Suggestions for a flat HD antenna

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

So, I spent the morning cleaning and organizing, then the afternoon wall mounting my TV with help from my sister in law, then the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening getting everything that had been moved around or otherwise displaced back into some semblance of order.  With that out of the way, I'm looking for suggestions (specific product suggestions and/or links, please) for good performing, preferably long range (~200mi+ versus ~50m+) flat HD TV antennas.

For years, I've had an unslightly coax cable running up the wall then around the ceiling and trim from the living room to the far side of the kitchen where the big, powered "HD" antenna I bought years ago sits mounted above the sliding doors at the back of our house, as that was the best/only place that a normal antenna tended to pick up any signal.  Since I got the TV up and out of the way, the various electronics in the room relatively neatly organized under it, and will be working to put a few shelves in the room for further organization and general neatness, I thought it would be nice to get ride of the eyesore cable and not so great, oversized antenna and move over to one of the flat panel ones I've seen talked about for the last several years.

I've read some reviews here and there on Amazon and, as usual, those seem to be a mixed bag that doesn't really say anything one way or the other in regard to quality, so I thought I'd try turning to the community for your thoughts and suggestions.  Thanks in advance for any help, insight, etc. you can offer to aid in the selection for the best bang for the buck flat HD antenna I can get my hands on.

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

Why flat?

[Tanooki | 4,953]

I know you said 200+ but everything I could dig up a couple years back was that you can't get that high with an indoor one let alone flat.  You could do an indoor one, at least a clunkier non-flat one you could run a wire into a crawl space for, or attach to the outside of a home.  This I recall is what I was reading up, and viewing that image makes it pretty clear why...line of sight.

https://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-150-mile-antenna/

I ultimately did a lot of work and bought this one here, more than one too when we dumped cable.  It can pick up a LOT of channels in my area with crystal clear true HD quality clarity which shocked me after the cable companies lies about HD.  That stuff was clearly grossly compressed doing a side by side comparison.  The on I settled on was a 50+ mile one, but ultimately as that article said, much over 70mi is relative bs given line of sight, obstacles, and curvature of the earth.

https://store.antennasdirect.com/ClearStream-Eclipse-Amplified-Digital-TV-Antenna.html

They do offer a 60mi and 70+mi unit too but they're not so flat, have a mast, and can be used indoor or outdoor.  Unless something has changed a lot in 2 years, they had some of the best ones on the market for clarity and picking up channels.  I did like 6mo of on/off research when working up the nerve to cutting off my cable company so I looked into a lot of brands and the true details of the limits.

 

Also as an aside, bookmark this: https://www.antennaweb.org/

This page will be useful in navigating what you have in your area and what channels/numbers they come up under.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Tanooki

[TDIRunner | 2,779]

I'm assuming you want it to be flat so you can mount it behind the TV and not have to worry about wires.  If that's the case, and you are currently used to a powered antenna, I think you will be disappointed with anything small enough and flat enough to mount in that location.  

Is it not an option to run the cable through the wall and run it to an antenna that can be mounted out of the way?  My antenna is currently mounted in my attic.  I run a coax cable from the attic to my basement through a wall and run it to a splitter.  From there, I run each a coax cable to each TV behind a wall and use a clean coax connector in a wall plate.  I know that's a lot of work, but I've never had luck or seen anyone have luck with those tiny/slim antennas that are meant to mount right next to a TV.  

[Link | 2,738]

My parents are 40 miles from Manhattan. A roof antenna worked great until 2001. Since then, they've had cable. I tried to get them an antenna a few years ago and couldn't make it work. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

12 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Why flat?

So it'll fit on the wall without sticking out anywhere, unlike the current "traditional" aplified antenna that I've got mounted horizontally in my kitchen above the sliding doors (as that was the only place downstairs that that one could pick up signal).

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I know you said 200+ but everything I could dig up a couple years back was that you can't get that high with an indoor one let alone flat.  You could do an indoor one, at least a clunkier non-flat one you could run a wire into a crawl space for, or attach to the outside of a home.  This I recall is what I was reading up, and viewing that image makes it pretty clear why...line of sight.

Also as an aside, bookmark this: https://www.antennaweb.org/

This page will be useful in navigating what you have in your area and what channels/numbers they come up under.

