Customer Reviews

CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I live in New York City about 14 miles north of stations broadcasting from the Empire State Building. I tried indoor antennas, both the Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception and the RCA ANT525 AMPLIFIED ANTENNA, neither of which would pull in stations consistently even when I was constantly moving the antenna to maximize reception. The signal quality was constantly bouncing between 10% and ~80%, so stations were constantly cutting in and out.

I purchased this antenna when it was recommended by the telephone agent at AntennasDirect.com. She recommended it for me over the Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna because this one was somewhat less directional, and smaller in size.

All I can say is, WOW. I have 100% signal strength on nearly all channels, with a consistent 85% - 100% signal quality. It pulls in 24 HD stations (more than the ones I tried before) without moving the antenna at all, and with no extra amplification. I am using it as an internal antenna -- it's just placed by the window.

This antenna is worth every penny I paid for it, and more. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

To understand this antenna, you have to understand the post-transition digital frequencies. this antenna may or may not cover the channels you want, depending on the stations in your area:

* Low VHF (RF Channels 2-6)
* High VHF (RF Channels 7-13)
* Core UHF (RF Channels 14-51)
* UHF (RF Channels 52-69 -- and obsolete once transition is complete)

The early DTV stations all used UHF, so people starting making antennas just for UHF, like this one. The problem is, now a number of stations have switched back to VHF. You'll have to look in your area to be sure. And you'll have to learn the RF channel involved. In our area for example KGO channel 7 broadcasts on RF channel 7 (VHF), but KTVU 2 broadcasts on RF channel 44 (UHF).

This antenna is optimized for UHF only.
For many people an amplified antenna is either a waste or harmful.
This antenna does not have an amplifier.

I had excellent results with the this antenna. The antennaweb.org website recommended a medium range antenna with a pre-amp as I am about 35 miles away from the antenna farm in Dallas/Fort Worth. Just to try it out I set the antenna on our dresser and connected to our new LCD TV in the bedroom on the far side of the house. I got a clear signal instantly with killer high definition. No preamp, antenna indoors.

I then took the antenna and mounted it on the old satellite dish pole that was already on our roof from the previous owner. I disconnected the Time Warner cable where it comes into the house and connected the Clearstream2 antenna there. All 8 TV's in our house get crystal clear digital pictures, and the pre-amp is NOT connected.

In case anyone is wondering, I get 66 channels in DFW right now, 42 of which are digital. If everyone gets on this band wagon, ESPN, CNN, MSNBC, and the other "cable/satellite only" channels will have to go to broadcast or possibly be looking at getting shut down.

This form of over the air TV totally rocks over what we had in the 70's! Cable and satellite can't even hold a candle to the high definition picture quality. As a bonus, the audio is in true Dolby 5.1 or better. We will NEVER go back to cable again, except for out internet. Our Time Warner bill is now $41 for high speed internet only and we will be looking at other options for that too real soon.

I give this product five stars and would recommend anyone to get it.

This antenna is fairly small and it works well. Just laying it flat on top of our tv gave a better signal than our old antenna with amp (bunny ears + loop) that we had picked up at the store. Mounted in our garage attic (attenuates the signal about 50%), pointing in the general direction of the towers we get a perfect signal.

Note that while this antenna is designed as a uhf and high vhf (channels 7-13) antenna, and I wouldn't recommend it as a low vhf (channels 2-6) antenna, we actually get a significantly better low vhf signal with it than with rabbit ears.

Hi,

Tech Challenged Senior Female here, so keep that in mind.

Not only tech challenged, but financially challanged too.

Which is why, when my cable company offered me a digital package for only $20/mth, I declined. After all, all i had was an old zenith large screen TV, hooked to a VCR and old DVD player and the basic cable from my cable company, hooked through an entry level Yamaha Home Theater receiver ( Trust me i had to learn all this as i went along, but I do sound techy, eh? lol )

This changed, when I won a TCD648250B model Tivo on Ebay, that records HD, and has THX sound capabity.
I started to long for the idea of recording shows that I couldn't get.

When trying to hook through the TiVO to the VCR, I noticed that instead of a cable in and cable out jack on the TiVO unit that it had a cable in and ALSO an ANTENNA IN. So i thought, why not give the HD antenna a shot, before, perhaps, breakind down and ordering digital cable that I could ill afford.

Hence the search for an antenna

I received this anteanna in the afternoon, it took me all of 10 minutes to put it together with a phillips screwdriver, using this short cable, the type the cable company uses, that I happened to have around, who remembers why?

I then screwed it onto the back of my TiVO to the antenna jack in.

Stuffed it behind the big screen TV, so it wouldn't show to the room, ( another 10 minutes ) did a channel scan...( that took the longest time )

and VOILA !! 128 channels found !

I then proceeded to look up some HD movies and told the TiVO to record them, and now enjoy HD THX movies at night.

Bravo Clearstream!! You're my Heroes !

Except for the fact that now i am longing for an HD TV ~ ;-)

This antenna seems very small and flimsy but it sure works great. I live 45+ miles from the transmission sites but get all signals in HD. Haven't tried it on an analog TV yet and probably won't as there is only a couple months left of them but the digital reception is great. One screw assembles it, mount it to a mast of some sort (I used the old satellite mount arm I had) and point it in the general direction of the towers. LOVE IT!

I usually don't leave reviews for the products I have purchased, good or bad experiences. But I was so happy with this antenna that I wanted to give my opinion of it.

I have purchased several antennas with no luck. I have bought antennas online and 2 or 3 from Wal-Mart and have returned all of them because they just didn't work for me. After reading the reviews of the Clearstream2 antenna, I thought why not. The reviews looked pretty good.

I ordered this for my mother. Her location is almost centered between Lexington KY, Louisville KY and Cincinnati OH. We installed this about 3 feet above the roof and received Lexington & Cincinnati all UHF channels, but nothing from Louisville. A few days ago one of the Lexington channels converted to digital. They are using a VHF High frequency channel and she was unable to get this. I started turning the antenna in hopes it would make a difference and boy what a difference. Not only did it bring in the VHF channel that's located about 36 miles away with a signal strength between 68-69, but she now gets the Louisville channels located 58-60 miles away with a signal strength of 70-80. The other Lexington channels have a strength of 83-85 and the Cincinnati channels located 47-50 miles away have a signal strength 75-83. In total she now picks up over 35 channels.

This is a great little antenna, and very powerful for it's size. I'm definitely glad I took a chance on this one, I sure don't regret it. If you don't get a picture at first, be sure and turn it to every possible direction before you give up on it, that seems to be the key. Hope this helps.

I live 23 miles from the broadcast towers. In Portland, we are fortunate that they are all co-located, so a cheaper directional antenna works well, no need for an omni or an antenna rotator. I first dismounted an old satellite dish and mounted this on the little arm mast but it was partially blocked in that location and I could not get any of the OPB (PBS) channels or Fox. I dismounted it, stuck it on a broomstick, and walked around my back deck. As soon as I cleared the neighbor's house, bingo! all stations clear, even if I just leaned the thing up against the house. So, I moved the mast to my deck cover, re-routed the coax and ground, and I now have everything that is available in our area, from Ch. 2 to 49, with no amplifier needed. Of course, if you have long cabling or splitters, your needs may vary. I just run straight from the antenna into the back of my DVD player, and then on to the TV, with a total of about 40 ft. of unspliced coax. You may see complaints about the placement of the F-connector and they are spot-on; it is a bit of a pain. The best thing to do is to run your coax through the reflector mesh first, connect it to the loops, and THEN attach the loops to the reflector. I had to do this several times as I kept mounting and dismounting it in my trial-and-error process but the performance is worth the extra little effort.

Went from rabbit ears to Clearstream2 on roof. I have over 100 feet of cable and split it twice. All 3 DTV converters show about 90% of max signal strength as compared to 75% to 80% with the rabbit ears. (I tried a shorter cable run of 25 feet and no splits on one TV. The signal strength averaged about 98%).

According to [...], I live 15 miles away from my signal sources in DC and need a red antenna. I have this antenna inside my apartment window pointing in the direction advised by that website and receive good signal on all channels I'm supposed to get.
I did want to point out that this is the C2 antenna, not the C2-CJM package you'll find at many retailers for a little more. This antenna is not the value pack which includes the mount. If you don't need the mount you can save some money and buy this one, but if you do I'd look for the value pack which includes it.