Just snagged the Radio Shack "UFO" 1892 antenna. So far I am satisfied with it right out of the box, though the channel/frequency selection is confusing to me.

The antenna is connected into a TiVo HD. The cheesy manual for the antenna says you have to program the best position for each channel. This way when you change channels on the antenna, it will re-orient itself. Well this is a stupid thing to do, since I change channels through the TiVo and not on the damn antenna.

So far I've settled for an antenna position of 8, with gain at 1. This seems to give the best average performance across all the channels. Problem is that one of my favorite channels is only mediocre at that setting.

Did I just buy the wrong antenna? Do I need something more directional that doesn't have gimmicky controls?

Can you post your tvfool.com results and point out which station you're having problems with?

Sure can:
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29&q=id%3d7f14a358e3882d


It's WLS-DT 7.1/52, which is ABC. Get huge blocks of digital noise every few minutes, despite the signal meeting being 80 or better. Get ithe same on WMAQ-FT 5.1/29, which is NBC, but much less often.

Is it because I am using an amp'd antenna when I don't need to be?

Possibly, if you're getting good signal strength with drop outs it could be cause you're overpowering the tuner and/or suffering from multipath.