build your own HDTV antenna
Preface: after hooking up the magicjack and subsequently cancelling charter phone and cable TV, we were only recieving OTA HDTV, which was fine with us, since we didn’t watch much of the cable TV anyways, and we have netflix so we can stream as much Law & Order as we like if we feel we need a fix.
anyways…
There was an old antenna in the attic, so I ran a coax to a boster splitter in the basement, one line to the HTPC, and one to the upstairs TV.
we got all the local channels in with good signal strength, 90%+, but one channel, FOX seemed to want to bounce around the 55%-85% range. this would cause some irritating dropouts during programs.
i figured it was the signal strength, so i added another booster up by the antenna. this helped a bit, but dropouts were still fairly common.
so i happened upon a couple “how to build an antenna” posts on youtube and avsforum and figured i’d try to build my own.
we didn’t have any wire coat hangers, so i got 4 3 foot wire rods at home depot for $1.88 each, for a total cost of $7.52+tax. i had the washers, screws and a 2×4 laying around the garage, so that’s all i needed to spend.
here’s some photos of the final result:
and believe it or not, it actually works. now i’m getting all local channels at above 90% signal strength, CBS, PBS and ABC all at 97%. no more dropouts for us.
the wife thinks it looks like some sort of junk art, but it’s in the attic, so who cares what it looks like, as long as it works.
p.s: you can see the old antenna that was there when we moved into the house in the background of that middle photo.
another p.s.: I know that there’s no such thing as an “HDTV” antenna, or a “digital” antenna. an antenna is an antenna. but it just sounds cooler to say i built an HDTV antenna 
