[2019 Latest] HD Digital TV Antenna Long 35-50 Miles Range – Support 4K 1080p & All Older TV's Indoor Powerful HDTV Signal Booster - 10ft Coax Cable/USB Power Adapter

First of all, I'm a ham radio operator and know a thing or two about antennas.Before I bought this antenna, I thought I would try a makeshift piece of coaxial cable with a few inches of the central conductor stripped bare as kind of a hackjob ground plane antenna, just to see how many stations I'd be getting super strong in that location. I picked up, with this method, 12 stations. I said to myself: "Wow, excellent, so I guess that means if I buy an actual antenna, I'll do even better than that", since I knew there were several fairly close by stations that didn't get picked up. And so for a few days, we watched with this rig job.Well so I got this antenna, because who wants a rig job hanging off the side of the tv? Unfortunately, the performance is identical to my 25 cent coaxial-cable rig job. ...I got the same 12 stations. (Which of course is actually 3 stations, each having 4 subcarriers). If I hang it out the window, sure, I pick up twice as many DTV stations. But then again, so I would with the hackjob coaxial cable makeshift antenna. This antenna really appears to be nothing more than totally minimal, and no better than a paperclip or rig job hanging off the input. Almost 100% positive I could open this up, and inside I'd see a fishing-line diameter wire just sort of randomly hanging out.Now that's fine, if you live in your city's central core or something. You'll probably be OK to pick up the strongest stations out in the 'burbs on the second storey. But we are talking minimal here. I'd be (very) hard-pressed to believe it would, run as an inside antenna, come anywhere close to pulling in a 35 mile range of dtv signals.But, you get what you pay for, I think.

We cut the cable about a year ago and have been enjoying free OTA TV ever since. Originally, we had an old outdoor antenna that we got second hand. That antenna was fine for VHF channels, but the UHF section was too small for where we are located. Along with that, we installed one of those 4-bay "bowtie" antennas in the attic to provide UHF reception while still using the outdoor antenna for VHF. That worked great up until a few weeks ago. For some reason, reception one of our local UHF channels dropped dramatically. It was to the point that it was breaking up regularly and was extremely frustrating. I checked all my cabling, my preamp, splitters, etc but everything was fine. I tried adjusting the attic antenna but that didn't help either. Finally, out of frustration, I bought this HBU22 antenna to replace both of my existing antennas. I wanted the bigger HBU44, or even the 33, but I didn't have the extra funds on hand.The antenna arrived undamaged and I promptly opened it up and began assembly. I tried to follow the directions, but since the directions are one of those "one size fits all" sheets that covers all the models, there were some steps that were pretty confusing. Most of the diagrams were for the larger antennas. I finally just put them aside and "assembled" the antenna myself using common sense and my experience from working with the other antennas. I use the term "assemled" loosely because the antenna comes all put together. You just have to unfold all the elements and put a few screws and wingnuts in to hold the UHF "butterfly" section in place. It's really pretty easy and anyone with some common sense should be able to do it without difficulty.I then mounted this outside in place of the old antenna. The overall size of this antenna is about the same size as our last exterior antenna (5-6 feet long), but the width is slightly narrower since this doesn't have VHF low band elements. Being in the Dallas area, we didn't need any low band VHF elements. The U-bolt that holds the antenna to the mast was just slightly too small to fit on our old satellite J-mount, so after a while of bending and flexing the various parts, I finally got it to go onto the J-mount pole. I connected the cable and wrapped it in a generous amount of electrical tape, and installation was done. I proceeded to disconnect the old UHF attic antenna and reconfigured the cabling so that this is the only antenna in use. It connects to a winegard preamp before being split to our TVs.The reception is remarkably good. It's about what I expected. It's not perfect, but it seems good enough. We did have some crazy storms here a couple of days ago and, during the storms, the signal did cut out. However, as bad as the storms were, I don't know that bigger antennas would have worked any better. Other than that instance, we haven't had any signal dropouts at all. Looking at the signal strength meter on our TiVos, the problem channel is notably better (back where it should be), and all other channels are either at the same level or just one or two points lower than they were before. This is about what I expected, though I had hoped that reception would be a bit better all around since this antenna is outdoor as opposed to our old UHF antenna being in the attic.Nonetheless, I am very pleased with this antenna.For those of you that like details so you can compare to your situation: we are located between 36 and 39 miles away (depending on channel) from the DTV transmission towers. According to that tv fool antenna site, it's a pretty clear shot to us, even though we're on the far north side of Dallas and the towers are down in Cedar Hill. There are some very large trees about 80-100 feet away from the antenna position, but I can't do much about them since that is on someone else's property.

I had purchased a small antenna (20 mile range and for more than this one costs) and the signal would break up for a second every few minutes. I took it back and bought this one and the picture is solid - no breaks in the signal.I was hoping to maybe get a few more channels as well but did not - however, the antenna does what it says it does and gets great reception.Just for some more general information about antenna purchasing:I also am far away from most of the TV stations that I watch (70+ miles), but you have to realize that there are transmitters in addition to the TV station location. For example, I pick up a TV station that is over 100 miles away due to a transmitter being just 15 miles from my location.So if you think an antenna is amazing because a reviewer says it gets signals from stations that are far far away, it might just be that there is a transmitter up on the hill just a few stone throws away.You can see where channels are broadcasted from and how far away transmitters are from your home at the following site: [...]