I am about 10 miles from all my DTV towers and I live in a fairly wooded area. One night I decided to go down to Radio Shack and get the 15-1880 indoor amplified antenna for $49.99 and then went to Wal-mart and got the US Digital OTA STB for $199. I got it hooked up and after a few minutes I had good signal strength on all UHF HDTV channels and fair signal strength on the one VHF HDTV channel here which is ABC. It took a little tweaking to keep the VHF channel from dropping out but after a little more tweaking of the antenna and amplifier setting it came in clear with about 65% solid signal strength. All the other UHF channels had a solid 90-95% signal the whole time with no dropouts. Of course the US Digital doesn't give percentages on the signal so I am approximating the percentage by the bar strength. I did notice that PBS and ABC would occassionally drop out if I were to stand in certain parts of the room and this wasn't acceptable so I decided to hook up my old attic antenna I had in the garage. It is a medium-large directional antenna that is about 8 feet wide and 8 feet long. I had an alarm tech who is a professional installer that I knew split the signal from the antenna 3 ways and he ran RG-6 off of the the 2.4ghz 3Way splitter to each room with no amplifier since the longest run was 35 feet. Using the attic antenna I got the same 90-95% signal strength on all UHF HDTV channels, but this time ABC was around 85% and solid with no dropouts no matter where I stood in the house. Now this is what I am talking about!!! I did get annoyed by the high pitch popping sound the US Digital box made and it also had a lose part inside it that rattled when you shook it so I took it and the Radio Shack antenna back for a refund. I ordered 2 LG 4200A OTA STB from ********************* for $285 shipped each and got them hooked up. All channels came in flawlessly just like the US Digital with no dropouts. The only difference between the US Digital and LG is the signal strength bar is only at a solid 40-50% at all times while the US Digital was at 90-95%. I thought the 4200a was the most sensitive ASTC tuner on the market? Maybe the US Digital is reporting the signal strength wrong? All LG 4200A owners, what is your signal strength bar at and have you had other OTA STBs in your system that had a different signal strength then the LG 4200A with the same antenna setup?
I would say the PQ between the US Digital and LG 4200A is pretty close with the slight edge going to the LG 4200A for a slightly more stable image. I bought the LG over the US Digital because the LG doesn't have the popping digital output and it also has DVI and Coaxial digital output which the US Digital doesn't. I also like the fact that it outputs 480i via SVideo at the same time for recording content. The 480i via SVideo looks spectacular on my setup. The menus are perfect in my opinion on both players. The LG's menu does look like it is put together better though. The LG actually weighs more then a feather and just feels better built over all which it should be for $85 more. The LG's remote is also alot better then the US Digital remote. Again all LG 4200A please post your signal strengths according to the LG 4200A and props to LG for making a superb OTA STB once again!!!
I would say the PQ between the US Digital and LG 4200A is pretty close with the slight edge going to the LG 4200A for a slightly more stable image. I bought the LG over the US Digital because the LG doesn't have the popping digital output and it also has DVI and Coaxial digital output which the US Digital doesn't. I also like the fact that it outputs 480i via SVideo at the same time for recording content. The 480i via SVideo looks spectacular on my setup. The menus are perfect in my opinion on both players. The LG's menu does look like it is put together better though. The LG actually weighs more then a feather and just feels better built over all which it should be for $85 more. The LG's remote is also alot better then the US Digital remote. Again all LG 4200A please post your signal strengths according to the LG 4200A and props to LG for making a superb OTA STB once again!!!