Whats the best way to set up broadcast TV?
Licensed broadcast engineer here. How far are you from the broadcast transmitters? What is the natural terrain and building environment immediately surrounding your home? The answers to these two questions almost entirely determine your antenna requirements. In the U.S., we are also undergoing a conversion from the old NTSC analog broadcast system, to the newer digital system. Analog signals degrade more smoothly in fringe areas, whereas digital signals offer superior picture and sound quality, but are a go/no go proposition. Therefore, generally digital signals are going to require better antennas on higher mounting points on the part of home users, than analog signals did. If you are within 10 miles of the broadcast tower, and don’t have large buildings, hills or intervening city structures between your home and the tower, you should be able to enjoy adequate reception with an appropriate indoor antenna, such as
Wow. Between killyb and zavulon, this thread is a complete derail. Nothing we’re talking about here now involves over the air broadcast television signals. Cable system signals are transmitted differently than broadcast signals. For killyb’s benefit, it is quite possible that the Florida cable company is delivering a “hot” signal that is capable of swamping your sister’s television tuners, if they are hooked up directly as CATV, and not through a cable box. Drops put in without corresponding cable boxes are often left “hot” by the installer, because they expect the user will be putting on their own splitters for additional TV’s in other rooms, and they don’t want to have to come back to raise the signal level out on the pole when that happens. Putting a VCR or DVD in apparently helps her, not because the VCR or DVD has a better tuner, but in fact, because it has a less sensitive tuner, that isn’t swamped by the hot signal. A $2 passive splitter or anything else that inserts a 3 to 9db
