TV Antenna Scams Are Flooding the Market! (Why?) - Krazy Ken’s Tech Talk
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The internet is FLOODED with TV antenna scams. Today, let's analyze the fake claims, test the products for real, and discuss why this scam is happening in the first place…
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00:00 Introduction
00:55 Scam Antennas (Overview)
04:02 Scam Antennas (Breakdown)
10:25 Building a Test Course
12:38 Antenna Test (Round 1)
15:03 How Radio Waves Work
17:09 Antenna Test (Round 2)
18:37 Why is This Scam Happening?
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ok
Antenna Man needs to watch this and give us his take. Anyone wise watch his channel?
Thats also a Scam Product
@ComputerClan Companies get discounted rates if they are a registered US business. Which has no requirements other than to register, lol. These "people" if you want to call drop shippers that... they move from fraudulant company to fraudulant company likly also tax evading, mashing a keyboard on the SBA website when it asks for company name. Volia Bzoxauy
I’m sorry Ken I know you need that bag but my BS detector has been off the charts with a lot of your recent sponsors.
You NEED to look into these products before you decide to take their money because putting a price tag on your honesty in scam exposing videos is very dangerous and something that less reputable creators that have been exposed in the past year have practiced.
For those who are wondering "Who uses TV Antennas!?" my late grandmother used them to pick up PBS and local TV stations when she lived in San Francisco. In her case paying for cable, and getting it installed, was more work than it was worth. Also, people living in RVs and similar will watch TV that's broadcast over the air. There ARE amplifying antennas that will amplify the incoming signal, but if you are out of range, you are out of range.
i still use one for football season
TV antennas are probably the most common way to get “free” TV where i live (there are channels that you can legitimately watch without a subscription where i live, you just have to pay a special tax (I refuse to call it a fee, as they make it so hard to avoid needing to pay it)
I use an antenna exclusively for free television. My set rarely leaves MeTV or Catchy Comedy, except on Sunday nights when it's time for BritComs on PBS.
Plus there are a lot of countries in Europe that do
I think the confusion would be less "why TV antenna?" and more "why TV antenna *now*?" Plenty of reasons to avoid cable but literally everyone buying these has access to the internet, and anyone who's tech illiterate enough to want free to air probably already has it set up. It's a small and shrinking target
Hey there Ken. I'm an RF technician and my compliments to your for the extensive explanation of the various ways the two antennas are garbage. The performance claims are laughable and easily debunked, as you demonstrated. Keep up the good work.
I'm not an RF technician but an RF hobbyist (ham, scanner, shortwave etc). I live probably about 50 and 80 miles away from our local stations, and you have to have an outdoor antenna up high to be able to see them. There is no indoor antenna which will work. The 500 and 1900 mile claims are utterly ridiculous. Maybe if you were up in space...
@@dx1450Don't short wave radio signals go thousands of miles? The signal bounces off something in the atmosphere to get it's range.
@@dannydaw59 that's correct. Those radio waves are much lower in frequency (30 mhz to 160 mhz) than tv signals so are able to refract from layers in the ionosphere. Their longer wavelengths give them that ability whereas tv frequencies being the much higher frequency ranges (vhf and uhf) and much shorter wavelengths punch through the layers and travel into space. Which is handy if you want to talk to a satellite. The term shortwave is a misnomer and comes from early in the science of radio. The science behind what frequency to use to bounce a signal is quite complicated and ultimately depends on how active the sun is. The solar radiation is what ionizes the layers of gases in the ionosphere and can change hour to hour. Hope that helps a bit.
@@dannydaw59 in short that lets ham radio operators hear each other across the planet. I can hear people in the US for example. You definitely need an outdoor antenna system for this.
@@dannydaw59 Yes, shortwave signals can travel all the way around the world, bouncing from the ionosphere to the ground and back. But shortwave, or HF, is a lot different from VHF/UHF propagation, which is all line-of-sight. TV signals are all VHF/UHF.
As someone who knows way too much about lighthouses, "being able to communicate with a lighthouse" could mean two things. Both of them equally absurd.
Some lighthouses like the Cape Henry Lighthouse have a fog horn that only turns on if a ship requests it by sounding it's horn. The lighthouse can hear the ship's horn and responds by sounding the fog horn.
Other lighthouses have a radio beacon that plays a pre-recorded message when a ship becomes in range. It'll tell the ship that it's in dangerous waters, its exact location, and directions on how to get to safe waters.
So either they're advertising that you can ask a lighthouse to activate its fog horn or that you can ask one for directions to the harbor 😂.
Fascinating! I don’t think that helps with receiving TV, but fascinating!
So you work for Big Lighthouse and you're telling us that we can't get 5G 8K TV signals from you even though these antennas clearly can? This is why we need independent media to expose the lies!
Great video! Reminds me of the ridiculous claims you see on walkie talkie ranges these days. I'm seen stupid GMRS radios claim 100 miles of range.
I think "I set up BOOTLEG antennas from Amazon in a HAUNTED HOTEL" could be a great clickbait title for this video
And IF we still had Analog TV it could include "...and Recieved Ghost Images!". 😎
(Ghost Images were multipath Ghostly Looking Images due to reflections interfering with Analog TV's signals)
They really do that , have you ever watched Poltergeist the movie that was a true story, you know how I know because the dead told me so through the antenna.
Lol
I think clickbaiting is against the terms of use, same with tag bombing.
Communicating with lighthouses?! SOLD!
That's lame, I wanna receive TV stations from Mars yo. :D :D
Clearly this is what I need for my ship, to talk to lightstation keepers.
Now, that's lit! Wait! What?
