Channel Master EXTREMEtenna - Multi-Directional Outdoor HDTV Digital Antenna, 80+ Mile Range, 8-Bay Bowtie, 180° Wide-Angle Reception, Industry-Leading Reception Power, UHF/VHF Support for Free OTA TV

We live about 70 miles from the broadcast towers in Dallas, and were having problems with pixelation, drop outs, and some channels that broadcast from the same location not showing up at all. I installed this thing and those problems disappeared. It's about as large as a radar antenna- so don't be dismayed when it arrives. Setup is easy- I installed it in my attic in less than 20 minutes. It's almost like having satellite. Now we get all the Jesus channels- home shopping channels- mexican channels- and the mexican Jesus channels just fine- plus the three or four we actually watch.

Over time I am trying to move my home and family to the “cord cutter” nation and have developed an overall (possibly too ambitious) plan to do so. One of the large parts of my plan is to utilize Over The Air (OTA) TV channels which is why I purchased the Channel Master CM-4221 HD antenna. As background, I have been marginally involved in video and video distribution for a long time. Channel Master is one of the brands that has always served me well. To be frank, this antenna was the only one I have tried for my home because it works so well for me. As always, Your Mileage May Vary.Luckily I live between 9 and 35 miles of the transmitters for 16 stations which, combined, broadcast about 40 distinct channels. Being this close means that I receive fairly strong signals at my house. Additionally, all but one of the transmitters lies very close to each other to my southeast. Specifically, they are within about a 32 degree beam width for those familiar with antenna parameters. How do I know this? I used a wonderful Internet resource called Antenna Web (https://www.antennaweb.org/). Just plug in your address and it will tell you where nearby transmitters are and will guide you as to what type of antenna you need to receive them. Between the proximity of the transmitters and the fact that they are mostly bunched together I have a situation where I can use a relatively small, mostly directional antenna like the 4221. This was great news because, due to homeowner’s association rules, I had to install the antenna in my attic.The antenna comes about 95% assembled and all you have to do is unfold a couple of antenna elements (the bow tie looking wires in the picture), attach the balun that connects your coax / signal wire to the antenna (that black box in the picture), and the clamp that holds the antenna to whatever you use to hold the antenna upright. All told it took about 10 minutes to perform all of these minor mechanical tasks. After installing it in my attic, which took a lot longer than 10 minutes, I connected the coax in my house to a digital receiver to see how it worked. In a word, it was fantastic. Digital TV is incredibly forgiving when it comes to being able to drag in TV signals but because I plunked my antenna in an attic behind a roof and lots of rafters I was a bit worried. I needn’t have been as this antenna works like a champ. I had to make some minor adjustments to properly aim the antenna at the transmitters, but that was my fault. If I had been smart I would have carried a compass up to the attic with me when I installed it rather than taking the classic male “Oh, I’m sure I know where I am” approach.A couple of things to note: 1) I don’t know if it is necessary, but in my opinion you should plan on supporting the coax you will connect to the antenna with something more than just the balun. I mean it looks good and strong, but to be safe I used a zip tie around the coax and the antenna mount to take some weight off the balun. 2) Antennas are sometimes marketed as black magic and companies will make all manner of claims about range and gain. Without much searching you’ll find companies claiming that a tiny “rabbit ear” antenna perched on top of a bookcase in your living room has 60 mile range and 20 db of gain. When comparing antennas look for external reviews and be VERY skeptical of small cheap antennas that claim to have incredible performance. This antenna does everything it promises and is an excellent value for its price.

I'm so excited! This is a wonderful product! Finally got fed up with Comcast and DirectTV after the monthly bill came close to $200.00 and that was without any special cable channels. Time to cut the cord. I didn't really know what I was doing at first and ordered a Mohu Leaf internal antenna. It worked okay for one TV but we had to move it around sometimes depending on which channel the football game was on. It would also lose some of the channels when the weather got touchy, and it only got around 30 channels total, half of them junk like religious, other language, and shopping. I got another one for our downstairs TV with the brilliant idea to put it on the outside of the house. Whoops. It melted. (It's an indoor antenna dummy. :-) So then I did a little more research and realized that there are cool powerful outdoor antennas like this one. Isn't it funny how things come around. I remember these from when I was a kid, BC - before cable, right. Anyway, I looked at the websites for channel reception in my area and even though I live within sight (kind of) of the big Colorado mountains where all those ginormous antennas are mounted, I have a big hill blocking most of it, thus the indoor antenna and limited channels. I chose the Channel Master because it covered all the reception color areas that I needed, I think all the way to pink. I followed the suggestion of the other reviewer and mounted it in the attic. Just like the pictures he provided. I put in a crossmember 2x4, then mounted a Channel Master 4 ft mast hanging downward. Then I bolted the CM 4228HD onto the mast (with the channel master mount - sold separately) and unfolded the little receivers and it looked awesome. I ran a huge run of cable from the attic to the demark outside the house. I used a splitter to cable the antenna to 3 TVs around the house with the existing coax. And now I have 3 working TVs that all get 50 + channels. Even a couple that I wasn't expecting like Fox in the upper ranges.All in all it was really easy. The only gotchas I can warn about is to test your cable runs and make sure you're using the right one. ;-) I got frustrated thinking I had built a cable wrong or that there was some signal loss only to realize the big dummy (me) had plugged the wrong cable into the splitter. I bought a $25.00 cable tester that I didn't really need but hey, I can always use more tools!And I was really surprised about the number of TVs that I can put on this thing. I guess I'm so used to the touchy signal needs of cable TV where they're measuring signal gain/loss and adding/subtracting splitters and amplifiers that I thought it wouldn't work at all. But so far, not problems. About 130 feet of cable between the attic antenna and outside the house. Then through a splitter to 3 different TVs in the house. All 3 get the same number of channels. Very happy customer and looking forward to all those cable bills I'm never going to pay again!