Just wondering if any of you guys are installing HD antennas for your customers. I have never installed one, but received an email from someone wondering if we can install one for him. With all the DirecTV people around, I'm surprised I have not been asked before. I'm not even sure what antenna would be best. Open to suggestions.

My installers know a lot more about antennas than I do but we do them a lot lately. You don't need anything crazy and we typically spec a Winegard HD-1080 or the HD7694P. It all comes down to location from the towers. If you run 2 coax to every location you'll have a line for DTV and an antenna line. I prefer to do this for two big reasons. One, if the DTV goes down due to a storm then you'll have access to local weather or Dancing with the Stars. Two, if the control system goes down, you aren't the most hated person on earth.

I hadn't thought about running a line to each location. I, for whatever reason, envisioned adding the antenna feed to one TV. Good point and I'm glad you brought that up. I'll take a look at the Winegard antenna, thanks.

Curious as to what you are charging for the install. Guessing hourly? I would think a few hours to complete the install if wiring is in place, more if we have to feed to every set.

I do an antenna once a year or so and like drewski I use the winegard units. I also have a signal meter to allow me to fine tune the signal as I need to aim between the sears (or what ever it is now) and the hancock towers.

We do lots of OTA, Winegard, Channel Master and Antenna's Direct, we use to pop up lots of Terk for commercial. For residential we do have fixed rates for most basic installs, and per hour for upgrades, like setting up scaffolding replacing the antenna and running new lines from the existing tower, now for a new tower install this is a different story but we try to give a price for the whole job just like when we do a c-band install. If we do a per hour thing it's the same rate as our satellite service rates, OTA and c/ku-band residential work is a bit lower per hour than custom av work, we do charge a additional $25 per extra room wired to the system, plus any distro equipment required.

It's fun, and easy if you have strong signal in the area, now when you get to a rural part and setting up fringe antenna's with rotors then that's when the fun starts, or the headache lol, tvfool.com is a nice tool. If they are way out in the sticks and can get maybe 1 channel with a fringe antenna, you can pop up a 6' c-band dish on Galaxy-16 for some of the alphabet networks.

If you have never played with any of this stuff, it's good to set up at your place and practice/learn first, mind you if they are in a good area then it's as easy as popping up a single lnbf mini dish for circular ku-band.

We installed a Leaf antenna for a client that bought it on Amazon a couple of months ago. Looks like a piece of paper with a cable attached. Mounted it behind the TV and works great.

lol, they must be in a good area then, where even those "clear tv" crap antenna’s will work :)

Oh and goldenzrule a meter is good to have but if your client is in a strong reception area then it's not a big deal, plus if this is a one time thing then you probably wont want to buy one. We have a few DigiairPro ones, there ok.

I like rabbit ears.

Antennaweb.org is another good resource for seeing what direction and the distance the towers are from your address.

Taller is better.
My favorite mast is a pool cleaner extenable pole, it does not rust and has an adjustable height.

I've installed a couple of Antenna Direct DB8e's on masts with rotors in fringe areas north (50-60 mi) of Seattle with great results

We attach rabbit ears to almost every TV we install, as a no charge extra that isn't on the quote. 6$ at the local hardware store is what the antenna costs. Most of the time reception is pretty good, and clients are usually blown away at the uncompressed image of OTA broadcast when compared to Comcrap and Uverse.

If there is crappy OTA reception at a particular location, then we just blow-off the rabbit ears... client is none the wiser since it wasn't on the bid. Crazy how many people are surprised they can still get OTA broadcast with their new TV.

I have always had an antenna and rotor on all my houses.

Must be left over from ham radio days in my childhood neighborhood.

One, for reasons above, when your service goes out, and in Ky that usually meant a big storm so you wanted local channels. Not the most hated person in the world as previously stated.

Two, FM reception and HDradio. Without the antenna on the roof I get nothing with anything else. I live in fringe area. With my current Channel Master system I get KLOS to the west and KCAL (kicks ass) to the east. Love OTA HD TV!

Three, I like seemingly "Free" things.

Four, for whatever it brings back memories of big summer parties in Southern Cal with much substance abuse and scantily clad beach babes running around the house with Pacific Stereo commercials blaring at ungodly levels (KMET in those days ...Whoyaa!)





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Channel Master 4228-HD.


I don't think there's a better antenna on the market. It is seriously directional though, so if you're in an area, like mine, where the towers aren't aligned, then you'll need two and a good no loss combiner, or a switch.

My favorite TV antennas are the Channelmaster CM-2016 and CM-2020. The 2016 is a UHF antenna with a couple of extra beams for high-band VHF reception, but you'll have to check tvfool or antennaweb to see if any stations use low-band VHF in your area. The 2020 is a strange-looking animal that's big wide VHF on one end, then really sensitive UHF on the other.

For at least ten years my fave was the Winegard HD-7210 (Ghost Killer), which has two great advantages -- first, most antennas receive signal pretty equally off the front and the back, but this one kills signals coming to it from behind; second, it has no pieces that stick up or down so I've been able to successfully mount this under a flat roof, that is, where there's only about 18" of vertical clearance.

The HD7210 is not a new design and Winegard showed that there is no design difference between an analog TV antenna and a digital TV antenna when they changed the model number from CS7210 (Color Series) to HD7210 (High Definition), starting by simply slapping "HD" stickers over "CS" on the cartons of units they had in stock.


One of my favorite stories told to me by an ex-boss was about him learning that this is not necessarily so.

He was the kid at a Salt Lake TV station and a customer out in the boonies called the station for help receiving the station. Since he was the kid, he got the thankless job of driving out to see what could be done.

He took the station van with the adjustable tower, cranked it all the way up, pointed it correctly (ruler on map) and got horrible signal. After they discussed it and decided the guy simply would not be able to receive a signal, he cranked the tower down to stow everything, but happened to leave his monitor on. When he got down to about ten feet off the ground the signal was coming through like gangbusters! Taller is not necessarily better.

Now that was probably a VHF channel, likely a low-band one which would hug the ground better than UHF, and most of today's TV stations are UHF. But still, you have to actually do the research to be sure.

The HDTV Forum on this site has lots of threads about antennas, but actual interest dropped off sharply three or four years ago -- seems satellite finally killed most of the antenna market. The HDTV forum is now mostly about the Toronto area, near Daniel, but if you go back far enough you will find many discussions of antennas.