I’ve recently been resigned to watching broadcast TV with “rabbit ear” antennas.
Since I live in an apartment I cant exactly install an outside antenna. Is there ANYTHING better then rabbit ears for use in the home. I recall seeing on TV years ago an adapter that you plugged into a wall outlet and made the wiring in your house the antenna. Bogus?
Is there anything like an amplifier or booster that could make the signal stronger? I have a hard time pulling in several stations and I dont have that many to choose from!
Definitely bogus. Consumer Reports once tested and found the way to get the best picture using the device was to hold it up at full length over the TV set. They also found nothing inside the part you plugged into the wall.
No help from me on this; I’m just curious about the replies. Everyone laughs at me when I say I refuse to pay for cable, or satellite, or whatever. It’s just not worth it.
Tried one of those wall outlet thingies several years ago. Definitely did not make my picture of Jackie O come in any clearer.
The very worst place to put “rabbit ears” is the one place almost everyone puts them: right on top of the TV. Modern TVs, VCRs and DVD players contain all sorts of digital electronics, which emit quite a bit of hash. Putting the rabbit ears right near all this stuff picks up that EM noise quite nicely, drastically reducing the quality of the signal. The farther away from the TV you can get the ears, the better. You might get some benefit from a set of amplified rabbit ears, but remember that the amplifier will amplify everything the antenna picks up; if there’s a lot of EMI in the area, it will amplify that, too. It might be worth trying it, but don’t expect a miracle cure. Often, poor reception problems can be cured simply by moving the antenna away from the set, using an extension cable, if necessary, and by properly adjusting the antenna elements for the channel you are trying to watch.
I’ve had some luck in the past with amplified antennas. You plug these in, and from what I understand it’s not that it uses your house wiring as an antenna but somehow it amplifies any weak signals that you can pick up with the rabbit ears.
Here is an amplified antenna at Amazon. I had a Jensen antenna like this for awhile, not sure if it’s the exact same model or not.
I don’t really understand the science behind it, but I’ve tried a couple of the amplified antennas and they seemed to work…when I had the unit turned off, I only got really weak signals/a couple of stations, when turned on I would get a few more stations and much clearer picture. Now, I never got perfect, cable-quality images/sound but my experiences are from two small-town settings (in different parts of the country) away from big city broadcast stations, so great reception was probaly not possible.
As a caveat, my roomate in one location had traditional rabbit ears and she would get reception that was almost as good as mine with the amplifier, so maybe the turned off=poor reception and turned on=good reception is just some trick to make you think the amplifier is doing something.
There’s a flat contraption you make with wire of frequency-specific lengths called a “rhombic antenna”. My Dad had one on our roof, but based on what I remember of it, it doesn’t have to be outdoors. If you have an ample ceiling you could probably devise one that hugs your apartment ceiling.
I will second QED’s response of moving the antenna away from the set. If you can stick it in front of a window or outside on a balcony, you will get better reception. I have done testing for digital TV signals in different cities and had the best luck with a small (less than 3 feet) roof mounted antenna that I set on a table by the window. Kinda like this
