Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception

Having spent a bundle acquiring a Sony LCD HDTV and upgrading our Dish service to include its limited set of HDTV channels, we were anxious to see what an Over-the-Air Antenna might add.

In all, we tested 5, including the highly rated Zenith log periodic (about $40 at Sears), an amplified Samsung (about $99 at Best Buy), an outdoor Terk 32 (about $80 at Circuit City), our old roof mounted VHF/UHF antenna (circa 1985), and the amplified Terk HDTVa (about $50 at Radio Shack). The Terk HDTVa won hands down; no contest, blowing away the much touted Zenith.

We live in the sparsely populated, low hill countryside of Western Massachuetts. The THDTVa effortlessly brings in between 20 and 30 analogue and digital (incl hdtv) channels broadcast most from 12 to 45 miles away, and some as far as 65+ miles away in Connecticut. Some digital OTA channels actually come in more sharply than some of the (Dish) satellite digital channels.

This is definitely a keeper: a... Read more

I'm in SF Bay Area, about 30 miles from Sutro Tower. This was my first antenna and it worked out of the box for me. It is not perfect and I'm holding between 70 and 90% signal strength on all the majors with better reception than satellite. I can't compare it to any others but to say "it doesn't work" is insane. You won't know until you try it. This is not an all or nothing deal. It will work great for some, not at all for others and anywhere in between.

To check your specific situation, I recommend you try www.antennaweb.org. Click button on first page, enter your full address and you will get a report unique to your home about how/where your channels are broadcast, including a map showing exactly how you should point your antenna. In my case, all my required channels were "yellow" and all in the same compass direction. If you are very far from broadcast source or channels are coming from many different directions, it may not work. However, with good return policy, it... Read more

I'm a first timer at getting OTA HDTV. This has been an experiment in progress for the past 5 weeks. I have gone through four antennas (they are all here as I write this) before finding something that's satisfactory (rather than tolerable).

I live around 25 miles from Manhattan, where the towers of most TV stations are located. I am also aware of the directional information from [...], and have experimented accordingly with its effects on reception. My apartment's windows all face north, while the signals all comes from southwest. I cannot get signals from where it comes from, and thus needed to get signals from deflections perhaps off nearby buildings and trees. It's a very poor circumstance for over-the-air reception, maybe just slightly better than being underground. Signals are weak, and are affected by weather. Stormy and windy days have shown effects at disrupting signal reception.

With this said, and without going into much detail, let's talk about the... Read more