I've been having problems with over-the-air digital reception this past month. The weather hasn't helped and cars going by severely disrupted the signal. I finally had enough and did some more research. DTV needs a large surface area for the antenna and a mostly horizontal positioning. So what did I do? I made my own. Wouldn't you know it, it's better than the powered antenna that I bought. I took a metal panel from an old venetian blind and fitted it to an old antenna casing after removing the original antenna rods. Once I found the optimal position, I now get 5 bars on all but 2 channels. One channel, PBS 23, is from NJ and never comes in without power -- it works now at 3 to 4 bars. PBS 12, who is not transmitting at full power until the actual transition date, is so totally unreliable that I gave up watching it. No one I know around here can get it, yet they are probably the closest transmitter -- I get 3 bars on it now, but there are running fundraisers, so there is no point in watching anyway. All this without power boosting. Unbelievable. You know the old adage of doing things yourself... UPDATE: channel 12 is out again.
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