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| August DTA240 |
Cutting the cord is a trend that has gained momentum in the U.S. over the last year. Cable companies have seen record numbers of customers cut the cord on many of their TV services due to the unreasonable price increases and contract politics of pay TV. At the moment, I am one of those subscribers and have recently gone the Internet only route with an Antenna, and a Roku.
As someone who has had cable for over a decade, I have been used to my broadcast channels in HD. Luckily, over the air broadcasts are now 1080i HD signals as well. I had some "rabbit ear" style antennas and setting those up, I was able to receive most of the basic stations minus ABC and WPIX in New York City. The stations that did come in were clear, much clearer than my cable signal most of the time due to there being less compression. With that said, I do not like rabbit ears sticking out of my clean looking set up so I went on amazon and came across the DTA240 antenna which mostly had favorable reviews and is priced right at only $10.
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| The DTA240 can easily blend in as to rarely be noticed by guests. |
The first thing that I noticed upon receiving the DTA240 is just how small it really is. It's tiny compared to any other OTA antenna that I have seen. It also has a nice and solid metal feel to it unlike most cheap antennas made out of plastic. The bottom has a magnetic base that increases the reception quality when you set it on a metal surface. The antenna part is just as solidly built and feels like steel with the only cheap looking part being the actual connection cable. The coaxial is your standard "screw in" type of connector.
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| HD is crystal clear with almost no sign of compression |
Once I connected the antenna to my metal window sill and scanned for stations, I discovered that this is quite a powerful little antenna as it picked up 45 over the air channels. My rabbit ears antenna picked up 31 channels at best and took far more room and adjustments per channel.
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| The digital channel guide is handy is a pinch. |
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| Quality can go up to 1080i |
Broadcast quality looked great most of the time (rarely is any signal perfect for ALL channels) maxing out at 1080i and with program info working on my channels. Even for stations that did not come in as well, I just had to slightly move the base of the antenna to fix receptions versus having to adjust the rabbit ears to certain "V" shapes per station. With almost all of my channels coming in perfectly with the DTA240, that was rarely a concern.
For a small and low cost antenna with no powered amplification the DTA240 is an impressive performer that I can wholeheartedly recommend for anyone who wants to cut the cord.
Source: Amazon
As somebody who has had link for 10 years, I have been utilized to my telecast stations in HD. Fortunately, over the air shows are presently 1080i HD motions also. smart home audio visual
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