Customer Reviews

Terk Technology TV-55 UHF/VHF HDTV Indoor/Outdoor Amplified Antenna

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

Purchased this unit (mounted indoors) because I got tired of adjusting rabbit ears (I refuse to pay $50/month for cable). Unfortunately the reception quality is mediocre, if not subpar for its price. I get cleaner pictures with my old amplified rabbit ear set.

I bought Terk TV55 for my RCA F38310, an HDTV. Considering the price, I thought it would be one of the best in the market, but to my surprise, the signal reception was EXTREMELY poor. So I returned the unit and purchased Winegard HD-7080, an outdoor antenna, instead. This HD-7080's been performing well so far, enabling me to receive all the "picture perfect" HD signals from local stations (*CBS, NBC, ABC, KCET, etc) in the greater Los Angeles area. If you're looking for a reliable HDTV antenna for over-the-air HD signals, pass Terk TV55 and consider either Winegard or Channel Master. (A side note: Preamps manufactured by Winegard or Channel Master will greatly improve the overall reception. I have Winegard AP8275 to compliment my HD-7080, and these units give me the clearest picture imaginable!)

I bought this antenna to replace a Terk TV4. I wanted to get better reception on some weak UHF stations.

I was a little leery of the TV55 based on the negative reviews, but I wanted something I could mount on the back porch if necessary. I was very pleasantly surprised. True, in my living room it didn't do much better than an indoor antenna. But out on the porch it's fantastic. I'm getting VHF from about 40 miles away and UHF to 25 or so. And this is an urban neighborhood with lots of tall buildings.

Best features are the versatile mounting options and the inline amp, which greatly improves UHF signals. Drawbacks are that it's expensive, and works much better outside than inside.

Most importantly you should look for the best reception location before you buy. My living room is tough for TV but the porch is fine. It sounds like some of the negative reviewers don't understand that it varies from room to room.

I was really suprised by the extreme differences in experience that buyers were having. But the good reviews convinced me to give this product a try. I have spent the last 3 hours getting very frustrated with the poor performance UNTIL, I found that my problem was 2 fold, placement really matters and use all RG6 cables. Some of my patch cables (the cheap stuff that came free with my VCR completely lost the signals). Now I am picking up channels that never even registered using the Terk HDTVi. I am getting more channels than Antennaweb.org mapper said I could get with a large directional antenna.

The Terk 55 is great. I had tried several outdoor antennae before I purchased the Terk 55, and none of them were satisfactory. I returned every one of them. In fact with a couple of them, my rabbit ears picked up MORE channels. I was quite pleased when I purchased the Terk 55. It has proved to be an excellent antenna for High Definition (HD) reception as well as conventional VHF and UHF, but there is one important caution: it is VERY directional.

I was able to get very clear HD reception on channels from 50 miles away (Miami) with it only 20 feet in the air. Remember,it is necessary to rotate the antenna so it is at right angles (perpendicular) to the station transmitter to get any signal.

There is a web site that will help you find where the station transmitters are located relative to your address if you need to know where the transmitters are. The web address is:
http://antennaweb.org/aw/address.aspx

Simply enter your address and you will find where all the stations are. This site is free to use.

On the negative side, it did not pick up a signal from only 2 miles away because it was precisely in line with the end pointing directly at the transmitter. Once I rotated to the perpendicular position, it worked great. Presently I am rotating it by hand, but I plan to buy an antenna rotator.

Here is the bottom line for using this antenna. If you can:
A. set it up so it is perpendicular to the channels you want to receive it will work perfectly,
or if you
B. have it installed so you can rotate it to the perpendicular position, then you will find it to be an excellent antenna.
If you cannot do either A or B above, I don't think you will be happy with the Terk.

One more thing. The Amazon price of $60 with free shipping (when I bought mine) was far and away the best price I could find. Most places were getting $99 PLUS shipping.

After trying a number of smaller 'set-top' antennas with zero success, I decided to try the Terk TV55. I purchased at Circuit City for their ease of return, even though there were lower prices online. Turns out I will not need to return this unit.

I live in a heavily wooded townhome community and was nervous about my chances to receive local digital channels, even though the transmitters are less than 20 miles from my house.

I opened up the box and had it connected to my Hughes HTL-HD receiver within 2 minutes. I bought 15' of RG6 cable (beware: the unit only comes with 3'), thinking that I would need to route the antenna outside under an eave or wherever. Well, I didn't even have to go that far. As soon as I flipped to my local digital channels (we have 20 here in Norfolk), I was AMAZED at the reception quality. No drop-outs or pixellation. And this was by just having the antenna INDOORS, ON TOP OF MY TV!!!! Now that I know I can get such great results, I plan on mounting it outdoors so I don't have to look at it indoors.

Well, that's it. I have never written a review here before, but I just wanted to add my two - cents worth after getting such terrific results with the Terk TV55. Thanks Terk! My next step was going to be a monstrous YAGI type antenna on the roof, so I am obviously happy that I didn't have to go that route.

Great product...works as promised. Good luck to you.

I thought that if I was going to pay [alot more money] for an antenna, I was going to get perfect reception, I was wrong. I can get a great picture on only one side of my house, the trouble is my bedroom TV is on the other side. I hoped that if I mounted this antenna on the outside of the house on the "good" side, I would get a clear picture. However, before I did this I decided to test the antenna. I connected a 75ft cable to my bedroom tv and dragged to the other side of the house to a tv that gets great reception. I hooked up the antenna and ran back to the bedroom to look at the great reception I was going to get. To my surprise it was worse than what I had prior. I then removed the Terk antenna and attached my $2 rabbit ears to the 75ft cable (still on the good side of the house) and got perfect reception. Just to be sure, I went ahead and crawled on my roof and tested the Terk. Awful reception! Again, I tried my rabbit ears on the roof and had great reception. The Terk has been returned and I am now going to waterproof my rabbit ears and stick them on the roof. This is my second and last try with a Terk product. I purchased and kept the [price] TerkQ radio antenna and found it to be worse than the antenna that came with the stereo. I will never try Terk again.

I recently recieved my order and plugged it in thinking it would be great... it wasn't. Like many reviewers, I was getting better reception with rabbit ears, an NO HD channels.
.
THEN I realized my mistake.
.
HD signals are NOT REALLY broadcast on the same frequency as their analog cousins. My local channel 11 (analog) is broadcasting channel 11.1 and 11.2 on frequency 59. Once I had the TV search for available channels, it found 59 (and other HD signals), and mapped the channel numbers to 11.1 and 11.2. I even tried going direcly to 59, but the tuner thought I waned 59 analog. Once I had it set up right, I'm getting the big 3 (ABC, NBC, CBS) and on rare occastions FOX and WB. The antenna is mounted INDOORS right now, and I think I can get the others once I move it OUTDOORS, but that's a project for after the summer heat.

I connected the antenna to my Mitsubishi with an integrated HD tuner and could not receive stations with any consistency. I mounted the antenna in several locations, indoor and out, including on a mast on my roof and reception never improved. I purchased a cheaper conventional outdoor antenna and reception is perfect. I live approximately 25 miles north from the towers in Dallas. Very disappointing for the price.

Maybe I was too much of an optimist to believe that this would improve reception in the skyscraper canyons of New York City, but even from an 18th floor window this antenna could not pull in a single channel.