HDTV Antenna Direction for Dummies

Rabbit ears TV antenna with tin foil

If you were to let just about anyone "answer" questions posed by internet surfers, you'd leave yourself open to contributors who do little more than reword crap they don't understand in the first place. That was always eHow.com's (now a bunch of niche sites with stupid names like Techwalla, Sapling, and Hunker) greatest shortcoming: they were more interested in format than accuracy. Take the example of college film major Stephen Lilley, who tried to explain "How to Know Which Direction to Point Your HDTV Antenna" on Techwalla.com; along the way revealing that it was something that 1) he'd never done, and 2) was something he didn't know how to do. But he still wanted that fifteen bucks, so what the heck...

Lilley, who we suspect lived in student housing with cable TV after he moved out of mom and dad's house with cable TV tried to explain, starting with this cogent statement:

"Knowing in which direction to point your HDTV antenna comes down to knowing exactly where the broadcasting television station is located in relation to your home."

No duh, Stephen. So how do you find out "exactly where"? Well, Lilley says to

"Find out where the television station transmitter your TV is tuned to is located. To do this, look online for the location of the TV station on its official website, or use your local phone book."

Wow, now that is useful information: except that we checked a few local stations: they don't post the locations of their broadcast towers, just the address of their studios, which wouldn't help much. That's not to mention, "What's a 'local phone book'?" Next, Lilley says, you should... "Use a compass (if necessary) to determine in what direction, in relation to your television set, the television station transmitter is located." How, pray tell, Stephen does one "Use a compass... to determine" the direction to the station? Don't you think a local map would be pretty helpful foir this step? But then he'd have to explain how you'd use it. And then, of course, there's Lilley's ultimate advice,

"Angle your HDTV antenna toward the television station transmitter."

Again: no duh! Unfortunately, Stephen's instructions aren't much better than suggesting that you cover a wire coat hanger with aluminum foil and make the youngest kid hold it out the window. His most useless advice is finding the broadcast tower: even if you already know where it is (which most people don't), how do you find a precise azimuth? Well, we say, "Use a website like OTA, Antennas Direct, or AntennaWeb to find the bearing and then use a good-quality compass to aim your antenna.

The people on our staff who've done this a few times have simple advice: don't depend on overly general instructions like "if you know your local Fox affiliate broadcasts northeast of your home, stand by your television set and locate northeast" to perform an operation that even this Dumbass of the Day admits should be "exact."

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