I started out repairing TVs in the mid-late 1960's and left it at the end of 1979. I can tell you that various scams such as these were fairly common back then. During the time was when the wide adoption of color came in and many people were buying their first color sets. Back then just the addition of the word "Color" was added onto nearly all antennas to convince the customer that you had to buy a new antenna along with your shiney new color TV. Analog color sets required a bit more signal than B&W to look good but that's about it. As someone who's spend his entire career as an electronics technician I've got a pretty tight BS filter about all these scams...
I am a radio/TV hobbyist. I am well aware of the scams out there. Your video is excellent in debunking their falsehoods. I bought a cheap $20 butterfly TV antenna, but I was aware of its limitations, and it did the job I need it to do. I didn't get any cable channels, but I was able to receive most local stations. Let buyers beware!
Ken, those funky company names has a reason. They need a unique name to sell on Amazon and since the accounts are disposable (Amazon will eventually shut them down) the easiest way to get a unique name that won't likely conflict with a 'real' company is to keyboard smash one, this should also be a big hint when buying, if the seller or product name is not even pronounceable then it's likely a scam.
Half As Interesting did a video on that!
Absolutely! If the brand is as ridiculous as zkxon, boysun, etc, it's a cookie cutter "company".
I saw one named EVILCO once.
Very useful info - thanks!
Why isn't this channel much MUCH larger? I'm a dedicated luddite and yet I eagerly consume every episode!
I worked at a broadcast TV station. I remember having to explain to someone in another state over a few hundred miles away why they couldn't get our signal when he called in all pissed off.
Side note, the FCC has a really nice coverage map where if you insert your address, it can calculate signal strength assuming an antenna on the roof of a three-story house. Not a 1-1 as an antenna plugged into an individual TV that hangs on the wall but it gives you some idea. It's simply called the "DTV Reception Map".
antennawebD0Torg for those wanting to know. Used it alot whilst working for the RatShack in college!!!
The map helpfully shows 11 channels available in my area, although in reality it's off by 10 1/2 channels. ONE channel is listed as having "strong" signal, we cannot receive it at all. In fact, only one DTV channel can be received at my house at all, it's listed as being a "weak" signal, despite being the closest broadcast tower - less than eight miles away. And that's if you don't mind 2/3 of each show on that one channel being a stuttering, blocky mess.
That's with a two-story house on top of a hill, with the antenna on a 6' pole above the roof peak. We spent several hundreds on "digital-TV-ready" rooftop and household antennas, only to end up getting cable instead so we can finally receive local OTA broadcasts. Before the switch to digital, we used to regularly pick up channels our TV guide didn't even list because who would expect Northern Massachusetts stations to come in fairly well in Southeastern Connecticut?
You can of course get stations thousands of miles away with atmosphere ducting, but it's not reliable. I have experienced that once before from California to a Texas station and Nebraska the next day. Never had it happen again. I hear the east coast of Florida sometimes dealt with TV signal interference from New York when the conditions were right during the analog age.
Was this during NTSC or digital transmission. I worked at RCA as the conversion was being setup. Digital is VASTLY superior to analog. Lower bandwidth, and either you get the transmission or you don't. No more snow. This is because it used QAM transmission. A single bit error will corrupt the transmission.
Everybody thought analogue was better because it could handle degradation in the signal and still be usable. Digital is vastly superior although either it works, or it doesn't. Lower power transmission, better reliability, better picture and audio quality. This is due to error correction. The bandwidth (the amount of data needed) to send a transmission is VASTLY smaller than it was in analogue, because all you send are the changes of the previous images, you don't send the entire image every time.
I'd like to see that map. Link?
I never believed the antenna claims on any advertisements and ESPN, HBO etc. are paid subscriptions. I feel with people who fall for this crap. Good info, thank you 👍
As an ex: RF engineer, you Sir are my New fun GO TO guy to enjoy Accurate RF / TV reviews !
Great Video
BRAVO !
sbf
As someone who works for "the cord" I wanted to throw out there that even our systems have serious limits with local channel insertion, because even a 150' tall directional terrestrial antenna still has to obey physics.
I know of a small ISP that used to shoot a backbone connection about 80km. But, it was two peaks on the side of a valley, and high grade gear designed for that. I believe it took four links total to get from their office to where the fiber connection was. Even with purchasing the gear, maintenance, etc it was still like 1/10 the cost over leasing fiber directly to their office.
Yeah one key reason why you can't get a 150 foot super antenna mask up in the air? All the red tape you have to go through just to erect it. If the FCC wasn't enough. You have to permanently have blinking red lights every 50 ft or so to comply with the FAA standards as a guard against low flying aircraft at night. And a a 150 ft dude that's half the height of a football field.
Our telephone network used to have large towers carrying microwave links hundreds of km between mountain peaks. Most are decomissioned now.
@@liam3284 Since the towers are so tall they would be a great backup location for emergency services to get information out to the general public. Such as the emergency broadcast service in the USA and the USA national weather service could use these locations for emergency backup locations should the main antenna locations be damaged. In the USA we have NOAA weather radio stations. Such as a tornado could damage these stations and put them out of commission for months. Good to have a backup plan and location to get the general emergency information out to the general public. Most of these stations only have a 35 mile coverage radius. The emergency NOAA weather radios in people’s homes and businesses the same range. Asking folks to connect with a station over that 35 miles radius would be impossible. But should a station go down they often ask people to connect with an adjoining station almost 60 miles away. They often say that connecting to a station over 35-40 miles away is problematic, even under the best circumstances, using a quality receiver perfect working order. Better to have something local as a backup. It’s just a matter of the old advice of not having all of your eggs in one basket.
