The tried-and-true bowtie antenna under test. Note the high-tech antenna mount.
The HD Quad under test.
The CC Aerowave under test.
Channel Master's StealthTenna 50 under test.
The performance of each antenna was verified with an AVCOM spectrum analyzer, Hauppauge Aero-M USB stick receiver, and TS Reader software.
DOYLESTOWN, PA. The cord-cutting landscape has changed considerably in the past 12 months, and it's no longer a fad, but a growing trend as more and more consumers decide that they can get by just fine without expensive pay TV channel packages. In fact, Comcast reported recently that they now have more subscribers for broadband service than for pay TV channels, which accords greater importance to Comcast's failure to acquire Time Warner: The combined companies would have controlled broadband distribution to a disproportionate number of U.S. homes.
While Internet service is the key part of cord-cutting, free over-the-air television still pays an important part. Think of the Super Bowl, the NHL Stanley Cup and NBA championships, and the NCAA Final Four championship game.
But there's also a lot of good programming on free TV right now. In recent months, my wife and I have used our Channel Master DVR+ and TiVo HD to time-shift and watch The Blacklist, American Crime, Brooklyn 9-9, The Good Wife, 60 Minutes, American Odyssey, CSI, Blackish, Saturday Night Live, and Mr. Selfridge (plus a host of one-time PBS programs).
Throw in some Netflix streaming (House of Cards) and there's plenty to watch without Big Cable. So a balanced cord-cutting approach should incorporate both broadband and terrestrial broadcast TV.
To get the former, you need a fast Internet connection and a late-model Wi-Fi router. To get the latter, you only need some sort of antenna to connect to your television or receiver/DVR, like the Channel Master box, TiVo's Roamio, Tablo, or Mohu's new Channels product.
Blessed with a few days of nice weather, I decided to excavate my pile of review products and found three antennas patiently waiting for testing. The first was a rather odd-looking design from HD Frequency, called the CC Aerowave ($49 with 12-foot cable from www.hdfrequency.com). It resembles a small window with a 75-ohm coaxial balun attached to the inner corners of two panes.
The second antenna came all the way from Australia and goes by the name HD Quad ($39.99 from www.hd-quad.com). It's a flexible, transparent antenna with UHF collinear elements, not unlike many other antennas I've tested.
The last antenna is a bit larger and is a six-element VHF/UHF yagi, and comes from Channel Master. The StealthTenna 50 (CM3010HD, $29.00 from www.channelmaster.com) can be mounted indoors or outdoors. It's small enough to sit in a closet or attic space, or even in a room think of it as functional art.
I also found a new inline signal preamplifier from Antennas Direct. The Juice UHF/VHF Amplifier ($79.99 from www.antennasdirect.com) can be used inside or outside and provides about 18 dB of signal boost with a low noise figure, which is real handy in areas where TV reception can be problematic. (Successful digital TV reception is all about signal-to-noise ratio!)
THE SET-UP
For this round of testing, I dusted off my tried-and-true UHF bowtie antenna, once available from Radio Shack but largely ignored by retailers today. (Seriously how many of them want to sell a $5 TV product?) I set the bowtie up on a folding table in my home office and attached it to a large cardboard box with masking tape. While that part of the test was decidedly low-tech, I then connected the antenna lead into a two-way splitter, with one leg going to a spectrum analyzer and the other going to a Hauppauge Aero-M USB tuner, connected to my Toshiba laptop.
This arrangement allowed me to see the actual waveform and signal strength of each TV station under test. I could then verify successful reception with the Aero-M, and to close the deal, look at the actual MPEG-2 video stream from each station using TS Reader. These three measurements gave me a very concise report on the performance of each antenna.
If you go back to my last round of testing in November of 2014, you'll see that I used the same antenna position (different box, though!) and same test gear. The only possible differences in testing would come from the amount of foliage on nearby trees, as my house is partially blocked from the Philadelphia/Roxborough antenna towers over a20+ mile path. (In other words, an ideal site for indoor TV antenna testing!)
