On Fri, 7 Nov 2014 21:49:13 +0000 (UTC), "badgolferman"
wrote:

badgolferman wrote:

I bought a GE Enhanced TV attic mount HD antenna (60 mile range) from
Wal-Mart.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-Attic-M...tenna/20976617

I have two TVs in the house, a 42" Sony and a 32" Vizio. My plan is
to install the antenna and run a coax cable from it to the junction
box where the cable comes into the attic.

1) Can I use one antenna for TVs?

2) Does it matter which side of the attic I install the antenna? I
think the stations are closer to the opposite side of my ranch house
than the cable junction.

The instructions are mute on these questions.

I tried out the attic antenna today. It is supposed to have a range of
60 miles and the broadcast towers are around 25 miles south of me. I
pointed it in that direcection and hooked it up to the attic amplifier
where the cable comes in. I then auto-scanned for channels on both TVs.

A total of 8 digital channels were detected. Only one of them was HD
and that was the ABC affiliate. All the other channels were local
useless ones I would never watch. I went back up there and moved the
direction of the antenna around a few times and rescanned. Not much
changed. According to the antennaweb.org site all the major affiliates
should be easily reachable for me.

I am dubious of the attic antenna although my friend who lives 5-10
miles closer to the towers is pleased with his. I may get an outdoor
type and try that next.

Two things come to mind:

1) Some roofing materials are worse than others for blocking signals,
especially metallic radiant barriers.

2) Is the antenna for both VHF and UHF -- check antennaweb to see if
you need both ("RF channel" 13 or below). I've seen some antennas
advertised as "digital" (there's no such thing; they're all just hunks
of metal) that were UHF-only. In my area at least, during the
transition period all of the "temporary" channels were UHF, but
several stations moved back to VHF after the cutover, disappointing
some who bought the UHF-only ones from companies that should have
known better.

As others suggested, it may be worth taking the TV outside with a
ladder and trying there, to see if it's the roof interfering. FWIW,
we're about 25 miles from the transmitters, no mountains in the way,
and get all of the local affiliates with a pretty compact cheap
antenna I got from Home Depot.

Josh