Customer Reviews

Antennas Direct ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna

5 star:		(203)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Absolutely the best antenna for DTV reception on the market! I upgraded from a DB4 in hopes of getting reception out of market and it easily locked in all the local stations at a distance of 40 miles, But I was blown away at how well it captured many stations from a town over 100 miles away. I live on a hill so that obviously helps and your mileage may vary, but I never had as much consistent long range reception with any other antenna. Another plus, it's no larger than a DB4.

One tip: The position of the binding posts used to attach the buss bars do not leave much room to tighten the wing nuts, so connect both sets of tapered loops with the buss bars, first, before assembling the rest of the antenna. That should make things easier.

FWIW, the negative review below is obviously a troll and should be disregarded; he has posted the exact same comments about the DB2 and the DB4. Hmmmm..

I've been using a DB4 antenna for about a year and a half, and it was OK. It was connected to a 4-port amp, which outputs to a pair of HDHomeRuns. Out of the ~15 HD stations in my area, I could get a good signal on ~4 of them at a time (depending on how the antenna was pointed), marginal on 3-4, and the rest were totally unusable. I finally got tired of this, and was about to purchase a DB8, when I noticed this little beauty. I figured I couldn't go too far wrong, and ordered it. After 5 minutes for assembly and 5 minutes to mount it in the attic (just guessed which direction to point it -- the wide beam on this antenna is wonderful), 13 of the 15 stations get near-perfect reception (>90% signal, >90% SNR); the other two are good (>70% on both). WOW - what an improvement, especially for an antenna that is only slightly larger than the DB4!

Highly recommend this over the previous generations of Antenna Direct antennas. And with Amazon's Prime shipping, you can't go wrong on this!

I have an antenna in the attic which has pulled in analog signals for us just fine over the years. Got one of those digital to analog boxes so I would be able to continue getting off-air after February '09. Even though the box was attached to the same old antenna I was surprised that I could receive no digital stations.

Looking at the reviews I decided to get the Clearstream 4. I placed it in the attic, although the material recommended not to. It pulled in the 4 local digital stations but two of them were badly pixilated. I moved it up to the roof and am now receiving good signals. We live 25 miles from the TV towers, in a low valley with large trees between us and the towers. This antenna works! I also appreciate that it is light and thus was easy to move around to the different placements. If you are in a difficult location, be sure to point it at least roughly in the direction of the digital tower(s).

The C4 antenna is excellent when you consider its size. I placed it in my attic (as a backup antenna during hurricanes threats) and it works very well. I am 18 miles from the Miami TV stations to the south and 25 miles from the West Palm Beach stations to the north and I am able to receive all of the UHF digital transmissions. I placed C4 and C2 antennas in my attic, back to back, on the same 4 foot mast.

I gave it 3 stars because it has no reception capability on the VHF-Hi channels (7-13). I tried it outdoors and there was no reception on Miami's channel 7 (transmitting on channel 8 until June 12) and channel 10 (transmitting on channel 9). The same was true for the Palm Beach station, channel 12 (transmitting on channel 13). Antennas Direct/Terrestial Digital claims "consistent gain throughout the ENTIRE DTV channel spectrum", but this is totally false. The DTV channel spectrum includes channels 7-52 (both VHF-High & UHF), not only channels 14-52 (UHF). Channels 2-6 (VHF-low) are rare exceptions when they are used to transmit DTV, so I have no qualms about no reception for these.

Since I also got a C2 antenna (C4's little brother), I was able to compare them and there is practically no difference as to their reception capability. For the size, I think that the C2 is better.

One surprising result is that it works great to receive FM radio (something that their product literature does not claim).

At first I thought that the C4 had poorer reception than the C2. I had a little problem with a rattle inside the C4's 75-ohm connection box which required me to disassemble it (a nut was loose inside). I finally figured out how to put it back together on my own, but I had contacted Antennas Direct (twice) through their website, and they failed to respond. It seems that they respond only if it is going to lead to a sale. Once a sale has been made, they are not interested in helping their customers. Shame on you Antennas Direct/Terrestial Digital!

If you want an outdoor antenna for channels 7 to 52, I recommend the ChannelMaster 4228 (unfortunately discontinued) and the Winegard HD76xxP series (i.e., HD7696P).

I have been very pleased with this antenna. I am ~43 miles from the TV towers in LA. I did have to mount this antenna on my roof, above the roof line of neighboring houses, but the signal I receive is great. I simply used the previously installed cable coax from the cable company, and hooked it up to the C4, and am able to get a perfect signal on three TVs in my home. So that's three 2-way splitters, ~100' of coax cable, and no pre-amp is necessary. Compared to the large traditional outdoor tv antennas that for my location would need to have a 5-10' boom length, the C4 is quite small. I was able to get 58 digital channels after doing the auto channel search on my digital converter box. And I can now enjoy FREE HD quality TV. I ordered and received the C4 from Amazon, but some of the metal parts arrived bent out of the box. I was able to assemble it anyway, and luckily they didn't seem to be critical to its function. With the advent of free digital TV, this is absolutely the way to go. There is no more of the fuzzy analog signal with digital. Ditch your cable TV provider and get rid of expensive monthly cable fees, get free HD TV with an antenna, and then you can always watch shows that aren't broadcast for free on the internet (Hulu.com, etc.)

