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Over The Air Network TV

tec71

tec71

Well-Known Member
Apr 11, 2006
1,344
121
63
Ankeny, Iowa
Anyone have any tips for getting OTA networks. My condo will not allow me an antennae on the roof or on my deck so I'm relegated to indoor antenna options. I've tried basically everyone I can find in the box retailers. Starting to look online now. My condo is in Clear Lake, and on one of the options I got KIMT barely but otherwise nothing at all. I could be SOL.
Thanks
 
If you are in Ankeny as your profile says, you should have no problem using an indoor antenna to get a signal. NBC, CBS, and Fox all have their antennas just a few miles north of Ankeny. You will want antenna that can handle UHF, Hi-V, and Lo-V signals to get all of the big network TV stations.

Edit: Sorry, I missed in your OP that you are in Clear Lake.
 
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Go here, see what stations are near you. It will tell you, based on tower distance, what your options for antennas are. Most indoor antennas only pull reception up to 30 miles away iirc.

http://www.tvfool.com/

It will also tell you the direction of the towers, so you know what way to face your antenna.
 
According to this site, Clear Lake/Mason City seems to be in kind of a rough spot to pick up signals. What kind of antennas have you tried?

This one seems to be marketed as having a range of 60 miles. I never saw this one when I was out looking for antennas, so I'm not sure how it works. Ours is a flat panel design that has an advertised range of 50 miles. We live right about on that 50 mile limit, so aside from WOI-TV in Des Moines, our flat panel antenna seems to be 100% reliable.

Do you have a HOA that bundles some sort of cable TV option in? That's what we had gotten by with until we moved to a new home. We paid about $15 for HD DVR service through DirecTV, and the HOA covered the rest of the bill.
 
Any apartment I ever lived in if you ran a line to the coax in the wall you would at least get your local channels. Maybe not anymore. But that was my experience.

Other than that good luck, don't know much about it.
 
NickTheGreat said:
I came here to post this. They might not have to make it easy, but they can't restrict it completely.

That being said, I'm surprised Clear Lake can't get something with rabbit ears.
Click to expand...


And since he has a deck, they can't restrict a thing that falls within the measurements of the link above. If his roof is 'his alone', meaning there aren't people above or below his unit, they can't restrict anything up there that meets the measurements too.
 
keepngoal said:
And since he has a deck, they can't restrict a thing that falls within the measurements of the link above. If his roof is 'his alone', meaning there aren't people above or below his unit, they can't restrict anything up there that meets the measurements too.
Click to expand...

The roof is considered a common area and they can prevent putting it there. From the link posted earlier - "The rule does not apply to common areas, such as the roof, the hallways, the walkways or the exterior walls of a condominium or apartment building."
 
I would ask for advice in the forums at tvfool.com , or at least look around there for what others in similar situations are recommending.

I generally agree with the previous advice that putting a moderately-sized outdoor directional antenna in your attic (or even attaching to a closet ceiling or something) is probably your best bet. Get the antenna as high as possible, and if your TV will give you a signal strength readout you can use that to fine-tune the antenna orientation for max gain. A preamp or booster of some sort might help. Use high quality coax from the antenna to your TV.

It looks like your channels are mostly UHF with KTTC out of Rochester in the high VHF band. I think you should be able to find something that will give you enough gain to work unless there are terrain challenges with your condo's exactlocation. At least you don't have any low VHF to worry about... decent gain at those frequencies requires physically large antenna elements (WOI in Des Moines is low VHF).

If possible, try to find antennas that actually publish specs for their gain numbers at different frequencies... that may be hard to find in the smaller antennas, however, as most of that segment seems more concerned with marketing claims than actual capability.
 
tec71 said:
Anyone have any tips for getting OTA networks. My condo will not allow me an antennae on the roof or on my deck so I'm relegated to indoor antenna options. I've tried basically everyone I can find in the box retailers. Starting to look online now. My condo is in Clear Lake, and on one of the options I got KIMT barely but otherwise nothing at all. I could be SOL.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Unforunately, all broadcast towers for the Austin, Mason City, Rochester Market are all well to the NE of you. KIMT's is the closest, near St. Ansgar, IA.

My station, KAAL has a small repeater near Myrtle, MN but it barely covers Albert Lea.

Our main tower, along with, KXLT and KTTC's tower is near Ostrander, MN, the furthest away from you at roughly 60 miles at that point. KTTC's signal also requires an antenna that gets the 10.1 VHF signal which seems difficult to do in my past dealings.

Basically, what it boils down to... you don't have many options unless you hoisting a pretty big mast.
 
ricochet said:
The roof is considered a common area and they can prevent putting it there. From the link posted earlier - "The rule does not apply to common areas, such as the roof, the hallways, the walkways or the exterior walls of a condominium or apartment building."
Click to expand...
Not all roofs are considered common areas.
 
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