My dad recently bought a Hitachi 42" Plasma for one room in his home, and a 32" LG LCD tv for another room. There are 5 networks in his area the offer Over The Air Broadcasts of HD material. Actually, two of the signals are so strong, he can pick them up right now with no antenna.

Anyway, for Christmas I am going to get him an antenna that will allow him to pick up all of the broadcasts. He does not want some big Rabit Ears type antenna. Actually, if I could find something that would be a low profile design that could hide behind the TV's or possibly off to the side on a shelf, that would be best.

I was at BestBuy the other day and they have a few models that might work, but they also incorporate Rabit Ears which I don't need. Thanks in advance for any ideas you have.

Randy

Zenith silver sensor works pretty well. Other than that, everything else will be rabbit ears. Of course, outdoor antenna is the best. You might even be able to put it in the attic. My Channel Master 4288 cost $50.

They live very close to all the signal sources, so I doubt they would want to go with an attic solution, I'll check out the zenith silver sensor. thanks

I'm trying to find it online for you. My group at Intel was researching content delivery via OTA HD. We set up some computers with HD cards and these RCA antennas at homes around Hillsboro, Portland, and Gresham (Hillsboro and Gresham are roughly equidistant from downtown Portland). They worked quite well. It's just a small black "squared loop" antenna. I'll keep looking. I'm sure they are still out there.

I tried a Terk TV55 antenna. It had a friendly form-factor. However, I am ~30 miles from the transmitter, so I couldn't pick up diddley-squat. I got my ~$99 back and resigned myself to cable or DTV.

I have a simple, digital, not-amplified Jensen indoor antenna. It does the job well for HD. But I am close (15Miles) from the main signal though.

Tom, I have the same antenna on the northside of my house. I'm fairly close to most of the signal sources. My opinion of the TV55 is that is sucks. I occasionally lose certain colors, and have to turn my Samsung receiver off/on to get them back. Even for basic signals, my rabit ears do better. I'm looking for an alternative for mounting on the side of my house..

Thanks Thyname, my folks are within 10-15 miles of all of the 5 signals. I may just hook up some basic rabit ears and hide them on the back of the tv's out of site.

You could put a non-directional antenna in the attic and run a cable.

In reply to:

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I am ~30 miles from the transmitter, so I couldn't pick up diddley-squat

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I am 40 to 45 milies out and put a data antenna on the roof and get HDTV and digital signals.

And digital? Meaning you get more then the 5 or so basic channels broadcast over the air?

I am running an old VOOM box for OTA. I get the all the digital broadcasts, FOX, WB, PBS, NBC, ABC, CBS in the Evansville, IN market. PBS, NBC and ABC come in HDTV as well. With digital you get mutiple station broadcasts. Ex., NBC, my channel 14, 14.1 is HD, 14.2 is Weather 24Hr, 14.3 is digital standard definition.

I live in a two-story. The antenna (model 4228) is about 5 feet higher that the chimney to which it is attached.

You could pick up any analog signals with a UHF tuner.

you might try this:

Ratshack

Thanks guys for the advice, now I know what to get the old man for Xmas...

Hey Doug, thanks for the tips. I was not aware of that form factor for high-gain OTA antennas; I thought they were all still the big "boom" kind. I don't think I can sneak either one past the nazis in my HOA, but knowledge is power.

Do you have to fiddle with a motor to rotate that thing, or is it pretty much a Showtime Rotisserie (set it and forget it)?

With Evansville 45 miles away, all the stations are on one direction. I would use a rotor if other stations were closer.