Antennas
Over-the-air (OTA) or Free-to-air (FTA) antennas can be a valuable part of a home theater system. Some users get all of their broadcast television programs using an over the air antenna while others use it only when their cable or satellite programming is not working for one reason or another. However you choose to use your over the air tuner to receive OTA channels you will need an antenna in order to receive the signals.
There are three major types of antennas available. The easiest antenna to setup and use is an indoor antenna, which usually look similar to the old school rabbit ears. You simply set it up near your TV and run the cable from the antenna to the TV and then point the antenna towards the television station’s antenna and hopefully you should be able to receive a digital broadcast from the station. There are some downsides to this type of antenna however. For one the signal must travel from the television station’s broadcast antenna to the antenna located inside the house. It must pass through or around everything in-between the two antennas including all of the walls, windows, trees, and people in the way of the antenna. Another downfall of an indoor antenna can be the rather large and cumbersome size of the antenna inside a house which brings us to our next type of antennas, outside roof-top antennas. These antennas are mounted with the pole against the outside wall of the house with the actual antenna mounted above the roofline of the house. The roof-top antennas receive the best reception of all available antennas (when set-up right) because they are mounted outside and up high therefore limiting the amount of obstacles that the radio waves will have to pass through in order to get from the broadcast antenna to the home antenna. Some of the problems with this type of antenna is that the big antenna can be very difficult to install and usually needs professional installation which adds to the overall cost of the antenna. Another problem is that the big and bulky antenna can look very odd or even ugly “hanging” on top of the house’s roof. The third type of antenna is an attic mounted antenna which is sort of a cross bread between the two previous antennas. The antenna can be rather big depending on the attic and since it’s in the attic no one will ever see it. It is also usually up pretty high in the house so there won’t be anyone walking in-between it and the broadcast antenna to interfere with the signal. However, even though the attic antenna usually receives a stronger signal then an indoor antenna the attic antenna still looses about 50% of the signal while travelling through the roofing material. One thing defiantly worth mentioning is that attic antennas usually do not work at all on houses with metal roofs so if you have a metal roof keep this in mind when deciding on which antenna to buy. For more information on antennas including where the local broadcast stations are located in your area check out http://www.antennaweb.org.