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Hack #34. Don't Use Portable Signal Strength Meters

When working with an OTA antenna, you'll waste your time by trying to use a portable signal strength meter. Understand why, and avoid this common mistake.

Sometimes readers ask where they can get a portable signal strength meter, thinking this will allow them to make objective studies of the signal from their OTA antenna [Hack #33] . However, a signal strength meter is not as useful as you might think. It will work fairly well for normal standard-definition broadcasts, but the fact that you're here probably means you're looking for HD broadcasts.

For HDTV, a strong meter reading is no guarantee that you have found a good reception spot. The ultimate arbiter of where the signal is good for your receiver is the HD receiver or set top box [Hack #30] itself. Therefore, I recommend that the signal strength readout provided by the receiver—not a meter—be used to search for the best antenna spots. The quality of the result justifies finding ways around the small problem you will discover when you try to do this: your antenna is rarely located where your receiver is! This means you (obviously) can't see the signal readout while mounting the antenna. This is still fairly simple to solve, though. A spouse and a mobile phone, or a buddy with a walkie-talkie is more than sufficient to get around this issue.

This same principle applies for pulling in signal from a satellite dish, such as when installing DirecTV or DISH Network. There are some great gadgets that will help you get things pointed in the right direction, but there's no substitute for checking the receiver to ensure you're getting signal.

Tip

Keep in mind that "receiver" in this hack always refers to the cable or satellite receiver, and not an audio receiver. All cable/satellite receivers will have some sort of system menu where you can check the signal strength.

—Kenneth L. Nist