Two Prong--Best Digiatl Antenna for 50 miles - and - cheap basic streaming service?

[Kraniac]

Anyone with experience around a Digital Antenna with a 50 or 60 mile range?..will be an outdoor rig for sure, guessing it needs power..basically unobstructed path about 50 miles across lake michigan to the chicago transmitters..

Also..

Im looking for a Streaming service that'll give me a couple of news networks (MSNBC n whatever) and a minimum of throwaway channels..

Cheap..I dont watch much TV but i do like to check in on a range of news

SLING seems to be one that's most mentioned--i would like to be able to turn it on and off...no contract..

Are there hardware devices associated with any of these streaming services??
has to be friendly to short term rental guests..as simple as as possible..

Any others?

Thanks

[mattkime]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkroujtyJv0

He will help you figure out what you need and seem slightly annoyed along the way. Its a reminder of whats great about the internet - ordinary people helping each other.

[macphanatic]

You may not need a powered antenna. I have a cheap antenna that does better than a decently rated amplified antenna. The farthest signal either picks up is 35 miles. However, it's not flat terrain and there's lots of obstructions. Over water, you might be surprised. Pick up an antenna that is easily returned.

I use mine to feed a HDHomerun. If your smart tv can run the app, you can watch OTA on it without an antenna connection. Can also watch TV on tablets and phones, FireTV and AppleTV.

[Forrest]

Check out the Antenna Man http://www.antennamanpa.com/index.html

[Article Accelerator]

Kraniac wrote:
Anyone with experience around a Digital Antenna with a 50 or 60 mile range?..will be an outdoor rig for sure, guessing it needs power

I'm using a Channel Master 4228 UHF (for UHF + high VHF) but they don't make them like that anymore. I use a mast-mounted low-noise preamp (Channel Master CM-7777). This combination reliably receives signals over 80 miles away.

In my area, I pick up all the major networks and many independent stations. This is an ad-free, informative site:

http://hdtvprimer.com

Im looking for a Streaming service that'll give me a couple of news networks

With the above, I haven't found the need for such a service.

[RAMd®d]

This is all been said before but may bear repeating:

Terrain affects signal.

Amplification is inferior to a good antenna, on an S/N level.

There is no such thing as a 'digital antenna'.

Under some circumstances, amplification can compensate for lack of a good antenna.

For amplification to be helpful, it has to be high-gain and low-noise, not a common combination, and it has to have enough OTA signal to amplify.

You need to know if your stations are VHF or UHF, so you can determine the proper antenna.

Most digital stations are UHF, but sometimes a combination VHF/UFH antenna is needed.

Sometimes a signal in an urban environment gets bounced around (multipath) and a high-gain antenna omni-directonal antenna makes that worse.

[Michael]

If you want to try free for news, check the Haystack News app for your TV. We're use YoutubeTV and are outside of the Atlanta area so we don't get those channels. I set up Haystack News with our zip code and it shows 2 Atlanta and 1 Chattanooga channels' news segments. They also show news from many other sources. It's only news--it doesn't show the other shows from the Atlanta stations.

https://www.haystack.tv/

[btfc]

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=Kraniac]
Anyone with experience around a Digital Antenna with a 50 or 60 mile range?..will be an outdoor rig for sure, guessing it needs power

I'm using a Channel Master 4228 UHF (for UHF + high VHF) but they don't make them like that anymore. I use a mast-mounted low-noise preamp (Channel Master CM-7777). This combination reliably receives signals over 80 miles away.

In my area, I pick up all the major networks and many independent stations. This is an ad-free, informative site:

http://hdtvprimer.com

Im looking for a Streaming service that'll give me a couple of news networks

With the above, I haven't found the need for such a service.

Yes, I’ve had the best results doing this. With one of those power rotators to fine tune for more marginal signals.

macphanatic wrote:
I use mine to feed a HDHomerun. If your smart tv can run the app, you can watch OTA on it without an antenna connection. Can also watch TV on tablets and phones, FireTV and AppleTV.

I do this at my camper, works great. I’d use a website for TV Guide stuff (TitanTV I think) and use my MacBook Pro as a DVR.

[hal]

I hope you post a followup Kraniac - I'm curious about the ability to get a good signal over 50mi of water. I suspect it would be quite good, but that's only a shoot from the hip guess - I don't actually know anything about it...

[Spock]

The general rule is the higher you can mount your antenna the better the reception.