In my experience, leaves didn't affect strong signals. Weaker, farther distant ones pixielated or disappeared in the interim.I recently bought this antenna and mounted it on my roof as it was highly reviewed by Tyler the antenna man. For me, performance is good as long as you have it mounted high enough. I'm about 35 miles from the local towers and am using a 50 foot run of quad-shield RG6 coax with no preamp, and I can pick up most of the TV stations reliably. We'll see if that changes come spring time when all the trees sprout leaves again.
Patented Range Xperts Patented Long Range VHF / UHF TV Antenna
*NOTE: ITEM IS BACK IN STOCK, SHIPS OUT IN APPROX 2 DAYS. *NOTE: IF YOU'RE REPLACING AN "AMPLIFIED" ANTENNA, YOU MUST ALSO REMOVE ITS AMPLIFIER / POWER INSERTER / CONTROL MODULE OFF THE COAX LINE ENTIRELY (they aren't compatible with other antennas and leaving them on the coax line will severely...topnotchantennas.com
107 Miles on an OTA TV Antenna
- Thread starter spongella
- Start date
radiopro52
Member
There is a lower-powered UHF station that it does have more trouble receiving. I imagine reception will be even worse with foliage. A preamp could fix that problem though.
I am not sure I understand your question. But, in general, there are many reasons to receive signals over-the-air including:
- it's "free" (no monthly cost)
- you are "allowed" to receive out-of-market signals (not allowed on cable nor DBS)
- you're likely getting a better signal (cable companies notoriously bit-rate-reduce signals)
- to show you have the skills to setup ad receive distant signals
- . . .
If they are going with ATSC 3.0 and locking out a bunch of stuff.
In the thread we've discussed NTSC (analog) and ATSC 1.0 (what's mostly in use now) with regard to receiving signals from afar (DXing). I've personally invested quite a bit over the years, although not as much as those who pay through the nose for cable/DBS. My present system is a custom "cable system" of sorts with multiple antennas, tuners, etc. I do this so that I pay ZERO for programming.
On one hand I tend to watch more TV than I should, but I don't watch "appointment TV", I don't watch commercials, I don't watch "scripted TV", my playback is time compressed (it takes 12 minutes to watch an episode of Jeopardy!). I refuse to pay someone to receive a signal so that I can watch their commercials, sorry ESPN.
I'm watching closely, and it's still early to predict an exact final, but the trend for ATSC 3.0 will strictly limit what's recorded, when & where you can play it back and also provide OTA bandwidth for non-TV services. If I am unable to do, at the least, what I do now with regard to watching OTA TV, I'll be 100% done with it. There's NO WAY I'll sit for 3.5+ hours to watch a 1 hour football game. Unfortunately, it seems that the TV broadcasting companies (which are no longer like the companies of my father's time) seem to be hell bent on putting themselves out of business in chase of every $1 they can get from us.
You'd think companies would have learned what happened to the (CD) music industry. You'd think they could see the forest from how people acted during the pandemic (instead they initially moved content to streaming to jack up the prices then customers fled) and there's only so much $$$ out there for this type of "entertainment". I see the present plan as a new frontier to attempt to maximize profit until folks catch on. I guess we'll see.
217
Sporadic E enthusiast
Dielectric recently installed an antenna system on the Empire State Building for WEDW. WEDW is now operating at 100% power from the Empire State Building on the same RF 6 MHz channel spectrum on RF physical channel 21.
I refuse to utilize an internet connection, so I can watch OTA broadcasts. If that was what I wanted, I would stream the show. I have no issue with streaming, and have been doing so for years, but a broadcast should be standalone.
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When I lived in Ohio decades ago, I remember receiving ch. 2 out of Miami and a Colorado station in those days of analog TV.
To me, receiving 150 OTA channels is not worth the effort as there is so much repetition. I can get all local channels with an indoor antenna. I am a grumpy old Boomer who still likes cable programming and Roku streaming.
I'm a young-un (in my 20s) who likes to fool with all things radio. OTA tv, AM and FM reception got my interest in radio started (I'm a ham and GMRSer too now). Working for you signal is satisfying to me, and an OTA broadcast is generally more reliable (in the sense of being there and if you have a good antenna setup) than a cable internet connection (in my experience you lose internet at the worst times, idk about fiber internet, don't have that option). Yes there's cell phones but I'm averse to having my face glued to a screen. I'm not paying to watch commercials (so no to any paid streaming or cable/satellite) and the subchannels out there are pretty great (I like older TV shows and music anyway). There's some great content on the digital subchannels and on FM radio in general, all for free! People do look at me like I'm an alien when I say I get TV OTA, oh well it's a free country and I can do what I want 
It's also incredibly unlikely you will lose ALL OTA stations during storms/power outages (i.e. some TV and AM/FM stations will stay on the air). I even have AM reception as a backup for a local station I like that has an FM translator: the translator has been off-air when AM was still going strong. So from a preparedness aspect it's good to have OTA capability. Getting stations that are out-of-market does have a lot of repetition, sometimes you can get an extra subchannel or two not on your local stations, although those out-of-market stations provide a backup should a local station go off-air while I'm watching M*A*S*H or Frasier haha.
ATSC 3.0 looks promising for additional channel capacity and a more robust signal but it may flop, it's not a mandatory conversion (yet), and none of the stations in my market are doing it yet (ever?). As long as you don't need internet to watch an OTA broadcast I'm good with it. What I could see happening is stations converting their ATSC 1.0 broadcasts to using the MPEG4 codec (which most newer TVs/tuners support) which would enable more channels and better video quality w/o all the junk associated with 3.0.
It's also incredibly unlikely you will lose ALL OTA stations during storms/power outages (i.e. some TV and AM/FM stations will stay on the air). I even have AM reception as a backup for a local station I like that has an FM translator: the translator has been off-air when AM was still going strong. So from a preparedness aspect it's good to have OTA capability. Getting stations that are out-of-market does have a lot of repetition, sometimes you can get an extra subchannel or two not on your local stations, although those out-of-market stations provide a backup should a local station go off-air while I'm watching M*A*S*H or Frasier haha.
ATSC 3.0 looks promising for additional channel capacity and a more robust signal but it may flop, it's not a mandatory conversion (yet), and none of the stations in my market are doing it yet (ever?). As long as you don't need internet to watch an OTA broadcast I'm good with it. What I could see happening is stations converting their ATSC 1.0 broadcasts to using the MPEG4 codec (which most newer TVs/tuners support) which would enable more channels and better video quality w/o all the junk associated with 3.0.
KO4OTL, I agree with you completely. I too refuse to pay to watch commercials. OTA is more reliable. While many out-of-market signals are duplication, it only takes one virtual channel to make it worth it. It was a "neccessity" back in the days of sports blackouts. One station might be in the 100 mile blackout zone while one the other direction is not.
On the lowest technical level, ATSC 3.0 is a huge improvement. However, it now incorporates Digital Rights Management. If implemented, it will totally destroy (free) Over-The-Air TeleVision as we know it today. As an example, some of the limitations they have include: what you can and cannot record, what device(s) you can play your recording back on, when you can play a recording back (the recording can expire) and whether or not there is a pay wall involved.
... for such things a screen grabber like the one referenced in the link negates such technology.