I work on the Internet, we're putting you out of business because you insist on packaging. We're going to put streaming services that bundle out of business as well. We have given you 2 decades to stop pulling this crap, we've been patient, you won't reform on pushing propaganda and things people do NOT want, so your corporation dug its own grave. We have been extremely patient.
We will fracture the Internet too. THIS site pushes garbage people don't want to see, relentlessly. Seeing the other sites pop up? We're going to return choice to this system, and we're going to eliminate push propaganda.
The sponsor seemed like a scam in itself with all those claims.
100%. It's sad what money does to people.
"Inspired by Apple" seemed pretty true, though. Especially with that charger location lmao
It is a Scam! I live in Germany and tested the product, I injured my gums and when I wanted to return the product - in Europe it is a regulation that I can do this within 30 days free of charge - I first wanted to make a video explaining what was broken and send the product back at my own expense and risk. The toothbrush is dangerous and the company is highly dubious.
And I wouldn’t call that attractive. Far too bulky
Yeah I thought he was doing a bit
I'm an old Signal Corps tech, so I enjoyed this a lot. Our downstairs antenna is one of those $10 12" square plasticy sheets that works amazingly well, with no need to be placed on a window. Our upstairs antenna is rabbit ears and a small external amplifier. Both upstairs and downstairs pull in the local ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Fox stations. By the way, there's no such thing as a "digital antenna." An antenna is an antenna is an antenna. In my experience, which includes rooftop antennas, 50 miles is about the limit for a usable signal for most antennas. OTA rocks, though. A good OTA picture is excellent.
This is what the world needs to see! We love your video. ♥ Thank you for doing the research to shine a light on scammers with false claims on Amazon marketplace. It has been a frustration point of ours for many years now. It's unimaginable that Amazon would allow this type unethical behavior, but they do. Keep up the great work!
In the UK TV antennas have a range of about "to the next hill" or "just past that big tree" lol
Try mounting them to a higher pole or other fixed location.
@@endymallornI presume you're not from the UK....😂
@@endymallorn at my parents old house we were on the wrong side of a hill withe the wrong type of trees half way between the London and Meridian transmitters. We were advised we should have needed a 30 foot pole to put the areal on attached the the chimney (plus a reinforced chimney, roof works etc), in the end we just got cable that was new to the area at the time lol
No lighthouses?
@@endymallorndamn Poles are already high enough if you ask our papers...
Those scamtenna names are as catchy as Sony’s names for their headphones.
(edit: what did I start in the comments)
Sony can never name there shit
@@rejectedprojects7702 gonna be the nerd and say "Umm it's ackschually their 🤓"
@@razvanschuster5058 Oh, you went there! They're just wondering why their brain hurts now.
I mean true.....Sony names are hard
K800i - Phone
PCG-F808K - Laptop
LBT-XB6 - Stereo
And then you have Playstation 3....*until you look on the bottom and it's actually an CECH-LO3*
Yeah but they make good stuff. I will probably be buying a set of "Linkbuds S" in the future.
I just want to appreciate that you've been providing closed captions for your videos for all these years. I assure you it goes appreciated ❤️
Awesome video... plus your explanation of getting tv signals to travel farther is the best. Actually happed many years ago, back in the mid 1970's. We had a cabin in southern Ohio, and a B&W TV with a homemade antenna on the roof. My dad would go out an move it so we could see some channels. Saturday morning cartoons were on, the weather outside was very odd and some kind of storm was kicking up. We lost the station and dad went out to move the antenna. then Wow got a great picture. As we watched the shows were not from Columbus like we normally picked up. watched some shows then the Station ID came on, The channel was from West Palm Beach Florida! its lasted about an hour and then gone.
It’s well known that every 12th person in the U.K. has access to their own personal Lighthouse
Contacting the lighthouse using TV antennas has been a family tradition before the TV was even thought of
Yeah, I remember moving to the UK when I was 4 and receiving our lighthouse
Insert RickRoll: 😂 !!!
Yes. You noted the "outdoor & indoor" claim in the ad I guess.
You just don't see all the lighthouses in the UK because most are indoor lighthouses.
@@klausstock8020 + they have moved to encrypted digital lamps now.
@@klausstock8020 See now that makes sense because of the UK's notoriously rain weather. You wouldn't want your lighthouse exposed to water for long periods of time.
The apartment I grew up in New York City had an unobstructed view of the two most powerful antennas in the country: the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.
Furthest north I could receive a signal from was Boston, MA, furthest west was Wilkes-Barre, PA, furthest south was Atlanta, GA...and this was regular over-the-air broadcast television. So, I averaged between 300 to 870 miles of clear reception most days.
I had to bring in videotaped evidence of the various station's call signs to get my science teachers to believe that I wasn't making it up.
That is impressive! My record is just over 1,300 miles away for TV signals in the analog age.
BBC TV was received in Australia but that's low VHF black and white high power London transmiter.
I received BBC TV 1 (low VHF) from London , here in Portugal on a daily basis. Also TF1 (low VHF) from Eiffel tower in Paris also on a daily basis.
Huge 8 element directional antenna with pre-amp and bandpass filter (with antenna rotator).
All VHF and UHF modern TV transmiters near the border from Spain. And on a daily basis the Sevilha (south Spain) low VHF channel E4 transmiter (TVE 1).
Not bad....(26m above ground, rotator on the tower, big top german made precision antennas with good pre-amplifiers and filters, low loss triple shielded coax cables)
As the sun moves around the world it causes the ionosphere to harden and can cause radio waves to bounce back toward the earth.
