What TV Antenna

Sailm8 · Apr 18, 2011

Nick,
If your TV has a digital ready tuner, I would try rabbit ears first. In coastal Florida you would pick up dozens of stations.

Buzzlovelace · Apr 18, 2011

Personall I hook in to my vhf antenna with a splitter, and get 2 channels perfectly. Most of the tv watchers on my dock buy one at bestbuy that looks like a butterfly. They get alot of TV

Forrest15112 · Apr 18, 2011

Streaming Video?

You should consider streaming video from the internet. Of course this will only work in areas with WiFi coverage but it does offer much more than broadcast TV when available, and much is free. I have a Roku at home that I use to stream TV shows and movies directly to my TV. It has channels that mostly are free and consist of independent films to classic movies to television shows. I already had a Netflix acct ( $8 a month) and have been using Hulu Plus ( also $8 a month) for a few months. There is lots of free programming and dozens of channels for specific tastes. Sail TV is a new one and also free. Hulu Plus has lots of current TV shows and includes all episodes from every season in most cases. I have rather slow internet at home ( 1.5MBs) and have no trouble streaming video over my wireless network in the house. It's small, runs on DC, and has HD output. It doesn't do live TV like sporting events but you can purchase a baseball package sort of like NFL Sunday Ticket and I would expect other sports leagues to become available eventually. If live TV like NFL games isn't important, a Netflix and Hulu Plus acct for $16 or so makes for a lot of choices.

stephen Penny · Apr 18, 2011

I installed a Glomex antenna on the mast, which receives all the local tv antennas in the SF bay. I can view major sports, car racing, movies, public tv, etc.

Joe · Apr 18, 2011

I bought a digital capable rabbit ears type at Best Buy for about $25 to go with my 19" Vizio($189 at Costco)... I works really well... somtimes I put it outside on the cabin top... most time I leave it inside. I'd try the cheapo way first... the main issue for me was the football channels in HD. CBS, Fox and ABC all broadcast in HD so I'm good. I've seen a few folks with DISH receivers sitting on the dock ourside their boats.... but that's not me.

Bill1565 · Apr 19, 2011

seadaddler said:
The wife gave the order she wants TV on the boat we have the TV/DVD and we usually watch DVD's but she wants TV too so what Antenna are you using.
I have seen TV antenna's on the arch of many boats that's what I will do for now and maybe later on put it up the mast.
Nick

We bought an omnidirectional antenna that hangs on the wall over the tv. It is about 12" square. Always get a few channels on our 22" hdtv flat screen. We got our antenna from Sears because they had the best price for the one we wanted.

med2463 · Apr 19, 2011

We bought one that is flat and hangs on wall over over hdtv. As Bill said in his posting, we bought it from Sears who had best price at the time. Even in Pelican Bay we get 5-6 channels. Only place we didn't get good reception was in upper keys, got one channel and it was in Spanish. Here is link
http://www.amazon.com/DVB-T9001-OMN...VM/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&qid=1303213240&sr=8-30

philwsailz · Apr 19, 2011

With a mast-top amplified omnidirectional from Glomex or Shakespeare, I am able to get around 22 channels where I sail and I am in north central rural Oklahoma. roughly 45 and 65 miles from either Oklahoma City or Tulsa. I get the OKC channels just fine.

I highly recommend going mast-top to get the height and I also recommend amplification. You will be rewarded with WAY more channels.

Understand that for all practical purposes, there is no such thing as an HD antenna. HD is broadcast on the same UHF frequencies, (CH14 and up) we have been using for years. If you have an older UHF antenna, give it a shot. It will most likely work quite well.

Berndahle · Apr 19, 2011

I have a Dantronics Triax UFO at the top of my mast. As the name says, it looks like a UFO but is considerably smaller than the Shakespeares I've seen at WM. I get perfect HDTV signal on all broadcast networks and a few local channels as well as FM radio. Do an online search to find out which channels are broadcasting HD in your area and how far away they are. You should be able to receive high quality signal from towers up to 20 miles away. It's about 8" or 10" diameter and according to their documents (I haven't checked this myself) the power consumption is 15 mA. Defender sells it for $150.