If your TV signal goes in and out, you might require a better antenna setup. TV signals are constantly affected by changes in weather and other factors such as trees blowing in the wind. This is why it’s important to have a good antenna setup. You don’t want to just “pick up” the channels — you want to pick up the channels as reliably as possible.

If you have an indoor antenna, try moving it to a new location. Be sure to try different areas near a wall or window in the direction of the broadcast towers. You can find the direction of your nearest broadcast towers using FCC DTV Reception Maps, shown below.

If you've tried different locations for an indoor antenna and still have bad reception you will likely need to use either an attic or outdoor antenna. You can always try out an outdoor antenna in the attic first. If it doesn’t perform well, then install it outside. You can find a list of recommended antennas here.

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.

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: