also found the Current Coupon Code Offer from the store:
PD3 3% off with any order of $50 or more on none-sales items (expired on 11/30/06) PD5 5% off with any order of $100 or more on none-sales items(expired on 11/30/06) HS05 5% off with any order (expired on 1/31/07) NANO20 $20 off on NANO2GB (expired on 1/31/07) NANO8GB30 $30 off on NANO8GB-BLK (expired on 1/31/07) TELE100 $100 off for TC-245(expired on 1/31/07)
OK, no one appears to own this, so I'm going to step in and answer this based on my knowledge of HDTV.
Save your money and don't buy it.
Here's why:
This is an omnidirectional TV Antenna, which means it picks up signals from all directions equally well. This seems like a good idea at first, but is highly suspectable to what is known as multipath distortion.
Multipath distortion, or for those of you more familiar with analog TV, "Ghosts", is the result of the signal reflecting off objects (buildings, for example) and those reflections arriving at your antenna slightly later than the original signal - this is what produces a ghost.
The digital TV standard the US uses, known as ATSC, unfortunately, does not cope well with multipath distortion at all (and in fact, many say for this reason the US should not have selected it, but it's too late to change it now).
Ghosts are best delt with through the use of a directional antenna. Directional antennas are optomized to pick up most of the signal from one direction, and do their best to reject the signal from other directions. The Silver Sensor is a directional antenna, for comparison.
BigDish said: OK, no one appears to own this, so I'm going to step in and answer this based on my knowledge of HDTV.
Save your money and don't buy it.
Here's why:
This is an omnidirectional TV Antenna, which means it picks up signals from all directions equally well. This seems like a good idea at first, but is highly suspectable to what is known as multipath distortion.
Multipath distortion, or for those of you more familiar with analog TV, "Ghosts", is the result of the signal reflecting off objects (buildings, for example) and those reflections arriving at your antenna slightly later than the original signal - this is what produces a ghost.
The digital TV standard the US uses, known as ATSC, unfortunately, does not cope well with multipath distortion at all (and in fact, many say for this reason the US should not have selected it, but it's too late to change it now).
Ghosts are best delt with through the use of a directional antenna. Directional antennas are optomized to pick up most of the signal from one direction, and do their best to reject the signal from other directions. The Silver Sensor is a directional antenna, for comparison.
so you have to move the antenna every time you change the channel to a station coming from a different direction?
Syphon said: so you have to move the antenna every time you change the channel to a station coming from a different direction?
Yes and no. Most of the time, most (possibly all) of the TV transmitters are pretty close together, so the antenna will point to the same direction for all of the stations. Of course, that's not always the truth - it depends on the area, and also where you live in respect to the transmitters.
Also, directional TV antennas, especially small ones like the Silver Sensor aren't actually THAT directional - it's more of a general area than a single point. Most people likely won't have to worry about moving the antenna, but it depends a lot on your scenario. There's no one answer that's right for everyone, but an omnidirectional antenna is likely to have problems for most people.
Go to http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx and plug in your address or just your zip code. Continue through the process until you get a map showing your location relative to the broadcast towers in your area. Then you can make an informed decision about whether an omnidirectional antenna is right for you or not.
Thanks for the info JonesBeach and BigDish. In my location, TV stations are coming from almost all directions. The two main cities that they come from are about 60 degrees apart. We have a huge antenna on our roof. Every time we go up there to try to get a better signal, some stations come in better, but the rest get worse. It is a constant battle.
Thanks for the input. I just got one, same as this post for $8 from Big Lots. We don't have an HDTV, but there are some local stations that we can only get for free by grabbing them out of the air.
Also need a digital set top box to convert the signal for our analog TV. Could really use some rec's for the cheapest boxes out there that work well. $150-$200 sounds like a lot of box for this purpose!?!
dealkb
Senior Member
posted: Jan. 29, 2007 @ 6:59p
geoffkin said: Thanks for the input. I just got one, same as this post for $8 from Big Lots. We don't have an HDTV, but there are some local stations that we can only get for free by grabbing them out of the air.
Also need a digital set top box to convert the signal for our analog TV. Could really use some rec's for the cheapest boxes out there that work well. $150-$200 sounds like a lot of box for this purpose!?! Can you comment on the quality?
given that most channels are uhf, those 20 year old uhf antenna's from long time ago work really good still
i found yagi type antenna works best with a 20 degree spread on the two city towers in atlanta for me. I need to put it on the roof it just sits on my deck but i get great signal.
silver sensor is AWESOME for directional (very small spread) everything else i've tried was junk (for my case).
if you can take a 3.5dbi loss you can actually split two directional antenna's if you find you are between two towers.
also the length and quality of cabling, any splitters, etc affects the signal more than anything. Junk wire or connectors will really bring down the signal quality big time.
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