If you tried watching the same channels late at night it likely wouldn't work.
@@The_Smuggler_
Not really.
It only works at Long, Medium and Short Waves (150 KHz - 8 MHz)
@@The_Smuggler_ For extreme distances this is true. I had DXed closer TV stations during the evening/night when the weather is right.
Thanks. Having cut my teeth on antenna installation in the 1970's, I found your video to be very factual and entertaining. You are spot on with your description of the physics of the process. Thanks again and keep up the good work.
Reminded me of the time I picked up a FM radio station from Finland in the UK on a pocket radio about 2,000km away (1,200 miles) a few years ago. But that happened under specific and rare atmospheric conditions. The same conditions that allowed the only surviving recording of the BBC's 405-line television broadcast prior to World War II in the United States.
When I was about 11 I took an old cassette recorder apart, touched something on the pcb, and could hear Radio Moscow from the speaker.
It wasn't the same. BBC was received via F2 skip and Perkelestani radio in your area was received via E Skip.
Note that in some areas you can still receive TV via F2. Last year some Japanese guy received TV from the Philippines without even a yagi antenna, but using an omnidirectional antenna.
You should have scanned the VHF band when that happened. You might have gotten a TV station since FM sits in the middle of that.
Use to receive UHF TV stations for about 4 months a year don't anymore I think they all went digital
I miss the day when if you miss advertised something on tv the advertising authority could prosecute you.
The SEC is too busy trying to figure out how much stationary can one insert in own rectum. Very important business
spelling pls??
Unfortunately after decades of companies directly writing their own legislation via "lobbying" or bribes, consumer protections and rights have been pretty eroded. Sadly votes get butts into seats, but money still decides what they do with that power.
I mean, they still can. False advertising is still illegal. The problem is they're so overwhelmed with how the Internet let these scams explode that only the highest priority cases(usually those posing a health risk or for much higher dollar amounts) get any attention.
It still applies, just not to companies like Amazon.
Your video transition's have gotten better, always glad to see your channel growing
During the OTA Analog to Digital switch the marketing for "Digital Antenna Requirement" was insane. I have had so many lively conversations about how a hunk of metal can not differentiate between modes.
Scamtenna 1 is probably UHF only; WTVK broadcasts on VHF channel 10, which of course needs a VHF antenna to be received properly. CBS in Chicago is also on that band.
Also, there is no such thing as an "HD/4K/8K antenna": radio waves are radio waves, and even an old rusty antenna from the 70s can be used to receive digital HDTV just fine, if the signal comes in strong enough of course.
I'm surprised DIGITAL wasn't there somewhere..
Yes, the size of that tiny thing suggested to me that it was only good for UHF channels. I have that same issue with one of my TV antennas, it's made for UHF and sometimes I have trouble picking up VHF channels.
But the salesman said it was made with unobtanium and had perfect signals!
I thought uhf signals were handed over to mobile phone companies. That's the whole reason why TV signals went to digital years ago.
and there is no such thing as a "digital" antenna
Tyler, the Antenna Man has done a lot of these scams on his channel. Good job. Stay safe.
Indeed I have. Thanks for the mention!
AND Tyler is the REAL Deal, he helped me out here in California where I'm 90 miles between the two closest Broadcast areas. Set me up with a Good Antenna that gets the signals most of the time and a good installer that knows how to align a very directional antenna that you need for the extreme range issues I have. Thanks Tyler! And yes I first got a Scamtenna from Wallyworld before I found Tyler
Helped me too. With his advice I was able to replace my old rooftop with a modern one that he recommended.
that was fun to watch thanks for taking the time to make this video.i still watch antenna TV sometimes and my antenna is about 40 feet in the air because of hills between us.
😂😂😂😂 im glad i got you on my yt feed! You are hilarious!!
Ppl are turning to antennas for access to local channels while relying on streaming services for the bulk of their TV service.
No, the bulk of my viewing is antenna TV, I only stream a movie every once in a while. Steaming is actually a pain in the ass because there is just too much content and thus you can't just channel surf, and too much of it is crap. Also too much of it requires a subscription and user name and password, plus streaming tracks everything you watch
Anyone with smart tv they also have access to thousands of channels via whichever tv brand they bought. We have a Samsung and there's at least 1000 channels we never watch 😂 it does have local and non local channels .
While these are bs antennas , I don't get how people get scammed? Shit don't work you return it, easy peasy. Especially if the claims are absurd as 800 miles 😂. I've returned so much crap to Amazon over the last 10 years. I never have an issue. I feel like the scammers would lose money by having to take back all the bunk products or refunding would kill them.
With streaming services cracking down on account sharing, the number of people stream are actually going down. A lot of those people weren't even paying for the service to begin with and never will. They will find another way to get their content for free and forget about it all together.
In the UK you can get a lot of channels over the air, thanks to Freeview. We use the Internet for subscription channels.
As per IMDb stats: at present there are 676,123 movies.
So their claim of 500,000+ seems difficult to accomplish by watching over the air.
I've seen them all anyway.
500,000+ movies but it's the same Smokey & the Bandit 3 rerun over and over...
@@dx1450 I have seen over 30k movies and a lot more TV shows. Yet Netflix wants me to watch stuff over again...
If you were lucky enough to be able to receive 10 channels showing films at any 1 time (24 hours a day) it would take over 11 years for 500,000 films to be broadcast... Assuming they don't repeat any film... Ever...
@@retrogiftsuk4812 That's rather tough considering there's a usual list of repeats every and all year relevant to the time, season, and holiday. Before a sequel hits theaters, the prequels must cycle some channels, too. Then there are stations which can't help but put the entire _Harry Potter_ series on rotation 3 times a year like a marathon. Just because Warner Brothers hasn't been able to raise the bar after those wrapped up.
