Customer Reviews

Antennas Direct 43XG Long Range Uni-Directional HDTV Antenna

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've installed TV antennas in my second story attic for many years with good success. The distance from my home to the mountain where the Los Angeles TV transmitters are is about 30 miles and all line of sight (ignore the smog). After adding some air conditioning duct work in the second story attic, my old VHF/UHF TV antenna just didn't perform as well. I think the extra metal duct work created multipath interference problems. I could have moved the old antenna outside, but after standing on the second story roof and contemplating the fall to the lawn below, I decided to go for a new UHF high gain antenna and keep it in the attic. I read many reviews about another popular brand that had good specs, but it's construction was very poor. That lead me to pick this antenna based on it's high gain (to overcome the loss through the roof) and small height size (not much room in my attic. The mechanical construction of this antenna is very good. It only took a few minutes to pre-assemble it (snap elements to boom) before taking it up in the attic. I mounted it on a 1.25" wooden dowel and had a family member watch the signal strength indictor on our big Samsung LCD TV. It was very easy to know when it was pointed correctly. As would be expected with any high gain antenna, the beam width is very narrow. Moving the antenna just 5 degrees would make a significant improvement (or degradation) to the signal strength.

It has been a few weeks now, and a few rain storms have come and gone. I'm happy to report that we have never experienced poor signal quality with this antenna.

Probably the best mid-size UHF DIRECTIONAL antenna out there. Installed at a friends house with excellent results. I'd recommend you also get a Channel Master 7777 pre-amplifier in conjunction with this or any antenna for most situations. OTA DTV is not necessarily easy to setup, make sure you inform yourself and correctly assess your situation and reception conditions. You can get great advice at tvfool . com. Forget the other sites runs by antenna industry association or govt...

As a side note, I run this antenna's larger version, the 91XG with excellent results as well. More gain but it's HUGE and not suitable for all mounting conditions.

PS: Both antennas provide excellent reception from its front lobe as well as the rear lobe. I my case I use it pointing forward at farthest emitter cluster and still get local reception coming in from the rear side of the antenna.

Good Reception ... The weight and design make it a little less than perfect especially for outdoor applications. If you are going to mount this in your attic or somewhere totally protected consider this antenna a 5 star ... If you are mounting it outdoors you are probably going to want to consider a very stable mounting bracket and something to stabilize the long extended design. It is not absolutely necessary but I like to do things right.

This antenna has greatly improved my UHF reception over the Terk amplified antenna I was using. I gained about five channels as far north as Palm Beach (from Miami), but I also lost local channel 6. The instructions are not as thorough as they could be: it does not explain what to do with the small pieces molded together with the plastic parts, but it wasn't too hard to figure out where to put them. I did speak with the factory rep. after only a brief wait. I think I will need to connect the old antenna to this one to get all the local stations. There is supposed to be a Latino Channel 8 in this area that no antenna I have had has ever brought in. There is a model longer and even more powerful than this one, by the way. This model does not require the U-bolt: you connect it to the end of the mast.

I bought this Yagi UHF-Antenna 43XG and have been using it steady for a couple of years now. This antenna believe it or not gets very good reception and I have to jump over a mountain to get the signal. There are tree's on one side of the house and this antenna did not work, but on the other side I have a clear no-tree shot except for jumping a small mountain range between Simi Valley and Mount Wilson (approx 40 miles) where the signal is coming from. Even when it is windy this antenna pulls in the signal with very little breaking. The only problem I have encountered is when airplanes fly directly over-head between us and Mount Wilson we do either freeze picture or loose signal for a few seconds which can be annoying at times, Also OTA is 90% HD Digital. Best to use a good Signal Booster, I use a Motorola p/n 484095-001. Set-up from antenna: first run using 18 AWG RG6/U QUAD CABLE about 25-feet to Signal Booster to a Monster Cable Splitter (5-1000 MHZ, -3.5db) one side 6 ft cable run to HD-TV, other side of splitter has a 55 ft run to living room with another Motorola Signal Booster and a 6 ft cable to our HD-TV. I've read you should have boosters at the beginning of the run (antenna) but it works just find at the end of the run on my set-up, both HD-TV's have good reception.

Elements have to be snapped on to the boom. I pushed as hard as I dared and they didn't go on. I made the plastic snap-on openings wider using emery boards and then they snapped on.

I placed the antenna downstairs, a height of a foot or two above ground. I added an Antennacraft amplifier that is variable from 19-29 dB gain.

Channel scan on Vizio 7" LED: station 52 miles no dropouts. Reception was not line of sight but knife-edge refraction as there is a big hill just a block away between me and that station.

I recommend this antenna within 60 miles of high-powered stations if you have only UHF stations or are willing to use a separate antenna for VHF. If not, look at Amazon for VHF/UHF combination antenna ratings.