Seeking TV Antenna Advice in North-East Cobb (Roswell) (Atlanta, Toccoa: house, to buy)

[RainyRainyDay]

I live in the far north-east portion of Cobb County that lies in a Roswell zip code, in the vicinity of Sandy Plains and Hwy 92.

We have a modern flat-screen digital-capable TV which we normally use only to watch DVDs. However, we'd love to be able to watch live election TV coverage on Tuesday night.

We just dug out a Radio Shack indoor antenna that was kicking around in the basement and found we get great reception of the digital signal from a local Christian station, WATC 57.1, which makes sense because a bit of internet research indicates they broadcast from Sweat Mountain, right nearby to us. Unfortunately, we can't seem to bring in anything watchable from any of the other locals stations, all of which apparently have their broadcast antennas in downtown Atlanta.

Can any electronics experts out there offer advice? Is there a much-better indoor antenna we could go buy that would give us decent reception of the local network affiliate stations? We really don't want to sign up for cable or satellite, but it would be handy to be able to watch TV for special events like this.

Outdoor equipment would be OK too (if not too huge and hard to install). We can't afford cable/satellite and just aren't interested in it, but we'd be interesting in making a one-time investment of up to 100 bucks or so to get access to broadcast TV.

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

Can any electronics experts out there offer advice? Is there a much-better indoor antenna we could go buy that would give us decent reception of the local network affiliate stations? We really don't want to sign up for cable or satellite, but it would be handy to be able to watch TV for special events like this.

Have you looked at AntennaWeb.org? Basically, you put in your address information (or latitude/longitude) and it tells you what kind of antenna to get to get what stations. Probably a good place to start anyway.

[RainyRainyDay]

Rackensack, thanks for the immediate practical help!

After studying antennaweb and some other sites, husband decided that there seemed to be an acceptably well reviewed outdoor antenna available locally at Radio Shack. Time being of the essence, he rushed out to a local RS store before closing, where (seemingly slightly to their surprise) the guys on duty found the desired item in their stock room. So we're hoping to first try putting it inside the attic. That reportedly works for some, and would seem like a fine use of our large attic, which currently contains only a furnace.

[DoveDiva]

Do you have a high speed internet connection?

If so, just connect your computer to your tv and watch the live feeds that will be all over the internet (myfoxatlanta.com, wsbtv.com, etc)

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

So we're hoping to first try putting it inside the attic. That reportedly works for some, and would seem like a fine use of our large attic, which currently contains only a furnace.

The previous owners of our house had put a large outdoor antenna up in our attic, along with an amplifier, and cabled all of the coax outlets in the house to it, and left it when they moved. It's worked out well for us (our house has a hipped roof so there's room and to spare up there), and we rely on it for all of our TV needs (don't have cable or satellite). Some of the more obscure stations are a bit weak, but for all of local major network affiliates and most of the bigger independent stations, it's great, particularly those that are already broadcasting in digital. (Just discovered Saturday that WXIA, Channel 11, just started broadcasting continuous weather info on 11.2, btw).

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by rackensack

The previous owners of our house had put a large outdoor antenna up in our attic, along with an amplifier, and cabled all of the coax outlets in the house to it, and left it when they moved. It's worked out well for us (our house has a hipped roof so there's room and to spare up there), and we rely on it for all of our TV needs (don't have cable or satellite). Some of the more obscure stations are a bit weak, but for all of local major network affiliates and most of the bigger independent stations, it's great, particularly those that are already broadcasting in digital. (Just discovered Saturday that WXIA, Channel 11, just started broadcasting continuous weather info on 11.2, btw).

Yeah! Husband tried putting the antenna together in the living room first, saying he thought it would be easier to check it out there, on the theory that if it's going to work in the attic, it will work at least somewhat in the living room. It's easier to experiment with orientation in the living room.

So, we currently have the antenna in the living room, where we can get pretty much all the local digital broadcasting, it seems. Although we're not big TV fans (obviously) and don't intend to let our teenager become a TV junkie, we are rather thinking we should have tried this sooner. When my parents come for their annual Thanksgiving visit my dad's going to be overjoyed not to be deprived of the TV news.

In the living room, PBA digital only comes in at one specific orientation which seems to drop NBC. However, that's pointing the antenna right at our large fireplace. We're hopeful that reception will be a bit better up in the attic, where the antenna is moving tomorrow.

Those HDTV signals are great!

[southgeorgia]

i have an antennacraft hdview 360 i got from radio shack. it looks like a small flying saucer. its about 16" in diameter in a plastic shell; about 3" in height. it rotates internally and is amplified. its extremely easy to install using the sectional poles from radio shack. i get 18 digital channels (including sub-channels) on the ga/fl line; some are as far as 65 miles away. that number will be up by at least 2 in feb. 09 when GPTV goes full power in south georgia.

[HeavyHead]

This thread is a bit old already, and there have been some changes in the Atlanta TV market, so I thought I'll review the situation after all the "digital" changes.

In Roswell, you are only 16-20 miles form Atlanta towers. You have a good chance for reasonable reception with an indoor antenna, and to be on the safe side, you can pick a small outdoor antenna that should pull in all the channels for you.

The important thing to remember is that there are two stations transmitting on the VHF band: WXIA which is an NBC affiliate, and WUVM which is an Azteca affiliate (for those who watch Spanish channels). One may be tempted to buy an UHF-only antenna cause these are typically much smaller and slicker, but such an antenna won't give you NBC and Azteca.

For avid over the air TV enthusiasts, there is also an option of WNEG, a station affiliated with "America 1", which is transmitted from Toccoa, 70 miles away. Of course, you'll need a decent outdoor antenna for this and also a rotator, so that you can rotate your antenna between Atlanta and Toccoa.

In general, TV antenna choice depends on location. To discover what antenna is the best for your location, I suggest using TV Antenna GeoSelector ([URL="http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/location/"]An Ultimate TV Antenna Selector for US/Canadian States and Cities[/URL]). That will give you a list of TV stations in your area and recommend an antenna that will pick as many of the stations as possible.