I figure that if something is rated for and tested at a higher maximum, even if I don't get that, I'd rather have the possibility of a bit better reception or further pull than not, especially since most of the ones that I looked at were priced relatively similarly (from roughly $20-40, the higher priced ones primarily being more recognized brands versus more features/higher ratings).  As for that link, thank you, I'll take a look.  I may have found that site or something similar in the past, but it's been forever since I've really looked for anything new on TV.  As it is, the difference between digital and analog for us meant more sub-channels on the ~4 (4 + 1 always preaching religious channel) channels we already have, and still couldn't pick up the regional PBS station that a friend a hundred yards down the street and a couple of stories lower than we are (with more trees and other buildings around to obstruct them) picked up beautifully without any antenna connected at all.

11 hours ago, TDIRunner said:

I'm assuming you want it to be flat so you can mount it behind the TV and not have to worry about wires.  If that's the case, and you are currently used to a powered antenna, I think you will be disappointed with anything small enough and flat enough to mount in that location.  

Is it not an option to run the cable through the wall and run it to an antenna that can be mounted out of the way?  My antenna is currently mounted in my attic.  I run a coax cable from the attic to my basement through a wall and run it to a splitter.  From there, I run each a coax cable to each TV behind a wall and use a clean coax connector in a wall plate.  I know that's a lot of work, but I've never had luck or seen anyone have luck with those tiny/slim antennas that are meant to mount right next to a TV.  

We own a townhouse that's within an HOA, so we don't have any access to whatever attic space might exist above us (nor does anyone else, so no worries there), but outdoor antennas are also banned by said HOA, so that's not really much of an option either.  I know the TV would interfere, but I'd like to mount one in a little spot directly across from the TV (like 4-5' away) in a spot can't really be seen in the living room unless you're looking for or straight at it, but which also has line of sight to the windows in the front of the house and the sliding doors at the back.  Before I got the powered antenna, we ran for several years on one that I'd made myself using a piece of wood, coat hanger wire, and a 75 ohm adapter to connect it to the TV.  It pulled in the strongest couple of stations great, all the time, just hung on the wall above where our TV used to sit, but eventually more stuff started airing on the couple of stations we could only get under optimal conditions (no clouds/weather/planes flying by/etc.) and thus I gave away the old one and moved to the more functional eyesore that we're using now.

As far as a "powered" antenna, I'm meaning "amplified" more than the image of the old school "high power" ones folks used to put on a pole up on their roofs.  Most of the ones I was looking at on Amazon state that they have in-line amplifiers which apparently run off of USB power, which seems to be sufficient for most folks given the reviews.  Here is one of the ones I was looking at fairly seriously.  With the way the home built one worked, I figured that a powered one built/manufactured with likely more expertise than I was exercising following some found-on-the-internet instructions would be worth a shot.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

5 minutes ago, Link said:

My parents are 40 miles from Manhattan. A roof antenna worked great until 2001. Since then, they've had cable. I tried to get them an antenna a few years ago and couldn't make it work. 

My grandmother's house gets great reception via the old school antenna still mounted to the roof of her house, even with the HD transition, save for one sub-channel that gets fuzzy or goes out entirely for like ~2 hours every afternoon at about the same time (no clue what causes that and am not up there often enough or for long enough to really do any deep digging).  I guess she's lucky in that she didn't have to give in and go to cable or invest hundreds or thousands into a newer tech but still bulky antenna for the roof.

[Tanooki | 4,953]

@darkchylde28 You're right, go for the max you can that respectably is not lying their ass off on the packaging to sell it as they commonly fall incredibly short with piss poor reception which is why I linked that.

I use the 50+ mi one and in my area I get like 50+ channels, some blow so I filter them out, but I have some incredible clear variety which is insane...and FREE.   That one they make for 70+mi that is on a 20" mount is still relatively flat, just not cardboard box side or less flat.  I'd get that and you'll get incredible pick up off that, quietly run a line up into an attic or mount it high on a wall in the room you're wanting it and place something in front to hide its existence.

I had done that with mine with the white side forward with the SNES console box in the way, but eventually I found a 90degree rotation to the front wall of the house helped a couple stations, so it's visible, but up in the top corner so still kind of semi-hidden and works well for me.  THe other tv in the room over has it attached to the wall behind the 46"~ tv there so it just hides behind and works just as well for that room as mine in here (same exact model too.)  My only guess is the wifi router is on the floor below where mine was originally so maybe it interfered so the simple 5 ft move over and pivot dodged that.

