Antennas are a straightforward thing, but they can be no end of trouble. At its most simple, you can make a working antenna from nothing less than a wire coat hanger or some other metallic piece. In reality, if you stick your finger where the antenna goes, you can even act as an antenna yourself!
If you would like a good picture on your television, though (0r good reception for your radio, as the case may be), you need a good quality antenna. The best antennas for home usage are often ones that are mounted on the roof, as it is much easier for them to get a good signal from up there.
If you can’t get an antenna onto the roof for some reason, don’t worry, there are a couple of alternatives to constantly fooling with which way the thing points.
One good thing to try is a booster antenna. This is a particular type of antenna that plugs into the main electricity, and uses the additional power to boost the signal strength that reaches your television. Boosters are cheap and convenient to use, yet can regularly yield an extraordinary jump in quality.
Another thing you might try is using a long antenna (usually made of a long piece of wire), and put it out of a window. While hardly nice to have a look at, this also tends to boost your reception.
If you would like your television to receive digital transmissions over the airwaves, then you might find that you will need to upgrade your antenna. This is because some older antennas simply do not have enough bandwidth to handle digital transmissions. Nonetheless, plenty of older antennas will work with digital television, meaning that all you need to do is add a set top box or get a television that is already capable of decoding digital transmissions out of the box.
