Hey guys, i'm having trouble with antenna reception and thought I'd post here for help. I love within 5-6 miles of all the major stations. I got an amplified vhf/uhf rabbit ears antenna to try to pick up the local HD broadcasts. When I connected it to my sony bravia kdl-40s2010 and ran autoprogram, the only station it could pick up was ABC. I tinkered with the settings numerous times and still nothing changed.

I then tried using the same antenna on another TV (bravia kdl-26xbr1) in another area of my house. I was able to pick up some 23 digital stations, including every HD channel I wanted. I figured it was just a location issue, but to make sure I moved my first HDTV into the room with the second one, and without moving the antenna, i plugged it into the first TV. When I ran autoprogram, it still didnt pick up any more channels. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

Well, for starters you are using an antenna with a cheap built-in amplifier while you are only 5 to 6 miles from the broadcast towers. This is usually not recommended as the amp can overload the ATSC receiver/tuner. The Sony bravia kdl-40s2010 may have a more sensitive receiver than the kdl-26xbr1. Or the kdl-40s2010 may have a defective tuner. Can you dial down the amplification on the antenna?

The rabbit ears antenna has a UHF loop I assume? Rabbit ears are for VHF channels and most digital stations are currently broadcasting on UHF, so the UHF loop is what you need to aim. If you want help with antenna selection, post your zip code and we can make some suggestions.

You're really close to the towers, try something overly-simple as a test:

Take an ordinary paper clip, and straighten it out. Insert it into the coax plug on your TV where the Antenna would connect, and maybe bend it so it sticks upwards.

Do a channel scan. Compare your results. This'll only work for UHF stations, but if it picks up more stations than your "real" antenna, it's a good clue that your antenna's amp is overloading the signal.

Which antenna do you have?

Did you set the TV up for OTA mode? It may have been trying for Cable QAM mode, which is a different type of signal. You might want to scan everything once, with the cables all disconnected, to "clean out" all the previous channels, then rescan everything with the antenna connected.

BTW, as close as you are to the transmitters, you might want to connect 75-ohm terminators to each coax jack, just to shield them from picking up anything at all while you scan to "clear" the memory.

okay, thanks for all the tips guys. first of all, yes it does have a uhf loop. second of all, i started out with an UNAMPLIFIED antenna (uhf/vhf), and it only got ABC as well, so i took it back and got an amplified one. i've tried dialing the amplification all the way down but that didn't really help anything either with kdl-40s2010. The antenna i'm using now is the RCA ant1250 from target. i'll try some of these suggestions tonight and post the results.

*update*
nothing worked... bleh. i dont know what to do. should i try a different antenna brand?

I have no clue why one TV would pick up the channels and the other wouldn't either? Maybe you need to clear the memory of channels before doing a scan? Are you sure your set for ATSC and not NTSC in the menu?

I'd see about a small multi directional OUTSIDE antenna for the location that is having issues.

You've probably got the TV set for cable mode instead of antenna mode.