kolling@decwrl.UUCP (Karen Kolling) (08/23/85)
> I have recently purchased a Toshiba VCR. I have found that the > fringe reception capability of the VCR is inferior to that of my > Panasonic TV, and this is important since I live in the boonies, > have no hope of access to cable, and went to pains to locate a TV > which could pick up most of the staions in my area. > Does anybody have any opinions on the folowing remedies: > (3) improve my antenna system (I have fancy rabbit ears now) > with an outdoor antenna, or perhaps an antenna pre-amp A couple of years ago, I replaced my old antenna (what was it? I have no idea; whatever the tv place installed when I said "Please install a tv antenna.") with a ChannelMaster top of the line antenna and a booster for the UHF. It made a staggering improvement in the reception. However, the tv (old Zenith) still needs to be carefully tuned to get the weaker stations; once tuned, the reception is much better than before the antenna upgrade, but changing UHF channels means retuning. The vcrs (old Zenith, new Sony), however, will lock right in. So, I always watch UHF tv thru the vcr. Good antennas are wonderful, but I think you need a better tuner. (If you upgrade your antenna system, have them experiment with putting the antenna at different heights.)
sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (08/24/85)
> I have recently purchased a Toshiba VCR. I have found that the > fringe reception capability of the VCR is inferior to that of my > Panasonic TV, and this is important since I live in the boonies, > have no hope of access to cable, and went to pains to locate a TV > which could pick up most of the staions in my area. > > Does anybody have any opinions on the folowing remedies: > (3) improve my antenna system (I have fancy rabbit ears now) > with an outdoor antenna, or perhaps an antenna pre-amp You cannot believe the difference in picture quality an outdoor antenna will make! This is especially true for the 'boonies', but it also holds true for urban areas like mine. A properly oriented outdoor antenna will make a marginal TV tuner look good, and a state-of-the-art tuner look fantastic. Once I installed the antenna, I fed it to my fancy Proton system, but also pulled some coax to feed a cheapo Radio Shack color TV I was using as a second set. The improvement in both was impressive, but the Radio Shack appeared like a new, much more expensive, TV. The cost/benefit ratio for outdoor antennas is far far smaller than any other improvement you could make to your system. As for signal amplifiers, I don't have too much experience with them. I would probably urge you to get an outdoor antenna before you considered an indoor amplifier to use with rabbit ears. Remember, amplifiers amplify everything, including noise, so you want the best possibly signal quality before you amplify anything. I guess real fanatics amplify the signal up at the antenna mast to minimize the contribution of noise pickup through the down-lead to your TV. -- /Steve Dyer {harvard,seismo}!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer sdyer@bbncc5.ARPA