OK, here goes my antenna review.
It's for the
Antenna's Direct DB2
Location
Our house is located approximately 8 miles from the television broadcast towers for local stations. Here in the Phoenix Metro area of Arizona, the towers are located on top of a mountain (South Mountain), which allows for minimal deflection and disturbances typical of antennas mounted at ground level on a pole.
Old Setup before the DB2
I have a Mitsubishi Flat Screen 42" in the family room that is equipped with it's own digital tuner. For a while, I had used rabbit ears which gave me a decent UHF reception, but lacked VHF Performance on the lower channel range between channel 8 (PBS) and channel 3 (KTVK). Just to make it clear, I was able to receive the lower range channels, but the reception came in pixelated at times and would, on occasion, give me a "no signal" with a black screen. This was easily fixed by adjusting the rabbit ears in a different direction, but inadequate for me and my family since we didin't want to get up and adjust the antenna everytime we want to watch a different station.
Installation of the DB2
This antenna is not the prettiest nor the smallest antenna (Dimensions: 4 x 19 x 12 inches) I could find on the net, but after reading a few great reviews on Amazon and other sites, I decided to purchase it. One important note about the DB2, is that it's design is more suited for UHF than VHF, but as you will see in this review, the VHF reception of lower range channels did improve.
Installation time: 5 minutes
Location of Antenna: Mounted the antenna behind our TV cabinet out of view. A visitor would never notice that an antenna was connected to the TV set.
Post Installation of the DB2
Reception is now crisp and clear on all stations. Not only are the
DTV stations coming in clear, but we also receive all
HDTV over-the-air broadcasts without the pixelation or "no signal" reception problems we had experienced before. PBS has the best
HDTV broadcasts I've experience yet.
Complaints/Negative
The fit and finish of the DB2 is a bit less than what I expected, but definitely not enough for me to not recommend this antenna. I will add that, during installation, I was fearful of breaking something off of the antenna.
The design is definitely suited more for form over function, so if you mount this antenna out in the open, don't expect anyone to tell you how beautiful it looks.
