Hi Pseudy (pseudonym?). I see this is probably your first post.

Do you still have to old TVs to compare the reception?

If not, could it be memory improving on the good old days? It happens. :-)

What are you using for an antenna and how is everything connected? Using splitters? Outside antenna? How far away are you from the local stations?

How old is your outside antenna and the drop leads. Thing deterioate over time.

Things can change too especially if you do not have line of sight to the transmitter(s). Trees, buildings, and neighbors can change your reception. OTOH, I'll bet the mfgs are not putting as good of rcvrs in their TV's as they did in the past. So many people are using cable, a TV can be near deaf and still get reasonable quality reception.

One other thing to consider is that your new TVs probably have brighter, sharper pictures than the old ones did, and also the new TVs seem to factory default the contrast at a much more vivid setting than the old ones did. Those things will make it easier to see the effects of poor reception.

Thanks for the responces. The answer is none of the above. The TVs are all new, we live on the highest place in the county, and the old TVs work just fine. The poor reception has to be a mismatch of antenna impedence or whatever. Power antennas do not improve reception. My neighbor has an attenna that takes up half of his roof with no improvement

How far away are you from the TV stations? How high is your antenna and what type? Are you using coaxial cable or flat lead between the antenna and the TV's?
How are you splitting the signal up between the antenna and TV's?
How big are the screens? Television was designed 60 years ago for 7 and 10 inch screens, not todays' big screen sets. The bigger the screens, the worse the picture looks.

Maybe we should quantify "poor reception". My newer TV's were slightly overdriven by our cable. The screens were dark. I had to insert 5db pads to drop the signal to improve (brighten) the picture.

Not worth a response.... He already knows it allll...

pw

Sorry fellas, Pseudy is on to something. When I was kid, and spent summers with my Grandma, we would get 3 or 4 channels, even without the coat hanger (better with it). I now live in that same town. You get nothing but static and a voice on one channel, unless you get cable or satellite. We always used to bring in at least Madison. No more. Its cable or nothing. Why? I do not know. The stations are all still there. I don't know if the airways are too crowded, or if the stations turned down their power, or if corporations are building sets that cater to cable/satellite reception vs antenna reception. Probably all three.

marf

The problem isn't the TV sets: it's the ANTENNAS! Modern TV sets resolve at a much higher level that the older models, which show imperfections in the quality of reception that may have gone unnoticed in older, smaller TV sets. Manufacturers who use electronic tuners also include provision for tuning non-scrambled cable Tv signals. My experience has been that many people who purchase new TV sets never take them out of the 'Cable TV" mode, and they never see the UHF channels that are local to their area because of it. Anyone who is not going to subscribe to cable or satellite service these days should have a good roof-mounted antenna to get a servicable Tv picture. The old wire coat-hanger never worked as well as any remembers, and on a modern, well-resolving TV set, if going to look like garbage anyway, with lots of snow and ghosting. See the "Antennas" section of http://www.hometheaterspot.com if you want to know the real story.

Believe I have the answer to the reception problem. The newer sets are set up for high definition. We will have to have a converter box to get local reception. This is why the older sets work. I live close enough that a rabbit ears worked just fine. A new set would pick up stations from a hundred miles around before H.D. The only problem is no converter boxes are available now. Also why am I the only one to ever have problems like this???

I have a big rooftop UHF antenna with a rotator going to my main TV. I also have a small TV in the bedroom with nothing but a simple $3 wire bow tie antenna from Radio Shack. There are a couple of channels that I have never been able to get as good with the rooftop antenna as with the little bow tie antennas in the bedroom. Never have been able to figure that out. I take the TV's from the bedroom and hook up to the rooftop antenna, and the reception is poor. So, it's not the TV, it's the antenna. Why does a rooftop antenna with a rotator get worse reception than a little bow tie antenna which is just clipped to the corner of the TV in the bedroom.

Hoping to put a splitter on my satelite tuner for the 5 TV's that I have but am told that some tv's don't work with satelite. I planned to select a channel then be able to work in my shop or office and see the same channel on all of them at once. Any satelite folks that can tell me if this will work?

I was wanting to talk to "Pseudy". I have just purchased a new 13 magnavox color tv. I live at 4,000 elevation and use a roof antenna. I also am baffled by the behavior of the new tv. I have an old 13" emerson that I was going to replace. It gets a great picture. If I plug in the new tv in it's place...horrible (barely seen) picture!! what is the situation? do I return the tv and keep the old emerson? what did you find out concerning your situation with new tv reception. I can't seem to find any help with this issue.

The answer to the T.V. reception problem has been found for at least one of my three sets. You have to go into the set up program and select either cable(sattelite) or antenna. The reception is highly directional ,,more so, than the old sets. People a lot younger than I am didn't know the answer and a person a lot older than I told me what was wrong.

I think there's more to it than just changing menu settings....

These days, nearly everyone is using cable or satellite for TV signal delivery. Of-the-air antenna reception is not the primary consumer target for the set manufactures.

Cable and satellite provide well defined signal environments to the TV sets and the manufactures design to those standards. Off-the-air signals vary all over the place in signal strength.

The bottom line is that modern TV sets just aren't as sensitive as older sets--those used when antenna reception was more common. New sets have zillions of channels, stereo sound and other modern features. The ability to pull weak TV signals up out of the noise has been pushed to the cable company.