Bad Reception with TV Antenna, And other Antenna Questions..

[Phire]

Well my puter is downstairs and i tried hooking up a TV Antenna and the reception is extremely bad.. So I was wondering what my options are.. It was an amplified antenna too.. Is there any other antenna i can buy that will pick up the signal good? I was thinking of buying a longer coaxial cable and moving the antenna to a place where it could recieve the signal better, but it'd have to be a LONG cable and I know that long cables degrade the signal already. I was also wondering how a cable box would react in the same area.. would the signal be just as bad or would it remain unaffected?

[traveller]

As a rule of thumb:
reception is as good as your antenna system!
Here you've got a list of my recommandation:

1.Antenna should be as high as possible , direct to transmitter.If direction is correct ,you can't find any so called ghost on your screen.
2.In case you want to receive more channels mutch better instead of wide band antenna is use two antennas (VHF and UHF) splitted together with so called splitter.
Dont't try to economize if you want to buy antenna-it's the most important part of the system.
3.Don't worry about loosing your signal with long cable-the rule is simple:buy better coaxial cable.i.e in cable TV it is often to use cable for longer distance than half a kilometer.
4.Try not to use antenna amplifier.If you gotta use it connect it to antenna-NEVER to TV.It have to amplify only lost of the signal in the cable.It's much better to spend money for better antenna then for amp.
5.Remember about impedance of the coaxial cable-for TV is ALWAYS 75 ohm.Be careful in the shop you can buy also 50 ohm for other purposes-forget about it.
6.Make a good connection between cable and connectors on both sides-very often people don't care about it and they've got not as good signal as it might be.
7.Try to connect antenna pole to the ground.
You can use hydraulic pipe,part of the heating system etc.

If you do everything the results are better then you can think.
Hope it helps

Traveller

[Phire]

Ok, do you have any specific antenna in mind? And also, which is best for me to buy? an indoor or outdoor antenna?

what about this one? www.radioshack.com/ProductCatalog/ProductDetail/Index/1,2098,CTLG_1_1501862,00.html

[traveller]

It depands on what is your goal.
If you only want to see TV no matter what about quality and "snow" (noise) it might be easiest solution.
But I suggest you forget about it (and also other indoor antennas).Generally speaking indoor antennas looks modern and fine and are easy to install.
No more pros-sorry.
In the same shop you can buy antennas type Yagi which are MUCH MORE better.
I don't know what about frequencies in NY but if you ask seller for Yagi which cover TV channels in your area I hope he find something for you.
One thing important-Yagi antennas differentiate number of elements (it means also price) but I'm pretty sure for you enough should be something average.
And keep it as high as possible-top of the roof-look at my repost above.
I know it makes more trouble than simply buy any indoor antenna connect it and that's all.
But result will be much better if you think about my suggestion.
Remember, you install antenna only ONCE-no matter what TV card you've got,what TV set etc.
And one more thing-cable.
Remember-thicker is better.
Good reception