Will rabbit ears work for the over-the-air digital on a new HDTV?

Question

I am planning on buying a new TV soon, and I was just wondering, if I want to pick up the over-the-air digital HDTV signal can I do it with an old-school set of rabbit ears with a coax cable, or do I have to buy a special antenna?

Answer 1

As stated above, if you are getting good clear reception on your analog TV, then that will work for digital.  Be aware that many digital stations are in the UHF band, so check out those stations as well.  One problem is that sometimes people will watch analog TV which they think looks goof, but the picture is full of snow and ghosts.  If your analog pictures are that way, then you will not get any digital reception.  If your analog pictures are clear and ghost-free, you will be ok.

There is no such thing as a special antenna for digital reception.  Any antenna that give a good analog picture will work for digital.

Answer 2

Yeah you will need an HD antenna. Rabbit ears are made for analog stations only. Are you planning to hook the tv up to cable? Some tvs can pick up over-the-air HD stations through basic cable. The tv needs to have a built-in Qam tuner.

Answer 3

If your in an area that has good strong signals from the local stations, and they look pretty clear on your analog tv, then a simple pair of rabbit ears will probably work fine.

An RF signal (the signal that carries the tv station) is still just an RF signal, doesn't matter if what that RF signal is carrying is digital or analog.  There is nothing special or different about an antenna that makes it work better with a digital or analog signal.

If you live in a fringe area, where you are getting snowy pictures now on analog tv, then the signal may not be strong enough to drive a digital receiver, in that case a better antenna may help.

The catch with digital is that its all or nothing, there is no such thing as a snowy picture.  This is why there has been such a big market for antennas recently, people that were willing to live with a snowy picture in the past may not get anything now.

A good high quality antenna will make a difference with signal strength, but again if your in an area where the signals are already strong, you don't need to worry too much about it.

Answer 4

yes but what ars does is stattics to much but my mom says when they put the antans it will work better but from 1-10 i give the antana a 6.5

Answer 5

Whatever UHF antenna you are using now will work, unless they switch the location of the broadcast tower for a new digital signal, which they did here, but the same antenna still worked.  Digital signals use the UHF part of a UHF/VHF antenna, so you no longer need the VHF part extended - the UHF part is the smaller loop of some kind, not the part that sticks up.  You only need an amplified antenna to pick up weaker signals from stations a little further away.