Samsung HDTV Antenna help (1 Viewer)

[James_M]

I'd like to get HD air broadcast but I've only got standard cable and on the back of the hdtv, there's only one "antenna in". What do I do? Buy a digital antenna (any recommendations?), get a two-way splitter? I read in the manual under managing channels I can switch antennas via remote control but I don't get what kind of setup this is referring to. With cable plugged in, I can switch to air but it's not HD.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

If your cable box has antenna RF input, maybe you can start by trying that -- and see if you can have the box pass the signal to your HDTV. What exactly do you mean "it's not HD" when you switch it to "air"? Do you just mean whatever (little) reception you get does not look HD or do you mean you can't receive any of the digital broadcasts or something else?

You don't need some special "digital" antenna for digital OTA reception. Most of the digital OTA broadcasts are currently done via the UHF band, so some sort of UHF antenna should do right now. However, when the mandated analog-to-digital switch occurs later this year, some/many of the broadcasts will switch to VHF band, so you'll probably want something that does well for both in the future.

Check antennaweb.org help you get started.

For myself, living in the NYC area, we use a mid-size, powered, omni-directional, indoor antenna that cost ~$50 from RadioShack. I keep ours near a window facing the general direction where the broadcast signals come from -- though we do not have direct line-of-sight anyway. We use a rather long CAT-5 cable run to get the signal to our HD RPTV in the livingroom.

_Man_