Thanks for a great topic and video! I think another reason these are probably popular maybe the offer (greed on our part) of getting channels for free (when we otherwise might have to pay for them. New subscriber!
Just before the digital switch off I lived in a 70 ft trailer. TV signals where next to zero.
I bought a Wineguard 8200u which sat at 14 ft long.
I picked up channels a long long way away in a mountainous region.
But it's still funny seeing a 14 foot antenna on a 70 ft trailer.
Tornado destroyed it last month.
Those antennas work! I once got one, hooked it up, and accidentally dropped it face down on the ground. I started picking up a TV show from Australia! Not too impressive until you realize that I live in America.
There ya go,proof of the 360 degree claim.
Proof or you're lying.
How did you know the difference? Aus TV is mostly American! Oh I know it was the ads - they shout at you even more than the American ads 🤣🤣
I'm pretty sure that would actually be possible as both the US and Australia have antarctic claims, so you could probably pick up Australian channels if you were on the border and vice versa
yea, but the channels all went in the other direction when you changed them. And the TV remote was always on the wrong side of the couch.
The biggest issue I see is the bias you used. I saw no lighthouses anywhere.
I was going to comment " it would have been nice to see inside the covers", but you did this towards the end of the video...Great work good review.
Love watching your TH-cam videos about tech scams
Thank you, Ken!
Antenna Man is a great channel for this kind of stuff. I watch the majority of TV on an antenna because I rarely watch TV as it is so my wife is the one paying for the streaming services that she uses. I got an antenna mounted to the chimney.
Also for those who don't know--half of those advertised channels are CABLE or SATELLITE channels only that do not broadcast over the air.
Maybe they have a pirate station broadcasting the pay channels.
Growing up, aluminium foil could help with the signal sometimes. Or just holding the antenna also sometimes helped. If you need more range, those outdoor antenna that attach to the roof/chiminey would be better (if you are able to install them.)
I found that strange bodies mess up reception. I can remember holding the antenna to IMPROVE reception.
I still have one of those outdoor antennas on the roof. Haven't used it in about 50 years
@@jerelull9629 Should have some nice aged green copper now.
This was fascinating to watch, since I haven't used over-the-air TV or even cable in well over a decade.
Since it's a "known haunted" hotel maybe ghost hunters were in a nearby room with all their "ghost detecting" equipment. I wouldn't be surprised their gear just throws out random elector-magnetic interference.
BTW: For something like $10 at a thrift store, you can get a set of rabbit ears like folks used in the 1970s. They work better than most of the indoor antennas being sold.
An antenna is just a bit of metal that you stick up in the air to catch some radio waves. If it is the right size for the band it doesn't matter if it is digital or analog, the antenna will work fine.
Point taken - but make sure that this antenna has a bowtie or other UHF element(s). Most channels are UHF these days, and some of the really old "rabbit ears" antenna designs are VHF only.
@@travis1240 Even on old rabbit ears, the UHF comes in. They didn't intend it but the arms can be adjusted to make it work.
For 10 burger shekels you can get a log periodic UHF antenna that will likely work even better.
@@fungo6631 You really need one that does high VHF at least also. At lot of markets have VHF stations.
@@kensmith5694 You can get VHF/UHF log periodics as well, and they're VERY common here in Europe. It also helps here that they can be used for DAB+ if DTV doesn't use VHF.
You're one of two tech youtubers I know (besides myself) who lives in the Chicagoland area. The other is Technology Connections.
My nearest tech youtuber is Techmoan.
I'm from the Chicagoland area too
TechCon is so awesome.
King of Earthtones!
I know of very few TH-camrs in my area (Atlanta)
I bet there'll be more once more people move down here.
@@PenoatleIIRC he actually lives up in Wisconsin.
Thanks for the warning!!
Thank you for this content this is so up my ally! I try and tell people at work about my antennas they don’t get it 🤣
Ken casually telling off flat-earthers 😂
The earth is not flat? There isn't a jesus? We've just been bull shitted all our livesn
I will use this argument to see how they respond.
The Earth is functionally flat for most people most of the time. I have not seen a horizon in years. I live in a crowded city where there is never more than 1/4 mile of unblocked views. I live about 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and that is probably the closest spot for getting a view of the horizon unless you go up in a skyscraper.
@@11000038 WHY do people act as if it is self-evident? it's not. Unless your work puts you in regular contact with the shape of the Earth or if you live on a beach or something, it looks flat to people. It is functionally flat for most people, most of the time.
I would never say it is geometrically flat. I believe it is round. But it is not obviously round.
@@christo930 If you ever jump out of a plane (with a parachute) at 10,000 feet, you can tell the Earth is curved.
An aerial (antenna to you Americans) is not digital or whatever you want to call it, it picks up radio waves, that radio wave can be analogue or digital. I spent 40 years fitting aerials and later, satellite dishes, I used to have people phoning asking for a digital aerial because it would get them more channels. Sorry folks, TV signals are line of sight, if the aerial is of a suitable gain for the transmitter and has line of sight to the transmitter then it will work. Claims of being HD ready, 4K or higher is nonsense, if the signal is 4K or whatever it will receive it if within its design range no matter what aerial is used.
im not from america but i got to be honest ive never heard of it being called an aerial😊m
This series is awesome ❤
Please keep producing your videos.
This antenna scam has been around for years and I know many people fall for it including my brother. This despite me being a retired over the air tv station engineer.
What can I say?