The Philadelphia TV market is unique in that it has two high-power, low-band VHF TV stations KJWP (Independent) on channel 2, and WPVI (ABC) on channel 6. There are only 40 or so low-band DTVs in operation nowadays as that part of the RF spectrum is susceptible to impulse noise and strange propagation enhancement. Antennas that work well from channels 2 through 6 (about 54 to 88 MHz) are also very large a half-wavelength dipole for channel 6 needs to be about 68 inches long!
There's also one high-band VHF operation on channel 12, WHYY (PBS). The rest of the Philly DTV stations are active on the UHF band, starting at channel 17 (WPHL) and ending at channel 42 (WTXF (Fox)). In addition, I can easily pick up three DTV stations from the Allentown area: WBPH-9, WLVT-39 (PBS), and WFMZ-46 (Independent). There's even a repeater for WTXF on channel 38 that shows up on my home antenna array, plus WNJT-43 in Trenton.
Table 1. Here's how each antenna performed with 11 VHF/UHF test channels.
THE TESTS I picked a handful of stations to verify reception: WPVI-6, WBPH-9, WHYY-12, WPHL-17, KYW-26 (CBS), WUVP-29 (Univision), WCAU-34 (NBC), WYBE-35 (Independent), WLVT-39, WTXF-42, and WFMZ-46. Any of these antennas would be doing an outstanding job
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
19/04/2024
Thank You for visiting us at NAB 2024!
Thank you for joining us at the ToolsOnAir booth during NAB Show 2024!
We were delighted to showcase our latest inno...
19/04/2024
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 18: (L-R) John Early and Theda Hammel attend the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Stress Positions premiere at Library Center Theatre on ...
19/04/2024
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
19/04/2024
Pictured: Midnight Family
By Stephanie Ornelas
A great way to get to know a city as culturally unique and rich as Mexico City is to listen to the stories tol...
19/04/2024
St. Louis, MO - April 18, 2024 - Studio Network Solutions (SNS) announced today that MOD won three prestigious industry awards at NAB Show 2024 held this week i...
19/04/2024
Spotify's mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the ...
19/04/2024
It's a beautiful day to be a Swiftie. Today, Taylor Swift dropped her 11th s...
19/04/2024
MELBOURNE, Fla., April 19, 2024 - The Board of Directors of L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.16 per common share, payab...
19/04/2024
PARIS Intel has announced that its plans for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 will include using artificial intelligence technology powered by Intel ...
19/04/2024
LAS VEGAS Technologists working on all aspects of the 8K media production chain offered an optimistic update at the 2024 NAB Show on the state of 8K in video pr...
19/04/2024
OpenDrives New Software-Defined Platform Atlas Wins 2024 NAB Show Product of the...
19/04/2024
Grass Valley Showcases Next-Generation T3 Series 4K/HD Digital Recording and Pla...
19/04/2024
NiTRo's M-CUBE Studio Levels Up Esports Productions with AJA Gear
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Esports' rapid rise to popularity can...
19/04/2024
Blackmagic Design Announces DaVinci Resolve 19
Brie Clayton April 19, 2024
0 Comments
Major update adds new DaVinci Neural Engine AI tools, new color ...
19/04/2024
Sony Pictures Entertainment is reportedly in talks with Apollo Global Management to make a bid to acquire Paramount which itself is currently discussing a merge...
19/04/2024
Simon Wilkinson, head of VFX at 1185 films, talks about the technology behind the newly-released horror
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 19, 2024
Simo...
19/04/2024
The global electronics company is said to be considering joining forces with investment firm Apollo Management to bid for Paramount Global
By Jenny Priestley
...
19/04/2024
The report broke the economic footprint of EBU member sports broadcasting into three main areas
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: April 19, 2024
The report b...
19/04/2024
CBS Stations has launched CBS News California Investigates , with Julie Watts named regional CBS California correspondent. She will uncover and raise awarenes...
