Did you know there are a lot of accessories that go great with an antenna?
One of the best accessories to go with an antenna is a digital video recorder (DVR) to watch and record local channels on multiple devices anywhere in your house. The Tablo is an example of one. It connects to your home’s WiFi network and can be accessed wirelessly anywhere inside your house via the Tablo app on a Roku, Firestick, or your smartphone or laptop. With two- and four-tuner models, you can also watch and record multiple TV shows at the same time.
Other antenna accessories can improve TV reception. If you have a very long coaxial cable from the antenna to your TV set or are connecting multiple TV sets, an amplifier is a must-have. Refer to this article to learn about the different types of amplifiers.
Another accessory that can help improve your reception is a signal meter. Most TV sets do not have any indication as to how much of the signal the antenna is picking up. A weak signal may work for a while but is more prone to dropouts. Using a signal meter can help you locate the best spot or direction for the antenna to get the signal levels as high as possible. You can learn more about signal meters in this video.
Getting started
Watching free, over-the-air TV with an antenna is simpler than you may think. In many cases, you can take an antenna out of the box, connect the cable to your TV, run a channel scan and voila! You have dozens of local channels to surf.
The number of channels you can access and how clearly they come in is based on a number of factors, including your distance from the point of broadcast towers, the type of antenna you have and where it’s located in your home.
Not sure what kind of antenna you need? Take our simple quiz to help narrow down the options. You can also find a general list of recommended antennas here.
Pair your antenna with an OTA DVR device to record your favorite shows
Did you know you can use an antenna similarly to how you watch cable? Ditch the costly subscription fees, but keep the cable capabilities (record, pause, rewind and fast forward) with an OTA DVR device. Here are the products we recommend:
Tablo DUAL 128GB Over-the-Air [OTA] DVR: Record up to 80 HD hours and stream up to two free broadcast channels from your HDTV antenna simultaneously.
Tablo QUAD 1TB Over-the-Air [OTA] DVR: Record up to 700 hours and stream up to four free broadcast channels from their over-the-air HDTV antenna simultaneously.