 

I'm not into PBS, but since I saw that after posting, I can get it, here it's called KET KY Educational Television which has like 3-4 stations, one of them is actually PBS, another is local whatever, a third is all kids and they come in crystal clear.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Tanooki

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

A flat one won't work that far. I bought one to pick up stations from a city 40 kilometres away and it doesn't work. I bought a huge one for the attic and it works great.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

17 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I use the 50+ mi one and in my area I get like 50+ channels, some blow so I filter them out, but I have some incredible clear variety which is insane...and FREE.   That one they make for 70+mi that is on a 20" mount is still relatively flat, just not cardboard box side or less flat.  I'd get that and you'll get incredible pick up off that, quietly run a line up into an attic or mount it high on a wall in the room you're wanting it and place something in front to hide its existence.

Thanks.  Just to see what I'm getting into, as I have a feeling I may be playing Russian roulette with these things and having to go through at least one return, I think I'm going to pick up a couple from my local Walmart that are similar to what I've been looking at online.  I hadn't even thought about them as having them in stock, as they rarely have anything truly useful on the shelves these days, but I saw a couple of reviews on YouTube talking about them, and when I looked, sure enough, they've got at least one that I was actually looking at online as well as a couple more that are similar to others on Amazon.  Much easier to drive to the store and wait a couple of minutes for an instant refund versus playing the ship and wait game with Amazon.  Also, looked at the distance on all of the channels that AntennaWeb says are possible for me, and none are further than 25 miles (ONE is at 25 miles, but it's a third repeat of a channel that's available from transmitters that are 11 and 17 miles away already), so I suppose I don't need to go as crazy as I'd intended on longest possible range, as due to the mountains, I'm not going to be getting anything further out anyway.

15 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

A flat one won't work that far. I bought one to pick up stations from a city 40 kilometres away and it doesn't work. I bought a huge one for the attic and it works great.

Apparently they can, they're just not likely to.  HAM folks have picked up signals from much further away with similar types of antennas, so it's possible for them to pull in signals from extreme distances due to atmospheric bounce, it's just not terribly likely.  In practice, I tend to like to have more potential than what I'll immediately need or use in a product   No access to my attic, and I'm tired of the existing big eyesore (two 3' antenna arms spread 4-5' apart minimum, usually hanging down toward the floor from 1' below ceiling height), so I'm trying to get something relatively small and/or flat so that I can make it much less noticeable.

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

4 hours ago, darkchylde28 said:

Apparently they can, they're just not likely to.  HAM folks have picked up signals from much further away with similar types of antennas, so it's possible for them to pull in signals from extreme distances due to atmospheric bounce, it's just not terribly likely.  In practice, I tend to like to have more potential than what I'll immediately need or use in a product   No access to my attic, and I'm tired of the existing big eyesore (two 3' antenna arms spread 4-5' apart minimum, usually hanging down toward the floor from 1' below ceiling height), so I'm trying to get something relatively small and/or flat so that I can make it much less noticeable.

HAM? Are they mostly analogue signals?

I bought this and it doesn't work.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B09CGW2ZTJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought this and it's currently sitting on my floor in front of the television but I'm in the process of putting it into the attic. It works flawlessly.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0018BZJNS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Personally I'd rather a 3 foot antenna in the kitchen rather than a flat one that doesn't work at all.

[Tanooki | 4,953]

Yeah HAM is a bit different than the TV style signals so yes they're known to bounce, sometimes well around the world given how quality your radio is.

@darkchylde28 That's a solid bit of work there, and great that your stations are that close, mine largely are within I think 25mi or something I really didn't measure it but they're not within the county as they got placed at higher points elsewhere around probably exactly due to the line of sight issue.  My county is more of a basin than around so it would maximize things.  The fact you found something similar to what you/I posted and at a local store is solid because if it sucks, you get the money back within the time it takes to drive back which is nice.  You're in a perfect place for the flat one like I have due to the distance, I had figured your range was wide so that 70mi unit I recommended but that's overkill.

[Link | 2,738]

On 12/16/2021 at 12:23 PM, darkchylde28 said:

My grandmother's house gets great reception via the old school antenna still mounted to the roof of her house, even with the HD transition

Yeah, the whole business of "HD" antennas is bunk if you ask me. I bought a $50 flat HD antenna when the changeover happened. Terrible reception. Put my old $5 rabbit ears back on the set and had no issues.

When I tried to help my parents, I got them a big antenna (like 6"diameter, over 2 feet long) because I thought that would mean better reception. More electronics inside or something, I don't remember if I did reviews and comparison shopping online or we just went to Best Buy and picked from what they had. Anyway, we connected it to the TV in the attic, angled it this way and that... bupkus. 

[Link | 2,738]

I have a roof antenna that came with a friend's house and I want to use it here. Just have to figure out how to mount the pole up there. It gets windy here. In its previous location in the suburbs, it was on the ground at a corner of the yard and my friend cut the pole at the concrete.