Ways to Improve Your TV Reception According to the Pros

TV antennas have become a boon for those who would like to cut the cord and enjoy TV without paying a penny. Most of the time, you just need to simply plug the antenna into your television, and over-the-air channels will be received. Whilst you may have many crisp and clear channels available over the air, you will probably find that a few are poor quality or that there are certain channels that you cannot pick up at all. 

However, dealing with electronic equipment can be a challenging task, and antennas are especially difficult because they are not very sophisticated and don’t give direct feedback. The minimal guidance from the manufacturers may not be enough, as you may be dealing with a daisy chain of attached devices, from coaxial cables to converter boxes. Engineers call them “single points of failure," which means a malfunction in one can cause issues with your whole TV reception. 

Here are some tips from the pros to fix these single points of failure and improve your TV reception. 

1. Amp Up Your Reception

In some circumstances, your reception may benefit from amplification, which means attaching an amplifier device. You can choose between a preamplifier or distribution amplifier (or, in some cases, both), which will improve your reception by boosting your outdoor antenna TV signal traveling down the coaxial to your TV. With a TV reception amplifier, you can get the signal of the channels that you couldn't before, or at least strengthen the signals of a few channels that were previously weak. To decide if your situation requires amplification, you need to consider the following:

- Check if your antennas come with a built-in preamplifier. 

- Check your distance from the transmission towers, as for less than 10 miles, the signals are most likely to come in as strong as they can get.

- Estimate if the coaxial cable that runs from your antenna to your TV is more than 50 feet long.

- If you are using a splitter for multiple TVs in your home, it helps to add a distribution amplifier before the splitter.

Most people install either a preamplifier or distribution amplifier — but if it doesn't work for your reception, try to install both. Just keep in mind, too much amplification can cause your reception to be interfered with.

2. Elevate Your Antenna

Your antenna can only work well when there is a clean line of sight to the transmission towers, which means your antenna should ideally point directly towards those with zero local obstacles standing in the way. The obstacles, such as buildings, mountains, and trees, may enable radio frequency to split as they bounce off surfaces and result in pixelation or no picture at all. 

In a lot of areas, it is impossible to have a clear line of sight to the nearest TV stations, so antennas have to be mounted both outside and as high as possible. While you can install them in the attic, it is generally not the best place for antennas. It is recommended to mount your antenna at least 10-20 feet off the ground and is usually best on the roof.

3. Aim Your Antenna Properly

Multi-Directional antennas offer powerful reception, but only when they are accurately pointed at the source of signals. So when your connection is poor, try to re-aim your antenna at the transmission towers, even a few degrees. When orienting your antenna, it's best to have someone sit in front of the TV to give you feedback.

There are two things you need to pay attention to when orienting your antenna:

- You can use the magnetic azimuth heading of the towers to aim your antenna towards it using a smartphone or compass. When pointing at a group of towers, you need to spend some time trying different angles to get the best signal from them all. 

- Make sure that your antenna is vertically level by using a carpenter's level tool, or else, you will get poorer reception.

4. Reposition or Re-Locate Your Antenna

As you re-aim the antenna, you may find that all the efforts are not making much of a difference. Don't forget that you can always move it a bit over to a new spot, or relocate it to a whole new area on your home. Moving your antenna’s location and the position may work because small distortions caused by obstacles in the way may be hindering the reception in your current antenna position. 

In most cases, the above strategies will be enough to improve the reception. You can expect your TV reception to work most of the time, but if it doesn’t, start systematically applying these methods and see what works by trial and error. There is nothing more frustrating than poor TV reception so take the right steps to fix yours today.