With the exception of my college years, when I lived on campus, I've NEVER had cable. My family didn't have the disposable income to afford the luxury of having television without commercials. Oh snap, they don't do that any more! Why the f would anyone pay to watch TV that's already sponsored?
Without an address (or the very least a zip code), I can't give you an antenna recommendation. You'll have to go to
antennaweb.org and plug in your address. It'll give you a nice little map that shows you which direction the towers are from your house. Antennaweb, however, is just a start. It's way too simple for my taste AND it's way to conservative in estimating which channels you'll receive.
Check out
tvfool.com and plug in your address. Alright! Now we're talkin'! Now go to the signal/NM column. Anything above 0.0 is what you'll most likely get with an external antenna without an amp. Anything below that and you'll be in the Dxing/advanced user category. A nifty feature is if you click on one the stations on the chart, it'll give you a topographical profile. Sweet.
A few rule of thumb things:
There is no HDTV antenna. An antenna is an antenna is an antenna. I've got a 40 year old UHF/VHF combo on the roof and it's the same thing as a high price UHF/VHF HDTV rig.
The range of the antenna is not the same as advertised on the side of the box. That is the range under ideal conditions. When in doubt, go up one size in antenna.
Mount the antenna as high as possible. Make sure it's not blocked by obstacles. It's fairly line of sight like a live shot.
Guys who mount their antenna in their attic don't realize that they just cut their range in half and added a ton of multipath to the signal.
If the towers are in very different directions, you'll need a rotor.
Ground the antenna.
Use RG6 cable. NOTHING ELSE!
Passive splitters suck. They split your signal strength in half. If you have a 3 way splitter, it doesn't give you 33% at each port—it gives you 50% at the first, 25% at the second, and 25% at the third.
You can't go wrong with stuff from Blonder Tongue, Winegard, or Channel Master.
Rabbit ears are for VHF reception. A loop is for UHF.
TV reception is not an exact science. You'll have to get your parts and just try it.
Run&Gun said:
I was able to pick up almost every Digital/HD OTA signal in my area with just a paperclip in the ANT jack.
Yep. That's my favorite parlor trick. It's also the first thing I try to get OTA.