Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception
by Terk
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List Price: Our Price: $30.56 You Save: $39.43 (56%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $19.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception
Customer Review: Great indoor directional antenna
Summary: 5 Stars
I live about 15-20 miles from Washington, DC on the 4th floor of an apartment complex. I have a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and work in the Radio Frequency (RF) field as a Systems Engineer.
As most people will tell you, outdoor directional antennas are the best when it comes to signal reception. However, if you live in an apartment complex, this is not a practical solution. I went to Wal-mart and bought 3 omni-directional indoor antennas (all amplified) and they were marginal at best. These omni-directional antennas are usually just a loop with an amplifier on the end of it, and my results were similar with all the omni's. However, the RCA indoor omni antenna worked the best out of the group.
After reading reviews about the TERK HDTVa, I decided to give it a whirl, and I am very impressed. I have the antenna up on the top floor facing east towards Washington, DC and I get almost full signal strength according to the TV's power meter. Channel 5-1 (FOX) was the worst at 72, but I still get a very solid signal. Here are some measurements I took using my Toshiba LCD TV.
Channel Meter SNR(dB) Power(dBm?)
4-1 90 30 -47.5
5-1 72 25 -57.6
7-1 94 31 -46
9-1 99 32 -45
At $40, this is a GREAT deal, and I am happy with J&R as a retailer. $40 is about 1/2 the price you will pay at "other" electronics retail stores.
Customer Review: Worked when others did not.
Summary: 5 Stars
I am really happy with this antenna. I am using it for a dual tuner set up in Vista Media Center.
Before I get into details, I will say that antennas are tricky things and what works for one person may not work for another. So, I'll share my situation and hope it helps others. I live in the Chicago market where the CBS afilliate, WBBM CBS 2 has a very strange broadcast situation - they broadcast HD on VHF (3.1) when every other channel uses UHF (as do most around the country). Because of this and some other strange broadcast patterns WBBM uses, it is a very difficult channel to receive in HD. I wanted an antenna that would pick up WBBM (CBS2) as well as the other networks and I didn't want to go roof-top or spend a bundle. I took a gamble on this unit and it paid off very well. Long story short, it worked for me.
Here's my set-up... the antenna is in the attic, just sitting on the floor, with RG6 coax run down to the basement where I have the included amplifier plugged into a splitter (CHANNEL VISION HS-8 8-WAY, I/r Passive Pcb Based Splitters/combiner). From the splitter, I run coax back up to a TV, and a Vista Media Center with two digital OTA tuner cards.
Bottom line, getting lots of great, free HD over-the-air on both VHF and UHF. Could not be more pleased.
Customer Review: Great Antenna
Summary: 5 Stars
I ordered a Panasonic TV from Amazon and thought it might be worth it to at least try an off-air antenna since I do not have the HD package from DirecTV. Boy is it worth it. Living in the Treasure Valley, there is not much in the way of the HD Signals. I think living in an urban area might be a problem for indoor antenna, but I can't verify that. I plugged it in and got everything currently broadcast in our area which is from a tower about 15 miles away.
We have the old analog Tivo, and set it up on the video inputs. That way, we just switch our inputs when we want the HD signal versus the DirecTV signal. The only channel that had a weak signal was CBS, but all of the others were loud and clear. You can also get analog signals with this antenna, but why would you want that? Keep in mind that the amplifier is on a very short leashe to the input for the TV. Therefore, you can't reach it unless you can get behind the TV. That being said, the power cord and coax cable are probably long enough to reach where you need.
After watching all the weekend football games in HD versus analog signals, it was definately worth the money. I know most people keep hearing about it from various sources, but true HD pictures blow away the analog signals by a long shot. The details are amazing. In fact, the only negative about our HD signal was having to see Chris Collinsworth in detail.
Customer Review: Excellent Indoor Antenna for True HDTV
Summary: 5 Stars
I connected this to my HDTV about a month ago and have been extremely happy with it so far. I live in a hilly area with spotty over-the-air reception, about 40 miles from my local TV stations. Additionally, homes in our area aren't allowed to have rooftop antennas. I wanted to enjoy true, uncompressed HDTV, and, encouraged by other positive reviews for this product, purchased it with a bit of skepticism. Installation took about 10 minutes, and I was impressed to see the antenna picked up the digital signals for all local stations with crystal clear reception. IMHO, the quality of the picture is even better than what you see on HDTVs for sale at Costco. The antenna even picked up a small local channel from about 70 miles away, something I didn't expect. On this channel, the picture was crystal clear also.
My only issues are that reception of the corresponding analog channels were either snowy or nonexistent; but that doesn't matter to me since I use the TV watch the digital channels. For example, channel 10 has snowy reception but channel 10.1, which is the exact same channel broadcasting on a digital signal, has perfect reception. Also, the antenna is rather large. We were able to hide most of it by putting some framed pictures around it.
Overall, an excellent value and something that I'd recommend to anyone looking to enjoy true, uncompressed HDTV.
Customer Review: Very powerful antenna!
Summary: 5 Stars
I wanted to setup an additional HDTV in a bedroom. Dish TV, Comcast etc. wanted ridiculous money for this. That's when I decided to try an antenna to get free OTA HDTV signal. First, I took advice from Best Buy sales person and setup an RCA flat, multi-directional antenna. My TV could only detect 3 channels. Next, I tried an amplified RCA flat, multi-directional antenna. This time I received a couple more channels. However, I could not get NBC/FOX etc. local channels. I was about to give up on this idea when I came across antennaweb.org. Using this website, I found that the local station transmitters were ~35 miles away from my house, which is why the RCA antenna was useless (too weak). I also saw a recommendation for a Terk HDTVa antenna, that has a range of upto 45 miles. I decided to give this a last try.
What can I say?! After setting it up and pointing it in the right direction (this is a directional antenna), my TV latched on to 26 local channels! The HD reception is crystal clear, signal is strong and sound is pristine. VHF feature does not work for me as I cannot get ABC (which is broadcast over VHF). Also, directional antenna means it has to be carefully placed and placement has to be preserved.
Overall, this is the most powerful antenna I have come across and I can get HDTV channels for a fraction of the cost charged by Cable/Satellite operators!