I did the paper clip thing. I did it with 2 different ones… one where the clip is an L shape where the other end of it pointed towards the ceiling and the other paper clip i made it where its a straight line… connection was worst than the antenna.
Does that mean the paper clip is going to be useless then? We are on the 2nd floor of the house.
I checked tvfool and it shows the signal is suppose to be good for certain channels where we could not pick up at all here.
So would buying a very good antenna from amazon solve this problem then?
If so anyone can give me some recommendations?
This is the one i bought many years ago and using it now and its not good at all at picking up channels
That looks like it should work. You should go to TVfool and determine the actual channel number of the stations you want to pick up, not the virtual channel number. You should also determine the direction of the transmitter in degrees. That site will plot a signal map for you. One thing that helped me was using a compass to determine which way to point the dipoles for best VHF reception. I used the one in my iPhone. Fully extending the dipoles and pointing them in the direction of the transmitters is the key. Then you can make finer adjustments to lock in the strongest reception.
Well this antenna doesn’t pick up channels abc nor pix11 and tvfool shows it should pick up signal very well. Also no HD except channel 2 cbs hd only…
Anyone have a recommendation?
Also could this be because of the location of the antenna? I put it right behind the 32’ samsung tv and well you can’t really put it anywhere else b/c the wire is pretty short.
Does this mean its my location? 2nd floor of a house? The antenna and tv basically faces the window thus the tv is there… then the sofa is few feet away and the window is right in back of it.
You should get great reception on the second floor, assuming no buildings or obstacles in your path. I pick up about 15 channels with a set of rabbit ears sitting on top of my TV cabinet about 6’ off the ground in a one story house.
I live in Tucson, however, so I realize my advice isn’t specifically relevant to your location.
Okay so right now, i took that antenna and put it in front of the tv… basically on the floor few inches from the front of the tv… the tv is put on a small desk so the antenna wire which u can extend etc doesn’t go so high where it blocks the tv.
When i did this, i could pick up abc and pix11 but abc is not really good. However big problem with this is you dont want an antenna in the floor in front of the tv on the floor… so this means the place where the antenna is put at is very important right? We obviously always put it right in the back of the tv or to the right of it a bit on the same table as the tv but when we do this… theres no reception to channel abc and pix 11 at all.
If i get an antenna off amazon, would you guys recommend indoor or outdoor antenna? Is an outdoor one hard to install? This one is very easy to install as its basically just plug it in to the back of the TV and thats it.
I hear ppl mention outdoor antenna has to be outside but where outside? Isn’t there going to be that cable that connects from back of the tv all the way to where the antenna is going to be put at though so you cant really put it at the attic or something?
Use a real antenna.
The paper clip thing works for a few people with low expectations of quality in ideal circumstances.
Everybody else uses an actual antenna.
i use outdoor antennas in my attic.
by having an antenna indoors it is as if you were maybe 20 miles farther away if it were an outdoor antenna. i believe all the estimated reception values for distance are if it was an outdoor antenna.
with a big long distance outdoor antenna in my attic i can get signals from distant stations.
with antennas (including the indoor hang on the wall type) the direction the antenna is pointing is important. also indoors the signal has to go through walls, might be reflected off other walls, might get a less quality signal if it is near a tv or other electronics. so what i might do is get a 6 foot tv cable and the coupler to attach to the indoor antenna. this gives some room to move the antenna, you will find not only direction but also how close to walls or electronics, as well as the height can make a difference. you could use something like a coat tree or hook from the ceiling to have the antenna on if it’s not on a wall.
also with every antenna movement or channel change it may take about a minute to see the change on the tv set.
Yes… but what antenna am i suppose to get? There are so many options out there. Am i suppose to get indoor or outdoor? Again this antenna worked pretty good in our manhattan location and we picked up all the channels such as cbs, nbc, fox, abc and pix11 and we even got almost every of these channels in HD. Here we only get CBS HD and maybe ABC HD but that channel has horrible signal.
If i were to get an outdoor antenna. is installation very hard? Would i need any additional stuff when i buy an outdoor antenna from amazon?
if the tvfool shows you have a good signal then i would try more with an indoor antenna.
i would try slowly moving what you have right now, point it in the directions needed. move it away from walls or tv set. try it a different heights in the room. you may need to attach a bit longer cable to the antenna to do this.
do you have signals from more than one direction?
tv signal shows nbc, abc, fox and abc are yellow zone. pix11 which is the channel i have tougher time picking up is green zone. Theres other channels that are violet and red other colors but i dont care about those b/c we dont watch those channels.
Here is the issue. The tv is put in the opposite side of the window. Thus tv is looking at the window. So the antenna i put it on back of tv on the same small table but signal is horrible, but now i position the antenna on the floor but right under the tv… the place i put it is not good looking b/c now its basically on the floor… i could pick up the 2 channels i couldnt really get which is abc and pix11 but still the signal isn’t that good.
How can i position the antenna somewhere else when the cord from the antenna is only a few feet? Basically the cord is really short if u know what i mean?
buy an extension cable and coupler where ever you want and you have a longer cable.
what you need for F type connectors of the usual cable.