I posted in the rectangular TV forum about the "Insignia" brand box I picked up yesterday. It actually works quite well. With an antenna on the roof meant for the 220MHz ham band aimed due east, I can get channel 55 Riverhead LI NY here in Oradell NJ (northeast NJ). I also get NJN channel 58 from central NJ on RF channel 8. Went back today to the Best buy to get another, but they were sold out. So I went to a Radio Shack and got a "Digitalstream" brand box. Using just a UHF hoop antenna, I can get all the NYC local stations. Next test is to try it on the ham antenna and see if it can get channel 55, as a DX test. EDIT: just did this, and the sensitivity is a little poorer than the Insignia box. Something like 5dB poorer (inserted attenuators in the antenna line next to the box, however they were meant for 50 ohm lines, so I can only say "approx 5dB" here).. Stations with choppy reception on the Digitalstream box was solid good on the Insignia box.
One good thing both boxes do is that the box's remote controls the volume inside the box, before it hits the RF or baseband outputs. For once they got it right.
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Last edited by wa2ise; 02-29-2008 at 05:48 PM.
Reason: Did the comparison test with the same anttenna at near same time
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