Terk Low-Profile Indoor Antenna TV5 (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I design and manufacture antennas for a living. This antenna works fine. Its two main advantages are that it has the built in preamp, and that it also has the large elements that help with VHF and the lower channel frequencies. This is the reality of antennas... The ones that work best, will be far from attractive. It also helps to have the built in switcher. I do notice that if you route your pay TV through the built in switcher, you will see interference if you leave the preamp turned up, or the switch left to 'on'. Just make sure you turn the preamp down and the antenna off, and the switch over to the other source. Then you should not see degradation in your pay TV picture. What will often make the biggest difference in reception, is where you place the antenna. Far more-so than which indoor antenna you use.A few things to know about antennas... There is no such thing as a 'digital' antenna. This is just a marketing gimmick. The frequencies utilized in the TV band plan are still essentially the same as the old plan. The major difference is that the upper portion of the plan has been cut off, which is 700 to 890 MHz, Ironically, those frequencies are the ones that can utilize the smallest antenna elements. But the remaining channels still go from 54 to 700 Mhz. Antennas are typically comprised of physical elements made at 1/2 wave lengths for any given frequency. As an example... The physical 1/2 wave length for 54 MHz is a little over 9 feet. Obviously that's big. The 1/2 wave length for 700 MHz is about 8.5 inches. The closer the length of an element is to the frequency you're trying to receive, the better it will perform. So since the channel band covers so much spectrum, and some of the frequencies are so low, you can see where the challenge is. This is why the traditional outdoor TV antenna still basically looks the same. When you look at that arrow shape, the shorter elements are for the higher frequencies, and the longer elements are for the lower frequencies. So the antenna is going from big (low) to small (high). So now that you know that... How well do you think a little thing that takes up a square foot, will work? Right, not great. There are ways around this that will make something work fairly well, but a coat hanger can work fairly well, so that doesn't mean much. The same big old ugly antenna that people have had on their house for decades, will still work best. This is just nature.Virtually any indoor antenna is going to be at the mercy of the materials in the structure, and the location of the structure. A house made of only wood that sits on a big hill, will have an indoor antenna that probably works much better, than a house made with aluminum siding, that sits in a little valley. Bottom line... There's not going to be any huge difference between indoor antennas, and an outdoor antenna will always work way better than any indoor one. If this antenna or any decent indoor one doesn't work at all for you, then it's not the antenna... It's your location and conditions in your structure. Try an outdoor antenna and mount it as high as you can, with good quality cable. You can also add an inline preamp. If all that doesn't work, then you're out of luck. Continually trying one antenna after another isn't going to change that, because there is no miracle technology that will fix that issue. But just make sure that it actually is the antenna. Sometimes some TVs make it a bit confusing, when it comes to setting up digital on-air channels. If you live right in a big city and you're not getting anything at all, then you're probably doing something wrong with the TV configuration.

Reading great reviews I expected some new groundbreaking experience in antennas. Not really what I got. It works fine, and maybe does work better than other indoor powered antennas. But I bought this hoping to get my tv ready for the digital future. Besides my problems with digital TV below heres some comments I didnt see in other reviews about the actual product.The Coaxial cable coming out of the device is fixed to the antenna. and is about 5-10 feet long. Which means if you need to put this antenna far from the tv you cant just unplug the cable it comes with and use a really long coaxial cable you might already have. You will need to get a little connector (female2female) that will let you run 2 cables end to end. Because of its Low Profile it will need lots of space around it. Think about how you have to adjust the long aerials on your current or past antenna swinging it around to get the picture better. But this only swivels around its center point so its near impossible to do this if you have it sitting up against a wall (like where most tvs are) Last point rather minor, its a powered antenna. Why does it need a power switch? There is no reason to ever turn the thing off, sure you might think to be Green, but it uses one of those wall warts which just suck power into themselves all day regardless if the device is on or not. I think its just a silly addition(mostly because i didn't realize I needed to turn my antenna ON)Digital TV Rant (for those getting ready):Well I think people are going really frustrated with digital broadcasts. While this antenna did ok with regular channels. Digital channels are a very odd breed. They either come in beautifully or unwatchable. When its pretty you will be amazed by how good a signal you get. Seriously impressive (especially if you have a HD tv) But when you aren't getting a good signal its like watching a scratched DVD. The image stutters horribly. It was funny to rotate the antenna and see the stuttering get a little better or a lot worse.Final Thought: If you are hoping to be ready for the digital future, try this out, but my guess is like me you would do better to try get an outdoor antenna set up.

HDTV tuning came in well, but I was mostly unable to compare this to another antenna. Some caveats to be aware of I think. (1) It takes allows for a co-ax in. I have an apartment antenna carrying the older analog signals and found severe degregation of the incoming signal if I tried to route the cable into this antenna (2) There is a manual switch to switch between the incoming coax cable and normal TV out... so if you wish to switch inputs using this antenna, it requires manual switching. Maybe they should just consider removing that stuff and cutting the price (3) They have a coax antenna out from the unit... but the thing is just too darn short. I think they should have just put a second connector on the back of it instead and let us attach a higher quality cable of whatever length we need to it. I can extend if needed though, just that I don't like extra connectors and extenders because they may degrade the signal more or cause intermittent connection issues (4) Unit is on sucking power all the time unless you get a switched outlet (5) I got a tiny new HDTV and have been looking at bigger and new HTDVs now don't have many coax connectors anymore. Having a unit like this with an HDMI or alternate interface to deal with limited HDTV inputs would be of help (I guess on reading that HDMI out would require a built in tuner though, so forget about that idea). Regardless... unit does what it's supposed to do... I thought I was pulling in more stations in crystal clear HDTV than otherwise and so it does deserve a relatively high rating.