How to Set up a TV Antenna

Watching local channels on your TV in the pre-digital era used to be as easy as plugging in your antenna and moving the metallic rabbit ears in the direction that best suited your viewing needs. Antennas for TVs and the overall viewing experience have come a long way since then. NextGen TV is the new broadcasting standard of today, combining both broadcast TV and content from broadband sources. However, in order to enjoy your favorite local channels, a TV antenna is still required.

The types of TV antennas

The first step to getting more channels is finding the best TV antenna for your needs, like an antenna for HDTVs. There are two basic types of digital antennas for TV to choose from:

Directional. Concentrating a signal to a specific direction, directional antennas have a wide range but are also restricted to just the specific angle they are facing.
Multi-directional. Omni-directional antennas have a more limited range as far as distance goes. However, they are able to pick up signals in all directions at once.

Directional and multi-directional TV antennas are among the best HDTV antennas and can detect multiple types of signals, giving access to more channels.

Amplified TV antennas

Amplified TV antennas are designed to boost the signal strength of directional and omni-directional antennas. People in rural areas can benefit from amplified antennas since they are better at picking up weak signals. However, if you are located close to a station that is being broadcast, amplified antennas can sometimes overpower the digital tuner, leaving you with fewer channels.

Outdoor vs. indoor TV antennas

Outdoor TV antennas are larger and more sensitive than indoor antennas and are beneficial in both rural and urban settings. The bigger surface size of an outdoor antenna makes it one of the best digital antennas because it detects more channels. Additionally, they are also usually mounted higher up, which helps in receiving far away signals.

Indoor TV antennas are ideal for people in more populated, urban areas. With a location closer to the actual broadcast towers, the extra wide range of an outdoor antenna or an amplified antenna is unnecessary. Indoor antennas are capable of picking up strong local channels just fine and may be all you need to enjoy the perks of ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV.

How to set up a TV antenna

Once you choose your antenna, it is important to make sure you have everything you’ll need:

A TV with a digital tuner. Before NextGen TV ATSC 3.0 was built into televisions, digital TV tuners were already included in most models. So, chances are that you already have a television with a built-in tuner.
A digital TV converter box. If you have an older TV that doesn’t have a built-in tuner, digital TV tuners and converters can be purchased separately. However, most TVs made after 2007 do have the built-in tuner already.
A coaxial cable. Most antennas are already equipped with a cable that will connect the antenna to the TV, but if your antenna does not have an attached cord, coaxial cables are available.

Finding the right location for a TV antenna

You should consider both the practicality of picking up as many TV channels as possible when finding the right location for your antenna as well as how it will fit in stylistically with the rest of your home’s décor. Placing the antenna behind the TV is a good option to avoid clutter. Setting the antenna on top of the TV is also a popular choice because it keeps the antenna out of the way while also being positioned to pick up more signals. Placing the antenna up in the attic or next to a window is recommended to really get the most out of your antenna’s range. If you’re using an outdoor TV antenna or an indoor/outdoor combo, you can also mount it to your roof or the side of your house.

How to connect an antenna to your TV

The easiest part of setting up an antenna is connecting it to your TV. Simply take the coaxial cable from the antenna and securely connect it to the coaxial port on your TV. If you are using an amplified antenna to boost your range, plugging the unit into a power source is also necessary. Check out the latest eco-friendly developments in technology to help lower your power bill while getting the most out of your TV and antenna.

Scanning for channels

You need to scan for channels before you are able to sit back and watch your favorite broadcast programming with advanced ATSC 3.0 picture quality. This can be done by turning on your TV (if you haven’t already) and selecting the antenna option instead of the cable option, which can be found in the advanced options section of the menu in most TVs. Then, simply start the scanning process and let the antenna do its job.

Analog vs. digital stations

While scanning, your antenna will pick up both digital and analog stations. Digital stations provide either a perfect picture or nothing at all while analog stations deliver a varying level of picture quality that can sometimes include static.

Getting your antenna for TV just right

If you are unsatisfied with the number of channels your antenna picks up after the scan, you can move the location of your antenna to a less obstructed area and redo the scan. Maneuvering around other pieces of your TV and home theater might also help. Your antenna will try to receive as many digital and analog signals as possible, so some distant channels might not come in the greatest. If this is the case, you can manually go through all of your channels after the scan and remove the ones you don’t want. Now, you should easily be able to click through both broadcast and broadband content with the best picture quality available thanks to the NextGen TV ATSC 3.0 tuner.

What is NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0)?

ATSC 3.0 is the new antenna technology from NextGen TV, providing an optimal viewing experience with clear reception, vibrant colors and a deeper contrast for greater depth and detail. ATSC 3.0 uses orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) to process high-definition and Ultra HD 4K content from both locally broadcasted TV stations and live events on the internet. This multi-carrier modulation system transmits data in multiple subchannel frequencies instead of one single frequency, allowing the NextGen TV tuner to process information at extremely fast rates.

Since this new antenna technology is such an improvement to previous ways of viewing both broadcast TV and live broadband events, ATSC 3.0 tuners have started to be built into TVs from leading brands such as Sony and Samsung. Once it’s paired up with an antenna, crisp and clear broadcast TV is now easier than ever to watch.