TV Antenna's video: DIY free hdtv antenna installation

Programming is rather straight forward. Using the MENU button on your remote, open up the SETTINGS option and toggle down to INSTALLATION and find AUTOPROGRAM. Your TV options may be different than the one showing here so consult your manual for the steps to take to get to where you can activate AUTOPROGRAM. On this screen you can also see WEAK CHANNEL INSTALLATION. That option allows you to manually add channels that might not have gotten picked up in AUTOPROGRAM. Toggle over to select CABLE or ANTENNA (select ANTENNA) and start the AUTOPROGRAM feature. It may tell you it will take up to a half hour for the program to complete but this one only took 59 seconds to find 18 digital channels and one analog. As you can see, all the channels are now available. In order to find out how many broadcast stations are within your reach, go to http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/, type in your zip code and you will see what is available. http://antennaweb.org/Address.aspx this one will show you how far away from the station you are located. They both show signal strength of each station as well, suggesting you need more antenna at a higher cost as well as pre-amps and amplifiers. All these add-ons are not necessary according to my experience. They are playing on your ignorance. A broadcast station sends out a signal at a specific wattage. THEY determine the range of their signal and there is nothing you can do to increase the range of their signal. Some will tell you an amplifier or a pre-amplifier is needed. Not true. What does make a difference is the size of your antenna however there is a point of diminishing returns meaning that if 2 square feet works, adding another square foot won't make any difference. Keep in mind that digital broadcasts are different from the out dated analog broadcasts. With analog, a weak signal could still be picked up but the picture was very fuzzy and the fuzziness would differ from broadcaster to broadcaster depending on the strength of their signal. With digital, the signal is either on or off. Clear as a bell or not visible at all. An amplifier wouldn't make any difference at all. Digital also changed antenna requirements allowing for smaller antennas to do the job. Some may argue that antenna design makes a difference as well but this antennas proves that wrong. Two sheets of aluminum foil is not much of a design factor is it? Location of the antenna in the house will make a difference. The best location for this antenna is on an outside wall, facing the broadcaster location. Weather can some times be a factor in reception too. Another factor is antenna location on the wall. Sometimes moving the antenna as little as 6 inches in any direction will change reception, especially during a storm or other atmospheric events that may be going on between you and the broadcaster. There may be times when one channel comes in fine but another one won't come in. Moving the antenna will bring in the one that wasn't on before and causing the other one to disappear.