Question about modern TVs and digital antennas etc

We need help and I dont know what forum to place this.

We bought a nice new Samsung 50" TV and the picture is wonderful.

We do not have cable, and living in a large metro area with so many channels broadcast over the air, I see no reason for it.

Our bedroom tv is old, a JVC from the 80s that still works. Its analog only so it has an antennae that faces the window, and a digital signal converter. The antenna is plugged into the converter and the converter into the TV. This works great, very good reception from many stations.

The same kind of antenna is used in the living room with the Samsung and the antenna is positioned in front of a window facing the same direction as the bedroom antenna.

For some reason, the reception is terrible. Stations often break up, even powerful network stations.

I'm wondering if this is because the Samsung has its own tuner and the antenna is plugged directly into the TV.

Perhaps the Samsung tuner isnt great. Would it make any difference if I got a Tuner from amazon, plugged the antenna into that, and then plugged the tuner into the TVs HDMI input?

any advice would be appreciated. At this point we're only watching Streaming content on our big TV because the over the air stuff breaks up so often.

 

forgot to mention, the antenna in question is the Clearstream Direct, amplified version

I've experimented with the turning the amplifier on and off, no difference really... some of the weaker stations came in a little better, not much

 

Indoor antennas can be tricky. Just because one might work fine in the bedroom doesn't mean one will work well in another room. I think you would be better served with an outside antenna.

 

If you previously had cable, you could use that to remote where the antenna is located. For instance I did an installation for a woman who didn't want an external antenna. So I use the cable that had previously been installed to put the antenna in an upstairs bedroom. We were able to get it away from sources of interference like the refrigerator compressor motor or the air conditioner condenser unit.

 

Amplifiers do not improve signal reception. What they do is boost the signal coming from the antenna to drive multiple television sets.

Antennas are passive devices that receive a signal and how well it does that is determined entirely by the physical design of the antenna. When you turn the amplifier on or off all it does is provide a greater quantity of a weak signal.

Imagine recording something on a tape - if the original audio was recorded at too low of a level, when you boost it up in volume it's still going to be buried in tape hiss. A better antenna is like having the microphone closer to the original source.

They have designed good small antennas, especially since most digital channels are actually UHF, which requires smaller antenna elements, but boosting the signal an antenna receives generally requires additional elements.

Generally speaking, the more it looks like an old-style television antenna the better it will receive.

 

ok, thats something to try. We do have an older rabbit ears style antenna sitting around unused. I'll jack that straight into the Samsung and re-scan the channels and see if its any better. Good idea, thanks Chris!

 

Find out what channels are actually broadcast in your area. That's the digital channels - the channels that show up for instance as 4, 5 and 9 in Kansas City are actually much higher frequency UHF channels. The rods of a rabbit ears are for VHF channels (2-13) and are unlikely to be of any use to pick up your UHF channels. We need to find out what actual channels are broadcast in your area and where they are relative to your home. A simple UHF antenna is usually a loop (the least effective shape) or a bow tie. More effective UHF antennas will be Yagi style - a square rod with a bunch of elements mounted on it, with the actual antenna element at one end with a corner reflector behind it, or a "stacked" antenna with four elements in a square.

 

the only yagis I saw were for outdoor, and thats too much trouble.

Can you show me an example of a "stacked Antenna" that you think is a good one?

 

Excellent post. TV Fool is an excellent resource to understand how your physical location corresponds to your local TV broadcasters. There is definitely a fair amount of physics involved, and getting a "traditional" antenna aimed correctly is your best shot at success.

 

we did that, I know I'm pointing the antenna at the best direction for picking up the broadcast areas for most of the atlanta networks.

 

is this the stacked thing? something like this?

 

Here's one on Amazon.


You're familiar with microphone and speaker design, right? A stacked antenna is the same physics as a "line array" speaker stack. By stacking the elements, they increase the sensitivity. This type of vertical stack has a much tighter pattern vertically, doing a better job of rejecting reflected UHF signals from the ground, which causes multipath - signals from multiple sources at differing times.

 

That's basically the same design, but printed flat. The problem with that design is that it's hard to aim. If you stick it on a window or wall that is aimed at the signal source, great. But if it say 15 degrees off, you'll get less than optimum reception. And is a single bow tie element, thus does nothing to reject multipath.

 

thats possible.... I was hoping for an easier solution than installing an antenna in the attic and then drilling a hole thru the walls.... something to consider if all else fails I guess

 

Have you got a closet to put one in? That doesn't have to be put in an attic.

