After Market antenna?

Is anyone using an aftermarket antenna? If so Brand and are you satisfied? I am about 6 miles from antenna site, but getting ZERO broadcast channels.

Run a Rabbitears.info report for your location and post the results here. You’ll get a better diagnosis of your problem and suggestions for an antenna. We’ll assume your current antenna is properly connected.

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That’s how far I am from my broadcasters and for me a competent indoor antenna with just some view out works fine. That’s with trees all around and no direct line of sight. All of the broadcast antennas are basically in the same place. I am using Televes innova boss mix.

Antenna Man - Cut The Cord might have some ideas on his YT channel or his amazon links.

I had one of the base model Clearstreams from antennasdirect but the Televes works better and is more convenient to locate.

Never had good results from any of the flat antennas.

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I have used the Channel Master Flatenna 35 with no amplification and it is very solid. It comes with a solid 12 ft. black RG-6 cable, not a flimsy cable like many others. Also, it is not integrated, so you can buy a longer cable if needed. I swear by that thing.

I am 24-26 miles from most of the Jackson, Mississippi stations and on a hill with clear line of sight. I lock in all the full power stations with no issues.

Keep in mind that having a lot of tall trees close to your house can affect reception, as can hills, especially if you are in a valley with hills between you and the towers. I agree with @Morpheus about posting the rabbitears.info results here. A lot of us can read those results and get a good idea about your reception.

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Get a ChannelMaster ExtremeTenna 80. There are other 8 bay bowtie antennas out there but this one just works better. It’s pretty good for hi-VHF and even some lo-VHF channels. It’s big and expensive but works phenomenally well in my attic.

Ive gotten the best performance from Televes Antennas.

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Same here. Televes antennas, as well as their other gear (like amplifiers), is excellent.

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Another vote for Televes. My profile pic is my Televes Dinova mounted outdoors 30 miles from Cleveland towers with line-of-sight. Unamplified, I receive all signals at 100%. My neighbor enlisted the help of Tyler the Antenna Man who suggested this antenna. But @RedDog should still run a rabbitears report. He may need only a $10 pair of rabbit ears positioned properly.

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Just to clarify, the Televes Dinova has a built-in amplifier as does most (all?) of the Televes antenna products line.

Was curious about the Televes antennas since I had never heard of them.
Found a 11% off coupon ( FREETV) on the TelevesOutlet.com site, if anyone is in the market for one.
Have no idea what antenna is on my roof, have no issues with it.

I tried several different “name brand” antenns before landing on Televes. I have 2 long range mix (uhf/vhf) antennas on my roof. One aimed south to the towers about 50 miles away and the other aimed north to towers about 45 miles away. Although the other antennas performed very good the Televes was a bit better especially for VHF. Ironically the 1 out of 2 VHF stations (the reason I bought the Televeses) ended up changing to UHF.

The Televes Dinova does have a built-in pre-amp but I don’t need it at my location. The antenna functions just as well without the power injector. My coax runs from the antenna directly to Tablo — with a grounding block along the way, of course.

Just to add about Televes: Unlike many cheap antennas with built-in amps, the Televes ones are pass-through if there is no power, or if they fail. With many cheaper antennas, if the amp fails or loses power, you get no signal at all.

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And to add to that, the preamp in the Televes antennas feature an Automatic Gain Control (I don’t believe any other antenna preamp has this). So it will amplify the weak channels without over-amplifying the strong ones. I have the ChannelMaster at one house with distant but line of sight reception, and the Televes Dinova Boss at my other house with the worst reception conditions imaginable (30 mile distance, trees, hills, reflections, V V strong channels next to V V weak channels). Both work well in their respective locations.

I believe the built in Televes auto-gain antenna pre-amps adjust the gain on VHF and UHF separately. They do not adjust individual RF channels separately (like a multi-band audio EQ).

They do sell 2 devices that can do that digitally, as well as digitally combine multiple antenna feeds. Both the Avantx and the Smartkom will “equalize” levels between multiple frequencies.

Both of these devices are excellent if you have a need for this more advanced signal processing. I have been using the Avantx for a couple of years and it has been flawless.

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While the rest of us are listing the benefits of Televes antennas, you’ll note that the OP has never chimed in after his initial post. Is it possible he’s too proud to admit that his failure to receive any channels has something to do with his unplugged TV? :smirking_face:

Or, it’s a fishing expedition to get your responses.

Well, the description in the Televes website is a little confusing. I really don’t see the point of having a one single (fixed) gain for all UHF channels and a second single (fixed) gain for all VHF channels.

This review suggests it may, indeed, apply AGC to the individual RF channels.

https://blog.solidsignal.com/docs/Hands%20on%20144180.pdf

Well I will tell you all. It was not a fishing expedition, although it seems as though that is what it turned out to be, sort of.
I ordered the Tablo with antenna as recommended by Tablo CS. Well as you saw by my first post that was not working.
I did respond to the 1st three people who responded to my query, and was not expecting all you you kind people to give such great advice.
So, Long story short, After 3 calls with Tablo and discussing what was going on, Tablo CS finally said that their antenna would not work for me due to the distance I was from Towers for Broadcast channels.
Since I had bought the combo, I could not return the antenna but had to return the entire package and order just the unit without any antenna.
I have just returned that package and have not yet ordered a single unit.
However, because you all have given such great advice I was able to gain a lot of knowledge and have spoken to a local installer about just which of the suggested devices will work best in my location.
I apologize for not chiming in earlier as I was still working with Table CS.
Thank you ALL for sharing all of the advice and experiences you have had.
Thanks, this is a great community.

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If you really want to know what antenna to use, you might consider a recommendation from antennamanpa.com. Yes, there’s a lot of good info in these posts, but a recommendation taking into account your specific location, stations, and their locations would be helpful.

I believe there’s a 50% off coupon now (reg. $40) - use code YTTV.

BTW, being 6 miles from the antenna farm, you shouldn’t need much of an antenna, except maybe for VHF-low and -high.