I am no expert on antennas but I read quite a few reviews before I purchased this and I'm very happy with it. The stations I was hoping to receive were right around the 60 mile range with one about 70 miles. I am able to pick up all of the stations I was hoping for using just this antenna. I mounted it outside on the edge of my house and ran 50' of coax to my digital tv with no amplification. I have it pointed at the channels in the 60 mile range but am still somewhat able to pickup channels in another direction that are about 40 miles out. So it is still somewhat directional. The one minus I will note is the assembly. It took me around 30 minutes and the directions are a little hard to follow. Other than that I highly recommend it.

This antenna exceeded my wildest expections.

I have moved from New Hampshire to a place about 40 miles northwest of Orlando. When I ordered the antenna, I thought I'd have a good chance of picking up some of the stations from that city. However, while waiting for delivery, I checked further, and found that the antennas for the TV stations in Orlando are about 60 miles away. Given that I planned to mount the antenna in my attic, I no longer was optimistic--the antenna is supposed to be good for up to 65 miles, but with the 10-15 miles you lose mounting in the attic, I thought I'd be outside the range in which it would work. Then, on top of that, I realized that I'd be pointing the antenna right down the street I live on; so the signal would not have to go through only my roof, but the roof of the 12 or so houses that are between my house and the broadcast antennas. So even before the antenna arrived, I was mentally preparing myself to return it.

When the antenna came, I spent quite a while trying to get it to work by my TV. I was able to get only a few stations, and those were from places other than Orlando. Then I got a friend to help me and took the antenna up to the attic while he stayed in front of the TV and watched the signal strength meter on the TV. To make a long story short, we found one precise location where I was able to get EVERY station from Orlando with perfect clarity. I get 10 digital channels, and each of them has 2-5 subchannels, so I get about 25 stations with this antenna--all with perfect picture.

Some cautions:
1. This antenna is designed for digital signals only. The best picture I got from an analog signal was quite weak and snowy. But after Feb. 17, digital is all you're going to get anyway, and this antenna is tremendous at picking them up.
2. The instructions to put it together aren't the best I've seen, and the pictures that came with the instructions weren't clear enough to see details. As a result, it took at bit of trial and error to finally put the antenna together correctly. But the whole process only took 15 minutes or so (I think if you knew what you were doing, it would take less than 5).
3. When you're operating from a fringe area like I am, the precise placement of the antenna is critical. Just changing the aim by a few degrees or changing the location by a few inches made a world of difference, so if you are in a marginal situation like me, you'll need (1) a helper, and (2) some indication of signal strength (fortunately, there is one built into my TV).

But when it's all said and done, this antenna really does a tremendous job of gathering signals. I just can't believe the quality and quantity of the signals I'm receiving from this rather modest-sized antenna (I have very limited space in my attic, and the antenna fit easily), given how far away the stations are and all the housing material the signal has to go through to get to my antenna.

I live 60 miles from the LA transmission towers behind a good sized set of hills and I have been using a really big Channel Master deep fringe antenna plus a signal amplifier for about 6 years with mixed results. This received about half the major LA channels - NBC4, ABC7, WB5, and KCAL9 sometimes loosing reception when the weather changed.

I took a chance and bought the clearstream 4 after reading some limited reviews saying how consistantly it locked onto fringe signals. I installed it this morning and now I am getting all the available channels but one - Ch13 - and I couldn't be happier. I can't say that the signal strength is higher than before, but so far it is much more consistant over all the channels.

Another major plus is that this antenna is less than 10 lbs and is a fraction of the size of my old Channel Master. This lets me put it up and take it down without any help which was a major selling point with my wife.

Some people posted assembly problems but I found it relatively easy due to the use of wing nuts - no tools required. All parts were finished well and fit nicely with the exception of one set of almost hidden wing nuts that did require some thinking on how to get them on and off. But overall assembly is a snap.

This is an excellent product and I highly recommend it!

This antenna gives an excellent picture! Although it took a few hours to get everything setup and the antenna pointed in the direction where I received the most channels, it was worth the trouble. I live about 35 miles from the closest television station and I receive it beautifully! I'm also receiving channels that are 40-60 miles away and this is with the antenna mounted in my attic.

Less wind resistance, I lost my last big old-school style antenna in high winds. Less than a week after I installed this one we got leftover winds from hurricane Ike which caused widespread damage to the state. I stood outside and watched it just wiggle a little while the trees were whipping around in circles and limbs were snapping off...breathed a sigh of relief on that one.

I don't even use the rotor any more, it's picking up all the stations I use in the one position. It's much less directional than my big old top of the line. I'm picking up additional stations I didn't get before too.

I don't know of any antenna that will pick up stations with a good strong signal in a very wide area though, so if you have stations that are fairly wide apart you should be using a rotor. While researching for this new antenna I saw a lot of bad reviews on some antennas because people didn't seem to realize that...