Indoor antenna advice?

[Robert Grant]

Indoor antennas are rarely suitable for reception of digital terrestrial television. This is due to the fact that the digital signal has a high data rate, and any reflections from buildings, walls, appliances or even people (especially if they are in motion) will interfere with the desired signal. If you set gets a corrupted stream, you will get no picture or sound (in analog TV, your picture could be a mess of ghosting, picture rolling, snow, or all of the above, but you could manipulate your antenna to improve reception).
With digital, you're working blind until you happen to get a signal to lock.
If your residence has aluminum, brick, or stucco siding (the equivalent of steel because a metal mesh holds the stucco in place), your indoor antenna will need to be in the attic (but not a metal roof) or in a window facing your local transmitters (which are often NOT in the city of license). You can use a distribution amplifier to run cables through the basement and back through the ceiling to all the other sets.

It goes without saying, use an outdoor antenna if you can.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Robert Grant

Indoor antennas are rarely suitable for reception of digital terrestrial television. This is due to the fact that the digital signal has a high data rate, and any reflections from buildings, walls, appliances or even people (especially if they are in motion) will interfere with the desired signal. If you set gets a corrupted stream, you will get no picture or sound (in analog TV, your picture could be a mess of ghosting, picture rolling, snow, or all of the above, but you could manipulate your antenna to improve reception).
With digital, you're working blind until you happen to get a signal to lock.
If your residence has aluminum, brick, or stucco siding (the equivalent of steel because a metal mesh holds the stucco in place), your indoor antenna will need to be in the attic (but not a metal roof) or in a window facing your local transmitters (which are often NOT in the city of license). You can use a distribution amplifier to run cables through the basement and back through the ceiling to all the other sets.

It goes without saying, use an outdoor antenna if you can.

The OP said he cannot use an outdoor TV antenna because his grandparents, for whatever reason, will not allow it.

As to DTV reception using indoor antennas, it is possible if you are within a reasonable distance of the TV stations you wish to receive. My own situation is a case in point. I am 40+ miles from the Cleveland TV stations' towers; however, I can get all but two channels, using an amplified indoor antenna. (An outdoor antenna is out of the question as I live in an apartment building, FCC regulations allowing such antennas be darned.) The reason I cannot receive the two stations is because their signals are transmitted over VHF frequencies (channels 8 and ten), which for whatever reason simply do not reach my area. The other stations are on UHF channels and do reach here just fine, using an indoor amplified antenna. Since one of the channels I don't get on the indoor antenna also carries MeTV (one of my favorite DTV subchannels) and is the CBS affiliate for northeastern Ohio, while the other is a FOX affiliate and also carries Antenna TV, I don't use my indoor amplified DTV antenna, preferring instead to use a Roku Internet device which gets every one of my area's local TV stations. This device gives me an excellent picture on my 32" flat-screen TV, and there are no antenna problems since, with the Roku, the antenna is not needed; moreover, as I mentioned in another post, apps are available to stream the major TV networks and PBS, as well as many if not most cable networks. This is why I suggested to the OP that he should try a Roku (or other) streaming device and forget about using an antenna. Many people today are doing just that (a national phenomenon known as "cord cutting"), and not looking back. I did, over two years ago, and have never regretted it.

[Robert Grant]

Let me make this clear.

Adding more signal amplification when digital TV reception is affected by multipath will not improve your reception if the signal is convoluted by multipath.

An American who has never studied Mandarin will not understand anyone speaking Mandarin, no matter how loud his speech is amplified, and adding amplification to a signal affected by multipath is as futile as the truck driver who thinks he can drive his 13'6" truck under a 11' overpass, if he carefully slows down while driving under it.

What the OP needs to do is get the indoor antenna away from the TV set and into a window, if it all possible, the window that faces the local television transmitters.