TV repair

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

With my (pretty damn old) roof antenna, I pick up about 8 channels clearly, and another 5-8 channels with static. That's more than enough for me. If high gain means a narrower reception angle, then I imagine I'll lose some staions that I currently get, because the transmitters aren't lined up perfectly.

Higher gain means those other 5-8 stations get received and means no ghosts. Reread the post. Narrower reception angle means the ghost (reflected from another direction) is ignored. Higher gain means getting a new antenna so that ghosts are eliminated.

So your question is whether that current antenna has sufficient gain. Generally, antennas for both VHF and UHF do not have better gain found by 'UHF only' antennas.

An important point - or how to get ready: NTSC (analog) TV must receive UHF stations without ghosts or white dots (static). If not, now is the easy time to get it right. Wait for later and the task becomes difficult and probably more expensive.

Only UHF stations received by the current antenna clearly will be ones located where your HDTV stations will be received. UHF - means channels 14 and higher. When your channel five moves (maybe) to channel 36, well, if the neighbor UHF stations (maybe 20, 26, or 32) are not being received, then you also lose channel 5 when it moves to 36. If you are not getting UHF stations from that location, now is the time to fix it. Again, (and noted in the previous post) now is when to get a working HDTV antenna because only now will you see what you do and do not have; have enough information to fix or improve the reception. When conventional TV (NTSC) goes away, then spend and spend again until something works. When NTSC goes away, you lose the ability to see what needs correcting.