Antennas for digital TV

[1970galaxie]

For those people who are now getting into digital TV, what I'd like to know is, will an analogue antenna do the trick, or is it advisable to get myself a digital ready antenna?
If so, what are the things to look out for, such as the recommended brand, the number of elements needed, etc.
Doing a search around the Net, it becomes pretty confusing reading all the various specs and data, and then all the different shapes of them all. Does the shape really matter?
Cheers.

[pauljh74]

From what I recall, if you currently pick up 7, 9 and 10 OK, then it's likely you will be OK for digital, as Ch2 uses VHF channel 12 I think. Most antennas cover the range that digital TV uses, so as long as the antenna/reception is decent, there should be no issues whether the antenna is digital ready or not.

The antenna would need to cover the following channel's frequencies:
http://www.dba.org.au/index.asp?sectionID=22

I'm about 30km from Melbourne and using a $20 non-powered indoor antenna as I'm renting and it is sufficient. If the signal is good, the set top box cleans up the picture - even if there is noise in the picture using analogue. A brand new fixed antenna should kick ar$e.

[Tote]

We'r about 50 K from the Canberra transmitter and the old antennas we had (VHF and UHF thriugh a diplexer) work fine even with a splitter in the feed. I'd suggest trying you old antenna before spending any dosh on a new one.
Regards,
Tote

[XR6-VCT-2000]

Put it this way , if your old aerial picks up at least channel 7 , 9 & 10 pretty clear on normal analouge tv , then there is a very good chance than your not going to have any dramas picking up all the channels on digital using the same aerial.

I can actually get a better pic in my house on digital using a coathanger as an aerial than i can running analouge with a coathanger as an aerial. Although i do run a crappy roof aerial for my digital with no dramas.

Actually the best pic i think i ever got was when i was living in a unit , i had the foxtel on in there , i wired a female aerial plug up to the foxtel outlet on the wall / and no i wasn't trying to get foxtel through the aerial cable ! ..lol , it was just using the foxtel cabling as an aerial as far as i could tell . I don't know if foxtel would of like it but gee it worked well ..hehehe.

[xwgthoe]

When I first got my digital set-top box, I set it up through a set of "Rabbit Ears" and was able to get all digital transmissions except High Def (may be because it was only Standard Def Box).....just my 2 cents worth

Remember digital may be broadcasted from a different place than your current analogue. For example There is 3 digital transmitters in Sydney (Gore Hill, Manly Sewage Treatment plant, and Kings Cross/Bondi Junction area.) At work in North Sydney I can pick them all up as well as Wollongong stations using a pair of rabbit ear antennas stretched out at 180deg. If you are getting any interferance in analogue stations, digitial is pretty sensitive to this so you may need to do some minor adjustments.

[BAFalconXT]

Im in Murray Bridge with a roof arial and get perfect HD, and all channels. The signal comes from Adelaide, 70km away. But, if you dont have a good enough reception the screen will go black, it doesnt just go a bit fuzzy.

[1970galaxie]

Thanks people, just as I might have thought.
When I bought my 94cm LCD and HD STB, I used the original antenna, which was pretty good with my old analogue TV (some shadowing on ch 7, 9 ,10 ), but when I used it on the new setup, it was absolutely perfect on all channels incl ABC and SBS (which were average before).
It's just that I thought that if it was that impressive now, using the "crappy" antenna, then how good would it be if I got myself a digital one?
I think I'll now save myself the couple of hundred bucks.
Cheers.

[MITCHAY]

Mate I am using stuffed (wiring is real bad) rabbit ears to receive my digital signal. If you play around with it enough it will work!

[S3SR]

yeah we set up a 'media pc' at work with a digital tuner and rabbit ears worked great for bathurst.

its prefered you use the big ones on your roof with digital TV so much better and easier, a set top box will actually improve reception in most cases.

[MITCHAY]

I'd also recommend if you were to use a normal TV antenna that you lock out the automatic channel searching/updating feature if your STB has it, once of course you have your desired channels. A few times this has overrided my settings and caused me a good deal of grief.

Say you have a channel set to a specific frequency/channel etc and the update happens to tune in another station on that, it will override it and in my experience it usually has been crap reception.