[Mawman]

Hello all,


As some of you may have noticed, I have been posting many questions over the last week regarding receivers and antennas. I purchased a Motorola HDT-100 last week along with a Jensen Amplified VHF/UHF combo antenna. According to antennaweb.org, I have 7 stations available, 6 stations are 25 miles away, and the 7th is 45 miles away. I was very disappointed with the results using the Jensen antenna - I was only able to get three stations (all from the 25 mile category). The other three would not come in at all no matter how I positioned the antenna (and I held no hope whatsoever of receiving the last station).


Thus, I returned the Jensen in favor of a Zenith Silver Sensor. I wasn't expecting the results to be any better and had pretty much given in to the fact that I would be spending the rest of this week installing an aerial UHF in the attic and running the cable to the basement in order to watch the Superbowl in HD this Sunday. But to my amazement, I put the Silver Sensor on my Kitchen table and it picked up all seven stations without a hitch the very first time through the scan. I only had it hooked up to a standard TV in the living room to test the antenna(s) so I haven't actually tried it downstairs on the DTV yet; I have a feeling it will work as long as I leave it on top of the TV (but if not, I will hook up the 50 ft. coax and place it upstairs on the ledge pointing to the window).


Just wanted to post the results here for all to see; I have seen many posts on the Silver Sensor and many people seem to have good luck with them. I am now a member of that group - I do have a fairly clear line of sight to the towers (plus I live in Kansas, no mountains to be found) and I am pulling in stations 25-45 miles away with the antenna inside on my kitchen table. I am a believer in the Silver Sensor!!!


Mark

 

[murph3699]

The silver sensor works great for me. I can pull in all local stations except the WB. I live 26 mi north of the towers in a valley.

 

[mstaben]

I've only recently gotten into this HDTV thing, and first tried the Samsung SIR-T151 off eBay. This box picked up all our local stations through a coax cable hanging across the ceiling of the basement (I hadn't realized yet the coax didn't go anywhere). I decided I wanted to try DirecTV HD so sold that on eBay and got the Hughes E86. Thing couldn't pick up diddly-squat. Even hooking up my mis-aligned broken Aerial that came with the house didn't work so I bought the Silver Sensor. *BLING*, everything came in. It is highly directional and found that if I left it sitting on top of the TV the directionality was more crucial. The E86 is a slow piece of junk, and besides, after about 15 days the sound died on it so I took it back to C.C. early (along with the S.Sensor). A couple weeks ago, I bought a SIR-TS160 on eBay missing the remote for a decent price and it failed to pick up most of the channels. After trying an RCA amplified (even has a transformer to plug in) rabbit-ear which didn't work AT ALL, I went back to C.C. and lo, the last silver sensor they had was the same one I had taken back (a finger scratch was recognizable) a couple months before. With it I was able to pick up all the local channels except our PBS digital (non HD) which was interesting -- makes me wonder if it's down for now since it was one of the easier channels to pick up with the E86.


For now, my silver sensor sits in the empty half of a magazine basket that just happens to be sitting next to the TV -- sort of out of sight until I figure out what to do with the rest of it all (new stand?, etc.) I'm sure I could put the silver sensor inside a wooden box, and it'd still work -- but for me, I just have to make sure it's not being interfered with by the TV. Eventually, I'll hang it in the attic or something -- biggest bang for the buck I can think of.


Matt

 

[dirtymack]

Unfortunately the SS didn;t work for me. I'm only 16.7 miles from my local broadcast source, and my reception was flaky at best. One minute it would pick up CBSHD, then after changing channels and returning to CBS it wouldn't come in at all.

 

[lirong]

Its only UHF right?

 

[stickyfingers]

Quote:

Originally posted by lirong Its only UHF right?

Yes.