19/04/2024
MediaCo Holding, which owns radio stations WQHT (Hot 97) and WBLS in New York, said it acquired Estrella Media's Spanish-language video, audio and digital c...
19/04/2024
Netflix has ordered season five of fantasy drama The Witcher, which will be the final season. Production has recently begun on season four, and the two remainin...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream said it added eight more The CW affiliates to its lineup on Thursday....
19/04/2024
CBS has renewed Elsbeth for the 2024-2025 season. The drama, with Carrie Preston in the lead role, debuted February 29....
19/04/2024
With the Bears picking first, NBCUniversal Local's properties in Chicago plan extensive coverage of the NFL draft next week....
19/04/2024
PHILADELPHIA As government subsidies for broadband services come to an end, Comcast has launched NOW, a new product portfolio of lower-cost Internet, mobile and...
19/04/2024
DirecTV Stream has added more local CW stations for its streaming customers in Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford-New Haven Conn., Phoenix, San ...
19/04/2024
NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES MediaCo Holding Inc. has announced that it has acquired all of Estrella Media's network, content, digital, and commercial operations....
19/04/2024
SAN JOSE, Calif. Adobe has announced that the all-new Adobe Express mobile app is available to all users, bringing features powered by Adobe Firefly generative ...
19/04/2024
LOS GATOS, Calif. Netflix reported another blockbuster quarter by adding 9.33 million new subscribers in Q1, 2024 as global paid memberships hit 269.6 million, ...
19/04/2024
The Current State of the Industry and the Future Impact of AI
Hillary Lewis April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The Entertainment Industry: How did we get here ...
19/04/2024
After Effects Tutorial Text Blur Reveal
Andy Ford April 18, 2024
0 Comments
Here's a way to do a quick blur reveal for your text layer. Start by...
19/04/2024
Hollyland Mars M1 Enhanced Wireless Transmitter / Receiver
Colin Smith April 18, 2024
0 Comments
This tutorial shows the new wireless transmitter rece...
19/04/2024
Resolve Fusion: Writing Expressions with Lua
Simon Ubsdell April 18, 2024
0 Comments
The answer to the very frequently-asked question: what is the pro...
19/04/2024
B+C and Next TV have announced the winners of Best of Show Awards for the 2024 NAB Show. The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts at the convention...
19/04/2024
Cate Blanchett narrates the Netflix series Our Living World, which premieres April 17. The four-part series looks at the extraordinary creatures around the glob...
19/04/2024
Apple TV Plus has a spinoff of For All Mankind in the works. It is called Star City and details the cosmonauts, engineers and intelligence officers working behi...
19/04/2024
Jacquie Walker, longtime anchor at WIVB Buffalo, will step down from the anchor desk. She has spent over 40 years at WIVB and her last day as an anchor is May 2...
19/04/2024
Bob Hearts Abishola will premiere in broadcast syndication this fall on such station groups as Nexstar Media Group, Sinclair, Hearst Television, Tegna, E.W. Scr...
19/04/2024
Live With Kelly and Mark remains TV's top entertainment talk show as Kelly Ripa and her co-host and husband Mark Consuelo celebrate their one-year anniversa...
19/04/2024
Sean McLaughlin has been named VP of news for Graham Media Group. He had been senior VP of local news at E.W. Scripps. He will will be responsible for developi...
19/04/2024
Netflix has shared the first trailer from One Hundred Years of Solitude, a series based on the esteemed novel by Gabriel Garc a M rquez. The streamer is on boar...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 in Review: West Hall - SportsTech Buzz From AWS, Appear, Ateme, The Swi...
19/04/2024
NAB 2024 Draws 61,000+ Attendees With More Than Half Attending the Show for the ...
19/04/2024
Rohde & Schwarz and VIAVI support European OTIC in Berlin for O-RAN conformance ...
19/04/2024
Wuppertal April 19, 2024
Riedel launches Bolero Connect for seamless integration with PunQtum A pioneer in the field of digital intercom, Riedel has recently ...
The tried-and-true bowtie antenna under test. Note the high-tech antenna mount. 