Thanks for your reviews. They are great.
FWIW, There are a few a cases where radio waves will follow the curvature of the Earth and be detected hundred or thousands of miles away. One is called sky wave propagation, which is when radio waves reflect off the ionosphere. This is how shortwave radios can pick up stations on another continent using just the built-in whip antenna. Sky wave propagation doesn't normally work with frequencies above about 30 MHz, but there are times when the ionosphere undergoes changes that allow much higher frequencies to skip off it, even VHF. I have some personal experience with this: Back in the analog days, I once managed to pick up a television station in Colorado that was broadcasting out of San Francisco. It was actually powerful enough to clobber the relatively local TV station broadcasting on the same channel.
Another method is ground wave propagation, and it means exactly that. Certain low radio frequencies travel parallel to the surface of the Earth rather than in a straight line, and can be reliably received hundreds or thousands of miles away. Over-the-horizon radar uses ground wave propagation to work. Unfortunately, it's also limited to lower frequencies, well below what OTA television uses.
Russian OTH radar like the kontainer 29b6 use ionosphere bouncing to work. The units have a big 400 mile dead zone directly in front of them due to this and I would assume that they also have issues during the daylight when the ionosphere doesn't reflect as well.
I believe that the US Navy units use ionospheric reflection as well based on the layout pictures I've seen of the mobile unit deployed.
My understanding is that VHF DX is usually from tropospheric ducting, rather than bouncing off the ionosphere
@@pmc_ yes
No, ground waves are the only ones that follow the earth's surface. A skywave travels line of sight. Radio waves don't actually travel in straight lines, that's an oversimplification of a complex pattern. Ionospheric skip is a thing, but does not follow the curvature of earth's surface, it reflects off the ionosphere and sometimes earth's surface only at specific points.
Yeah its sick. I do ham radio and talk to people all over the world on hf.
I like that eclipse multicoloured wallpaper on the old iMac in the background!
Its from his wallpaper collection, he makes alot of nice wallpapers like that and puts them in a wallpaper collection you can find in the description.
LOVE seeing the old Mac. My Bondi-blue one went to the local school district years ago.
@@jerelull9629 I thought it would be the other way around, you buying an old iMac they used in the 90's from a school? I'm curious what a school would do with one now?
Well, and it's most enjoyable this presention mate! Thanks.
I remember when digital TV was first starting here, and antenna companies started advertising "digital antennas".
They made heaps of money. When people bought their first digital TV it was usually to replace one that has been sitting there for 10 years. As soon as they moved the antenna cable out of the old TV and into the new, the brittle old cable would break internally and then the customer wouldn't get any signal. So then they'd call an antenna company to "buy a digital antenna" and the antenna man would also replace the antenna cable from the wall to the TV.
I worked at a TV shop at the time and I always told my customers that their existing antenna should be able to pick up digital TV, and to just buy a new $10 cable rather than a new antenna. Saved them from getting scammed by antenna marketing.
That big square one looks like an unofficial PS6 😂
I was thinking the same thing. 😅
It looked like a giant WD external hdd to me. From the size it ought to hold 𝙪𝙥 𝙩𝙤 20 𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙮𝙩𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 (§Δ/Π)**.
I was thinking that too.
"...wait, is that a PlayStation shell?"
@@SuperCosmicMutantSquid frr
They had more cases that systems, so what can we do with the extras?
I recently discovered the antenna man while helping my parents find an antenna.
This reminds me of the 200km telephones sold by electronic shops in Time Square New York. This was during the era of expensive phone plans in the 1980's. The idea would be to set up on your landline a base station to receive your telephone calls. The owner of the shop who knew me but did not elaborate on the claims said "Don't buy it".
I haven't heard the term 'stories' in a long time, that was hilarious!
There is no such thing as a 4k or 8k antenna. The picture (resolution) is determined by the TV and tuner and to an extent the HDMI cable compatibility.
If the antenna supported HF then those ranges could be possible! They're getting confused between VHF and UHF and HF, possibly intentionally.
Yeah, I love how all the antennas advertised today, at least the scammy ones, will throw in terms like "digital antenna" or "HD antenna." Antennas don't care about whether a signal is analog or digital, and they don't care about SD or HD. The only thing that matters is what frequency range they're designed to receive. In fact, the best antenna I ever worked with to get digital broadcasts was an old directional outdoor antenna installed on a 25' pole back in the early 1990s. That thing could get stations 100 miles away without the digital signal breaking up. It was a beast, but it was also very expensive to install, and the terrain was extremely flat.
And, speaking of resolution, there's no station broadcasting 8K, and only the ATSC 3.0 stations, along with a few ATSC 1.0 stations playing with newer codecs, are doing 4K.
does ATSC even have enough bandwidth to fit an 8k picture?
@@liam3284I don't think so. The ATSC 3.0 standard (which is barely implemented) only supports 4K at most.
Thanks for covering troposphere ducting. Such an occurrence provided the longest range TV signal I ever received, back in the analog days. 1800km or 1100 miles. There was a thunderstorm over the transmitter and it bounced signal at me. It lasted for about a minute and was only good for a curiosity. Nobody could have sat down to enjoy a show that way.
You actually could, with proper filters, amplifiers and even analog computers to reconstruct the signal. In 1970s and 80s USSR and US were monitoring each other domestic radio and TV programs for possible hidden messages . Of course, you could do that from embassies, but it would take days for a tape to be received in diplomatic mail. Thus, they had specialized listening stations .
Why you do not send in a listening report. Even haarp and NASA for Voyager 1 confimed all listening reports.
@@aleksazunjic9672Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. You mainly needed a strong antenna.
