northeast of Martinsville, VA. I have one of these on the chimney aimed at the Winston-Salem/Greensboro area and get about 30 channels in the summer and a few more in the winter.

https://www.amazon.com/ClearStream-Indoor-Outdoor-Antenna-Mount/dp/B007RH5GZI

I’m thinking about adding a pre-amplifier to see if it will pick up a few more channels.

Same set up we've got here.

Denton: I disagree with your analysis. At my remote cabin prior to the switch to digital I had access to numerous stations. Reception was at times poor but we always got audio even if the picture was snowy. Since the the switch to analog we only get 2 channels and both are PBS. Digital is all or nothing. Either a good picture or NO SIGNAL but nothing in between.

The link is to the manufacturer of the antenna I use in upper northern Wisconsin. The model I have is DT-XFAMP20-1(0-80+ miles). It is mounted atop a 25' antenna tower. These antennas are pretty compact compared to the old massive analog antennas I've used.

Though the claim is that 80+ miles, due to elevation and trees I can't get broadcast signals from those towers that are ~78 miles out. I do get the channels through closer repeater towers. Those towers are ~30-45 miles away.

Link to some pretty good antennas. http://digitenna.com/