Best non-directional unamplified indoor UHF antenna?

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post #1 of 4

1/22/07 at 4:49pm

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764 Posts. Joined 1/2002
Location: Kirkland, WA (Seattle area)
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Everyone knows you should use directional antennae, and which ones are best, and that unamplified is generally better than amplified, especially if you are close to the source. Unfortunately, not only am I *really* close to the broadcasters (less than 2 miles for all but one), but my apartment can't get line of sight for *any* of them, *and* I am in a downtown apartment in the middle of skyscrapers (in the middle of Seattle). Thus any signal I get is bounced off of buildings from multiple random directions.

So my only hope is for a directionless, unamplified antenna. Anyone know of any good ones? Preferrably ones that are great at dealing with multipath? Thanks!

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post #2 of 4

1/22/07 at 5:26pm

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In your case, not using an amp is a good idea. But an omni directional antenna
may not be the best idea, since all those signals hitting the ant with different
delays is likely to look like hash to the TV.

If you had a gain ant that was pointed in the direction of the strongest signal
for a particular channel, you might do better. One of the good things about
a gain ant is it's side rejection.

I would recommend starting off with a rotating dipole ant (rabbit Ears) .
It will give some rejection of signals coming in from the side (ends of the elements).
You will need to adjust the length shorter for higher
frequency stations and longer for lower freq stations.
468/freq mhz = total length in feet. If the stations are all in the
UHF range, then maybe you can find a UHF loop ant.
It looks like a round hoop about 8" in diameter.

Cheers,
Rich

post #3 of 4

1/22/07 at 5:47pm

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764 Posts. Joined 1/2002
Location: Kirkland, WA (Seattle area)
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The problem is I have an unamplified "Silver Sensor" inside and one of those loop antennae (with attached rabbit ears) outside (my HD receiver can use two antennae as separate inputs), and there is one local station that I just cannot get no matter how I adjust them - best signal 15% (from the silver sensor), even though it's the closest station. Its broadcast tower is to the north, and my apartment faces east, so to point at the tower would be straight through the entire apartment complex.

It just seems like the situation where I need a directionless antenna, since the directions could be changing all the time with reflections, and each channel could be wildly different from the previous (even ones that AntennaWeb claims are in the same spot, I can get one but not the other when pointing in one direction).

Trying a directionless antenna is my last attempt - if that doesn't work, I don't think there's anything else I can do to get all the local channels that are 2 miles away