Here's one that would be less effective, but is considerably smaller:



It's 13" high, and has a base that can be mounted to a shelf. The important part is that it can be rotated towards the stations. It's Terk's knock-off of the Philips Silver Sensor antenna. The design is a single Yagi.

I used to have a small quad bowtie with little feet to set on a surface and rotate, and that was one of the most effective antennas I ever used.

The higher you can get the antenna, the better.
The further you can get it from AC motors, the better.
The more it looks like a "tv antenna", the better.

 

I should write a separate post about antenna design.

 

First test I'd make is to bring the digital converter in from the bedroom and hook it up to the antenna near the Samsung and plug it in. If the picture is OK then the Samsung tuner is suboptimal and another digi converter may be the way to go.

 

Please do. I'm looking to move back to using antenna and still have old style rabbit ears. But I can't make the switch unless I can tune in all the majors consistently.

Also, any commentary on the OP question related to quality of the built in tuner? Or is it all in the antenna?

I'm also interested in the possibility of reusing existing cable that is still in place.

 

I don't see much difference in tuner sections of TVs. It really is about the antenna - specifically where you put it.

 

I gave up on over-the-air reception some years ago for the simple reason that the digital transmissions are either there or they're not. When they fail -- which happens about 2 or 3 times per one-hour show in my experience -- it's a catastrophic failure where the picture and sound goes away for a couple of seconds.

All the indoor antennas are total garbage in my opinion, but it's possible to get decent reception with a big roof-mounted antenna. We had two different 25' Winegard antennas on my previous house, with a rotor on each antenna mast, and we still got crappy reception sometimes. I threw in the towel and moved 100% of my TV viewing to DirecTV and streaming. Both will occasionally go out with extremely tiny flaws, but we're talking about a very rare "blip," not a 2-second dropout.

 

Everyone's experience will be different depending on their location. Sounds like you live in an area with terrible reception.

The most common mistake I've seen people make is putting too directional of an antenna on their roof - it's like trying to mic someone with a shotgun microphone when an omnidirectional mic would be better suited. I've used very long, hyper-directional antennas, but that was back when the CBS affiliate in Kansas City was not doing HD, but the one in Topeka 65 miles away. I did a double-stack of two German UHF antennas to pull that in.

In my apartment in Chicago, I have a fairly small roof-mounted antenna, and it is the most reliable source of programming available. Same thing at my apartment in Kansas City. My KC apartment is from 5 to 9 miles from all of the TV transmitters, and since they went full power, a bowtie indoor antenna works fine, and a window flat antenna does as well. You can find where all the transmitters are using this tool:

Cut the Cord, Cable TV Alternatives, Cord Cutting Guide - NoCable

Put in your address, and it will show you how far you are from all of the transmitters as well as the actual channels. By the way, their antenna suggestions are insanely overpriced.

 

Here's the antenna I have mounted on the house my Kansas City apartment is in. When I put it up 12 years ago, there were still some VHF channels. If I were to replace it, I would only use the corner reflector part to the left of the support post. All the transmitters are from 5 to 9 miles away.

 

Naw, I was in Chatsworth near LA, about 25 miles West of the transmitters on Mount Wilson. No tall buildings or hills between me and the transmitter. I was a broadcast engineer for 40 years with a 1st Class FCC license, so I know a bit about transmitter theory and how receivers and antennas work, as well as how to avoid multipath and other issues. My experience is that ASTC is a flawed process because there's not enough tolerance for errors (as there is with equivalent analog systems). I know of other engineers who came to the same conclusion as I did and we all live in different cities. Our problem is we're very, very picky about signal quality. Other people might not mind having a couple of blips an hour.

I do still have an outdoor antenna backup for the DirecTV system (though not the 25' Winegard), but we very rarely use it anymore.

 

What did you have in the living room before this Samsung, and how good was its picture?
Digital TV signals follow line-of-sight from the broadcast antenna to your antenna and are not as powerful to get through obstructions like buildings or even trees as old analog TV. Even in the distance from one room to another, one window could have a blockage in that line of sight.
You have one TV that works OK altogether and one that does not. Do a test.
Take your old JVC (with digital converter box) to the living room and give it the same antenna and same antenna position as you have connected to the Samsung, and see what the JVC shows with that antenna. If it is just as bad as the Samsung, you could get an antenna splitter for your bedroom antenna, and an amp, and a long cable, and run that to the living room Samsung.

You could try the opposite test too, Samsung in the bedroom with the bedroom antenna, but the test above should demonstrate if the problem is the living room antenna position and location.