Best indoor antenna for local channels

[spinnaker]

Just signed up for Dish. I got tired of all of the price hikes at Adelphia. I'd like to save a few more dollars by not paying the local channel fee for Dish.

I live in a townhouse so I really can't have a giant antenna on my roof. The dish creates enough problems but the homeowners association is required by law to allow me to have it. So I am going to need a good indoor UHF/VHF antenna. Other requirements are that I would like to avoid putting an antenna in my attic. Running cable in these places is nearly impossible. There are few if any places to run wiring from attic to basement.

[Steve Mehs]

Welcome to DBSTalk Spinnaker, like outdoor antennas, it will depend very much on where you live in relation to each stations broadcasting tower. When we first got Dish, the installer gave us a free pair of rabbit ears for each TV. They were the Philips $40 ones from WalMart. My mom got excellent reception with them on her TV in the living room, but in my room a few dozen feet down the hall I couldn't get any channel really clear. My WB always flipped, ABC had intense ghosting, NBC had rotating horizontal lines, CBS had minor ghosting and PBS had the best quality, but I never watch PBS. I spent a lot of time rotating the antenna, adjusting the two elements, playing with the disc, but I could never get it right. Whereas in the living room, the antenna was placed on top of the TV and plugged in and reception was great on all channels with no additional tweaking. I eventually purchased an outdoor antenna from Radio Shack.

My suggestion would be to just go to a store, be it a CE store or discount retailer and try out the various models, you can always return them if you can’t get adequate reception. I know some one with the RCA equivalent to the Philips one that I had and they get great reception.

[moedog]

Go ahead and get the local channels package from Dish. You'll never get good reception on all channels with an indoor antenna--maybeone or two, but not all. Especially not in a townhouse. THere are two things going on---you will get reflections from all those walls, and there are hundreds of them, in a multi-family, and you will probably also get signal bleed from the cable tv lines that all your neighbors are still using which will cause additional ghosting and other interferrence. Go ahead and spend the $5.99!

[spinnaker]

Go ahead and get the local channels package from Dish. You'll never get good reception on all channels with an indoor antenna--maybeone or two, but not all. Especially not in a townhouse. THere are two things going on---you will get reflections from all those walls, and there are hundreds of them, in a multi-family, and you will probably also get signal bleed from the cable tv lines that all your neighbors are still using which will cause additional ghosting and other interferrence. Go ahead and spend the $5.99!

Thanks for the tip. I already signed up for the local channels. I just wnated to get some ideas and perhaps give the antenna a try. Even with the local package and DVR fee my Dish bill will be far cheaper than Adelphia. At least $23 a month cheaper once I go to DSL and I don't even have a DVR with Adelphia.

[chelsea]

For indoor antenna's I like the Radio Shack Bow-Tie for $49 plus tax.
Its excellent for HD, has UHF-VHF, and a AC plug in power booster,
which I don't need because I have a close direct wide open view,
of all TV stations attenna sites.