How can I get TV channels with an antenna?

Question

We live in a small town about 20 miles from the nearest Tv Station. We cannot get any of our "local" channels in decent. We have a great big antenna on our house which was here when we moved in.

We're unexpectedly having another child and need to cut expenses so cable needs to go. This would be no problem if we got any channels at all. As it is late at night we can get our one "local" channel that's actually about an hour and a half away from us. Other than that nada.

So what can we do? Is there something we can buy ourselves to fix this? If not are there people who specialize in this and can help us figure something out? There's got to be some way..well I hope so anyway.

Answer 1

HELLO,YOU COULD TRY A FEW THINGS.FIRST OF ALL IF THE BIG ANTENNA ON YOUR ROOF IS NOT A VHF TV ANTENNA THAN THE BANDWIDTH IS DIFFERENT THAN THE TV BAND AND ALTHOUGH THE ANTENNA IS BIG,IT WILL NOT RECIEVE THE VHF CHANNELS GOOD AT ALL OR NOT AT ALL.IF IT IS A VHF ANTENNA,YOU COULD TRY MOVING IT WITH THE CENTER CONDUCTOR TOWARD THE DIRECTION OF THE LOCAL TV STATION.YOU CAN ALSO BUY A AMPLIFIED VHF TV SIGNAL BOOSTER AND INSTALL IT INLINE BETWEEN THE ANTENNA AND TV SET.THEY SELL FROM ABOUT 10 BUCKS UP TO 80 OR 90 BUCKS DEPENDING ON THE MODEL AND FUNCTIONS THEY HAVE.YOU COULD ALSO RESEARCH(RECIEVING VHF TV SIGNALS FROM A REMOTE AREA")ON THE WEB.TRY ASK.COM,THEY MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.GOOD LUCK.

Answer 2

20 miles is not too far away for tv propigation.

tvfool.com has a tool that tells you the propgation patterns of all over air broadcasts. Start there.

DONT use a distrobution amp as some one suggested, those are for splitting a signal you already have to many TVs. If you use it on a marginal(weak signal) it will make it worse. A pre-amp that is built into an antenna with a low noise figure might help. You say it is a big antenna but it could be damaged, loose connections in the wire, or if its directional, pointed in the wrong direction..  

I think you may have the latter. If the 'near' (20mi) station is not visible but the 50 mile( 1.5 hrs away) is then try turning the antenna around... or it might be place poorly in the first place. RF energy in the VHF and UHF is line of sight!

if it is damaged ( a yagi antenna with the tines broken off) it may not pick up much..

Walmart sells a indoor/outdoor omni antenna thats has a Preamp with power injector for about $60.  Try it see if it works.

Remember that for antennas, higher, outside, away from obstructions  is best.

for the morally depraved.

if you take the cable boxes you rent from the cable comp. directly to them and cancel that day, and have to balence on the account some times they neglect to send a tech to physically remove the connection, so you could get "basic" for a long time afterward.

Answer 3

If you are only 20 miles from the transmitter tower, you should be able to receive a signal with rabbit ears.  Have you tried the simple, cheap, set top antenna?  I bet you would get fine results.

If not, are you in a "hole"? Or do you have large hills or mountains between you and the TV tower?

The antenna you have should be able to do a great job for you.

1. It needs to point at the tower, but it seems likely that whoever installed it had it pointed in the right direction in the first place.

2. Check the cables from the antenna all the way to your TV.  Most likely there is a disconnect.  Maybe the previous owners removed a section of cable to use for something else.  Or maybe they removed a splitter.  

This is the most likely problem, so check the wiring from the antenna all the way to the TV.

Good luck.

=============

since the rabbit ears didn't work, now i suspect the tuner in the TV set could be defective.  

1. Do you have a different TV you can connect to the same cable and see if it works?  If a different TV works, you know that your TV tuner is bad.

2. Else, connect a VCR that has a TV tuner in it, and connect it to the TV using the yellow/red/white RCA cables.  If the TV tuner is bad, you can just use the tuner in the VCR, and bypass the TV tuner by using the Video Inputs.

Good Luck again...

=============

and yet another thought:  you have the TV tuner set to "CABLE".  You need to go into the SETUP menu and change your tuner to "ANTENNA".  I vote this last answer as a high probability of success....

Good Luck again!

Answer 4

Unfortunately, if you've hooked up the big antenna and get no/little reception - there's not much you could do to improve that situation.

One option is Free To Air, which lets you view free channels via satallite. You'll have to buy the dish/box setup - then run cable from the dish to your TV... which could be costly at first - but (!) all is free after that. I know - you're trying to cut spending, but I had to mention it. Go here to learn more:  http://www.freetoair.com/

Another option is your PC! If you have a decent PC and have DSL or Cable internet (dial-up won't work very well) then there's sites online that'll let you watch TV shows and movies! Here's a list so that you could click/checkout some of these sites.

http://www.veoh.com/

http://sharetv.org/

http://chooseandwatch.com/

http://channelchooser.com/

And (!) here's a couple of sites that let you watch new movies right on your PC!   ;)

http://66stage.com/

http://www.watch-movies.net/

I hope this helps. Enjoy! :D