Going Indoor Over-The-Air (OTA) DTV in Fargo

In the days of analog TV and wood siding, we had problems getting all stations on all TVs in our house. When we got steel siding in 2003, we also got economy cable, recognizing that the reception situation would likely get worse. While I've had interest in going OTA and cord cutting for a while, recent changes in billing from our cable company have heightened the interest. Every TV beyond the first two is an additional $60/year.

We aren't quite ready to cut the cord. Live NFL football, Wheel of Fortune, and some other programming isn't available streaming. Also, the incremental cost of upgrading our internet from DSL is about the same as our economy cable bill. Without the internet upgrade, we can't do more than one video stream at a time, particularly HD programming.

Besides indoor antennas, other solutions include one on the roof or one in the attic. For various (weak) reasons, they aren't  my preferred approach.

The first step for both indoor and outdoor antennas is to identify the location of the transmitters relative to your location and their estimated signal strength. This information is available from an FCC web site . From our house, FOX is at 4:00, ABC and PBS are at 10:00, and CBS and NBC at 11:00 in the figure below. Distances are 25 miles or more.

In reading antenna reviews, there are a lot of comments about how low cost antennas work better than more expensive antennas for some people. Location of an indoor antenna is also critical due to signal physics such as reflection, diffraction, and more. The physics curious can read more . The good news is that the ghosting experienced by analog TV is eliminated in digital. The bad news is that some of the signal strength issues are counter-intuitive and some are seasonal as roofs get snow, trees gain and shed leaves, and cars come and go in driveways.

My personal preference is to avoid buying something that doesn't work and having to return it to the store. Another is to get solutions which are robust. This led to my selection of a wall-mountable, amplified, omni-directional antenna, the Mohu Leaf 50 Amplified Antenna via Amazon.com. There were good reviews for the antenna and I liked that it incorporated military signal processing technology.

Once the antenna arrived, I started methodically trying it in several possible TV locations. With cable, one locates the TV near a wall jack. In OTA, the placement of the TV is where the acceptable station list is available. For example, we could get by with one station in the kitchen, if it was the right station. Unfortunately that station was not among the four (all PBS) we could receive there. At the sixth antenna location, we got all 12 known Fargo DTV stations (WDAY x 4 including CW, KXJB, KVLY, MeTV, KVRR, and KFME x 4). That location makes sense in terms of height near the ceiling and a steel-siding-free line-of-site view of the three transmitter locations. The process of testing a location is simple : temporarily locate the antenna (eg taped to the wall), attach the antenna to the TV, run the TV channel scan, and check the results for stations received and picture quality.

A couple things I liked about the Leaf 50 antenna were that it is omni-directional (ie it receives stations in any direction relative to it) and that it mounts flat on the wall or other surfaces. This makes it easier to get it closer to the ceiling where we generally got more stations. Because the antenna is amplified and the tall trees near our house are gone, I'm hopeful that we won't have seasonal issues. Another variable for us will be snow on the roof. Currently there is little to none, but it can get two feet deep.

Our plan is to use our allotted cable boxes where OTA signals don't meet our needs, such as the PBS-only kitchen and the below ground family room. Success with the antenna may provide more confidence in a rooftop solution at some point. The main pro is that there is a single, typically more expensive, antenna to feed our eight wall jacks. The cons include an antenna exposed to the elements, losing a few cable channels like CSPAN and community access, and having TVs located close to wall jacks.

Update after over a year of experience : The antennas have generally worked well for us. There has been weak or lost signal from rain, snow on the roof, vegetation on the trees, and our artificial Christmas tree being set up. The solution has been to move the antenna to get a stronger signal for the station we are watching, but typically at the cost of loosing other stations. In my den, I have the antenna tacked on a bulletin board which makes it easy to move the antenna.