@@fungo6631 You need filters to remove interference, amplifiers because signal would be weak and they did use analog computers to reconstruct part of the signal.
LOVE THIS VIDEO!! Do you have a video on the digital tv transition in 2009 and all the antenna scams? I'm looking now but haven't seen one yet. Thanks!
I liked your resolution comparison with the fox! As I sit here watching youtube on 720p! Which is actually just fine unless I'm watching some hi rez nature type show, where details matter!
I live only a thousand miles from where you did your testing and your video showed up just fine through TH-cam. Obviously this proves the world is flat ;)
Ken is back with another good video,as always.
Dude I just love your videos. You need to give us more and more 😂
I live a couple miles from downtown Sacramento and have purchased a couple digital TV antennas in the $20-$30 range. My main one is a letter size, thin piece of card board with a 2-inch yoyo sized circle of plastic where the cord attaches. We get 4 PBS channels and about 30 others. Commercials are the only downside to broadcast TV but hey they pay for you to get free TV!. Some of the channels get a little funky when it rains or gets cloudy but that's so rare around here from May to November.
love how you say scamtennas so casually
Great username there.
@@30ITH-camMaybe they're an employee of BZOXAUY
@@30ITH-camMaybe they're an employee of Bzoxauy.
So excited to see a new computer clan video!
Right from the get-go I was hoping you'd bring up tropospheric ducting and thankfully you did.
The light "fixtures" in that hotel's hallways are amazing :)
I was thinking the toothbrush ad was another example of a scam while watching it. I was surprised when it became obvious you were being serious. Really??? The tooth brush is beautiful!??
You gotta sell your dignity and do the ad reads if you want to get sponsorships 💀
That toothbrush ad was one of the less-persuasive ones, but I just HAD to watch it like a slow-motion crash would have claimed my attention. Yes, I AM a little ADHD.
WYIN in Crown Point Indiana is about 10 miles south of me. I pick up all of Chicago (60 miles), all South Bend (75 miles) and even Fox 59 out of Indianapolis (135 miles). I use an old school Winegard corner reflector on my roof with a remote rotator. Endless channels, but lots junk like HSN.
For some real fun, set up a 1 meter ku dish with a rotator and start blind scanning satellites. Inexpensive to get into and crazy stuff out there, especially the live feeds.
We cut the cable cord well over a decade ago. We use a ChannelMaster outdoor antenna mounted in our attic and a low power pre-amp. No problems receiving the local stations about 30 miles away.
I love these ones and always interesting to see the scam product breakdowns.
Recently I have been getting ads for "TV Evolution Access", their marketing spews plenty of buzzwords:
"Once plugged in, the box will act as a satellite and allow the TV to access all the channels" - wow its a satellite?
"The AI they have developed allows all the TVs connected to the box to choose and watch any program without waiting or interruption. 💰ALL FOR FREE💰" -- And AI woooo
The reviews section also has "pages" but clicking them just shuffles the same reviews around.
😂
12:34 just waited for the ghost to go away, classic
8:00 Ok I will say, It "Could" Happen if it was a analog signal, Some people have picked up analog TV from 1000 miles away, Not sure about 1800, But It wouldn't probably never happen with digital. Great video btw :)
If the current record is 1000 miles, I'm not expecting 1800 to be possible.
I’ve heard stories of people picking up audio radio from 2000 miles away, but I find it highly unlikely TV could be transmitted reliably over such a distance.
I did, back in the early 2000's before TV changed to analog. I used to DX (listen to distant stations) TV station audio channels on channel 2 on my HF receiver (59.750 MHZ, IIRC) and one day I picked up a station in Virginia from my home in Kansas. I'm sure it was tropospheric ducting or sporadic E. I also picked up low band VHF (~35 MHZ) fire and ambulance dispatch comms out of Ohio. One day I was listening to one Channel 2 TV station on my vertical antenna, and when I switched to a horizontal antenna I picked up a different station. I really miss analog TV...
@justanotheryoutubechannel I mean you can actually get a reliable connection from that distance as I have done. There's some issues to do this but as you know advertising can claim stuff as long as it is possible so that most can given perfect lab Conditions. But mine wasn't a lab, the thing is that it was a time before the internet and cell phones (there were some brick phones) so for one thing less possible interference. There was only one business broadcasting television and yes when a second competitor showed up 15 years later you had more snow broadcasting. Depending on the weather and the adjustment of the antennas and angle your position you were holding it and no just having it on a surface wouldn't work and adding a metal hanger to extend the rabbit ears also helped
@@justanotheryoutubechannel Quite possible with shortwave or longwave radio, but those use different and VERY different frequencies respectively.
I love you ken never change lol. awesome vids.
I'm like 1min 30 secs in, and I'm already laughing hysterically because of the lighthouse antenna. Thank you 😂❤
That thing with the compasses reminded me of when my phone an s22 goes to what I call spinny mode when I'm using GPS or DoorDash.
The scam company names are gibberish because it's easier to get a trademark in the US if theres no other companies with the same/similar names. Specifically, it is a problem on amazon because you're required to have a trademark in order to list online.
Thanks, Ken. I always figured those things were scams. I had a monster outside antenna with a rotator, and it would only pick up 3 stations.
Omg!!! Dude,how many red bulls did I drink before making that video. Great Job!!
On the subject of impossible. Years ago I once set my car's radio to AM low band and received a radio station from 600 miles away. I didn't expect a measly car radio to pick that up, but it did! The quality was bad, you could understand what they were saying but just barely. Maybe that the whole cable length acted as an antenna or somehow something helped it pick that signal up, but nonetheless I was impressed.
