I have Dish network at home. When I got DISH I took down my old antenna and threw it away. Now, I just bought an HDTV with a tuner and I want to tune into OTA HD programming. Browsing around I found the Terk TV44 Amplified TV antenna that is designed to clip on to and work with satellite dishes. Anyone have this?



This seems to be easiest because you use the existing cable between the dish and the box. Or, what other antennas do you guys use/recommend?

 

A lot depends on how far you are from your target broadcasting tower. That's a great antenna and I believe would be sufficient up to 30 miles line-of-sight. Hopefully all your networks would be roughly in the same direction. My father lives 10 miles from West Palm Beach and can receive all 4 networks with a $20 antenna sitting on top of his TV. I live 40 miles west of Chicago and this is too far to consistently get HD network signals with any antenna.

 

I was wondering the same thing... I getting my new 1080p LCD for the bedroom and I don't have digital cable in there. I also live about 55 miles from downtown Houston

 

According to antennaweb.org I am 28 miles from the broadcast towers and there is only a 2-degree seperation between the two that I would use. The website says I need a directional antenna so I'm not sure this Terk TV44 would apply in my situation.

 

One solution for both of you would be DirecTV. They now have Houston and LA local channels available via their satellites. My father has Dish, thus he needs the OTA antenna. I'm pretty sure if you mount the Terk on your roof you would get your signal, barring any major hills or trees blocking your sightline.

 

Dish offers the same and I'm pretty certain Houston is in their list of local HD channels. However, you will need to have a receiver that can handle MPEG-4 encoding.

 

^^ yup. I just have their basic 500 receiver and feed my tv s-video signal. I pay extra for local channels in my DISH package but if I could get the local channels OTA in HD for free it would save me the extra charge.

BTW, I've read a couple of comments regarding this antenna on avsforum and they are not encouraging.

 

I bought this directional antenna: http://www.amazon.com/Zenith-ZHDTV1-...&s=electronics

I had to get it b/c I don't live near any of the 40 some odd cities Dish pushes HD locals for. I p/u the local HD signals really well with this thing. It's cheap so if it doesn't work for you you're not out much.

However, I live withen 20 miles of all but one of the broadcasting towers. My Fox affiliate is about 40 miles away. I'd drop the locals from Dish too if I could pick them up OTA.

EDIT: also this one is UHF only

 

^^ Thanks. I think I'll need to find a brick & mortar place to buy it with a good return policy so I can try it out and return it if it doesn't work for me.

 

yeah same problem I ran into. I really wanted a Winegard antenna but couldn't find a place that would allow returns.

http://www.summitsource.com/outdoor-...-47_57_60.html

 

I got this off amazon.com, I have one on my Big Screen in the family room and one on the bedroom TV. I'm very please with this.

I get all of the DC HD channels in the family room, the TV in the bedroom gets all of DC and Baltimore channels, live in a 3 story townhouse. I live 15 minutes from Dulles Airport. It's an amplified antenna.

Amazon.com has it listed for $86, but 2 of their vendor have for $50 plus shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/TERK-HDTVLP-In...&s=electronics