Imagine if someone offered you a car for $1,000 that ran forever without fuel, but they couldn’t guarantee that it would get you to any of your favorite destinations. This resembles the dilemma that cord-cutters face when ditching their cable or satellite TV box in favor of an indoor TV antenna. Some antenna owners find that they can just position it anywhere, run a channel scan, and have instant access to all their favorite local stations. For others, the process of tuning in over-the-air channels is an exercise in frustration. If the latter describes your situation, we’re here to help, with a few tips to maximize your chances of pulling in your can’t-miss shows.
As we found in our research and testing for our best indoor HDTV antennas guide, you can find plenty of good antennas priced between $20 and $100, but even a broadcast engineer can’t be 100% sure which stations any antenna will pull in at a certain location. There are just so many variables affecting the performance of an indoor TV antenna, and its design plays only one part: The characteristics of your TV’s tuner, the construction of your home, the room you place the antenna in, the way you mount it, trees and other outdoor objects that may block reception, and multipath interference caused by signal reflections from mountains, bodies of water, or buildings all can affect antenna performance. The number of channels you receive might even change from day to day or week to week.
We’ve learned the tricks we describe below over years of antenna testing and experimentation, in settings ranging from high-density urban areas to sprawling suburbs. We’ve also asked numerous antenna manufacturers for advice. Unfortunately, even after following these tips, you still might not get all the channels you want, but you are almost certain to get more than if you were to just slap up an antenna in the most convenient place.