Am bands carry less data (hence the low quality mono), but over longer ranges.
High frequency channels, like the new 5G shit, push a lot of data, but over very short ranges.
Someone else in the comments said about someone having managed to pick up an analog TV signal from 1000 miles away
Likely, it was a fluke of the weather, which the video does a good job explaining
@@bluedistortions AM stations can actually sound pretty good if the station is broadcasting at the full 10kHz bandwidth and your tuner has a wide tuning bandwidth as well (most of them don’t, it introduces more noise for weaker stations), and at one point there was a method of broadcasting in AM Stereo that eventually lost to FM. It is, indeed, mostly due the fact that the AM frequency band is very low that it can travel very far. It would sound even better if they broadcasted in FM mode on the lower frequencies (more resilient to interference, though the bandwidth limit would probably still apply due to lower bands being more cramped), but the bands have already been allotted and there’s nothing anyone can do.
AM operates at very low frequencies. The ionosphere reflects AM signals so the earth and the ionosphere form a waveguide that can propagate AM signals for very long distances, at night you can pick up a powerful AM station from a thousand miles away. Shortwave can propagate around the world using this mechanism. Higher frequency signals like FM, VHF, UHF and microwave are strictly line of sight. They don't reflect off of the ionosphere, they just travel out into space. The curvature of the earth is the limit. The height of the antenna determines how far the signal will reach, that's why TV antennas are put on top of skyscrapers. For more range than a skyscraper you need a satellite.
a good scam bust we need more scam busting episodes
Thanks for the ducting thing.
I experienced that a few years ago when the radio (FM) station I normally listen to in my vehicle was suddenly 'over powered' by another station some 250 miles away.
Yes ... a bit odd since FM signal is (mostly) from transmitter ... line of sight to horizon.
I’m glad you mentioned the Antenna Man. His channel is great.
Yes A Tv antenna can pickup a signal 1900mi away! it's called a satellite dish
Came to say the same thing. You beat me to it.😁
Antennas do not care about the range, they are interested in signal strength.
My house has a Winegard TV antenna in the attic that is probably 30-40 years old and it works just great with local digital TV channels. I actually do use it to watch TV now and then.
Same here. It struggled to get certain stations at first until I replaced the aging coax and 75 ohm balun.
I like your eclipse wallpaper by the way!
I had a $20 Amazon antenna. I found one place on the wall that received half the channels. and another, by the window for the other half. I had to scan each time I moved it, but it beat having a 120 dollar a month cable bill.😊
If I see "digital" in front of an antenna ad, I see scam instantly
You shouldn't they are broadcasting in digital now
Like he said it's the range ypu want to be wary of
Me too. I remember when TV was changing from analog to digital and there were so many ads for "DTV antennas." As if you can't pick up digital TV stations on a regular old TV antenna...
True. The antenna has nothing 2 do with mode. (Analogue or Digital) Fact- The older, many still existing (however probably not intact) antennas receive better than most of the new junk. No surprise there.
@@ranma182 Uhm, no, antennas don't know what "digital" means...they just pick up signals. But lots of suckers pay for "digital" antennas.
Attach a spectrum analyzer and QAM demodulator to that antenna. It'll give more immediate feedback.
Hey @Computerclan My uncle has a junk yard and he got a camper in for scrap. Well I ended up getting the antenna and it had a booster too. I Mounted it in a tree and hooked it up to my TV at home and I do get a LOT of channels but there is a few thats the same station just different channels. My MAX RANGE is only 55 miles! An I say that only because the CW channel I'm receiving is from Birmingham Al an thats about 55 miles from my home. Your opinion is greatly appreciated andbthank you for your time.
I live in NYC and use a coax cable with an old pair of 300 ohm rabbit ears adapted on the end and I get over 40 channels at 1080p. The channels are very easy to find by having the TV scan for all channels automatically. After that you can manually setup your channels.
Saving boomers and zoomers from 100 year old tech... Did you need a rf splitter to screw the 2 prongs in on the back of the TV? I still remember the Bundys FOX viewing positions....
The local area channels look amazing Over The Air. I always watch them that way for super bowls and other big events. Most people would be very surprised at the quality they get on the new digital TV signals.
The best antenna you can get is anything on a mast as high up as you can put it with a servo to change the direction it’s pointing from inside the house.
I have DXed TV signals before when they were analog via atmospheric ducting. My record by pure chance when I was flipping channels I picked up a VHF Wichita Falls, TX TV station in when I lived near Fresno, CA with a Rat Shack Urban sub $30 antenna. It was fading in and out but stayed clear and receivable long enough that I got the station ID. The following day it happened again from a Nebraska PBS station, on the same channel, as I was still scanning to see if I could get that station again. Normally when I run into this phenomena, it's over much shorter distances. More common when I lived there about 200 miles from Sacramento on a few occasions, the rabbit ears on my 13" TV were picking them up clear as a bell no outdoor antenna needed! Every channel in Sacto was receivable on both UHF and VHF. Today that would be an insane feat as I doubt digital signals could quite make it that far in tact. I still own the same Rat Shack antenna now I live in rural Montana and it struggles to receive low power digital repeaters about 58 miles away despite having near line of sight(they are a few thousand feet above the plains). I can only get 2 out of the 6 channels available since they dropped analog broadcast. These days I don't care about OTA since I stream much more easily. I only have it set up for internet outages. Only a professionally engineered antenna could pull all of them in by someone like Winegard.
I live in the middle of nowhere, at least 50 miles from any TV station antennas. Stores still carry regular in-home antennas even though the only broadcast TV we can get comes through huge home antennas.