Xtreme Signal 8-Bay Bowtie Outdoor HDTV Antenna 65 Mile VHF/UHF (HDB8X)

Recently purchased this antenna after numurous tries of receiving digital signals. Used in Northern NY rural area with heavy tree growth and hills. Immediately upon instalation was able to pick up 2 stations from Upstate NY along with 4 Canadian stations. Recommendthis antenna to anyone that has same problems.

A little disappointed, in delivery, the antenna had a couple of bent parts, but not sure if delivery company to blame. Put antenna up getting great signal strength and quality, actually the TV show look better. Still unable to even get a ping on ion network signal only 13 miles away, but no trace, but hill and trees between us. All other channels seem strong with great quality,

The order processing and shipping was excellent, shipped promptly and well packed. The antenna was ordered on a Sunday, shipped first thing Monday morning, and delivered to my Boston area door Wednesday. I wanted to try a high gain antenna but did not want the large YAGI style. The HDB8X is easy to handle and relatively compact, easy for one person to assemble and mount. Its gain specification is impressive. The antenna looks well made. As nit picks, the panel cables are on the short side. An inch longer would reach the offset mounted splitter with less fuss. One or two of the plastic supports do not seat well. I have had a Channel Master Stealthtenna with its optional amplifier for several years and added a LaTV recently (also amplified). One antenna is pointed North, the other South. They are both mounted on the roof (stacked) and have a 25 foot RG6 run connected directly to independent receivers. We live in an area with many towering Oak and Maple trees and cannot get an antenna above them. One TV channel (42) at about 35 miles has marginal signal with drop outs when the leaves come out. I wanted to try to improve channel 42’s reception. I mounted HDB8X on a separate mast about 10 feet from the other antennas and a little higher. I ran a new high quality 25 foot coax cable from the antenna to the TV room. The LaTV antenna is pointed north toward the high vhf station. The HDB8X is configured with both panels pointed the same for highest gain and south toward the other 10 UHF stations (and directly at 42). I have one PVR-150 connected to one antenna and a second PVR-150 connected to the other and receive 11 sometimes12 channels with both antennas. This set up happens to make it easy to compare performance. The reviews of the HDB8X here would lead one to believe a significant improvement in signal quality could be achieved. The short answer is the HDB8X itself does not perform as well as the LaTV. Adding the Wineguard LNA-200 amplifier to the HDB8X provided much better results, but still no joy. Channel 42 dropouts are far from eliminated. The PVRs show the following signal quality (higher is better, at least 50 is needed for solid reception). These are readings over a 30 minute period one day and seem to be consistent with little variation over time. Mhz LaTV HDB8X 189 60 62 (High VHF channel 9) 497 52 77 503 70 67 509 70 82 551 100 100 563 55 100 569 10 72 593 62 63 599 92 90 623 35 no lock 641 41 47 (channel 42) 647 37 47 Since the LaTV antenna, except the low VHF, is pointed away from the stations, these UHF signals are from its back lobe. Although not rated for VHF, the HDB8X/LNA-200 combo did better than the LaTV picking out the high VHF channel (182 Mhz). Did I mention antenna design and placement is a black art :) and your mileage will vary significantly. Seemingly insignificant nearby objects can have a surprising effect on one channel or another. I have also tried the new generation HomeRun Dual receiver on these antennas, but observed no difference in the ability to capture TV stations, channel 42 in particular. For comparison, an indoors and carefully placed amplified Leaf antenna picks up two, sometimes three channels here (doesn’t come close to seeing channel 42). So the single most important method for improving reception is to get an amplified antenna outdoors and as high as you can. We have the Stealthtenna is connected to a DIRECTV AM21 off air tuner in another room which makes signal comparisons less valid. The stealth/DIRECTV combo, however, picks up channel 42 better than the HDB8X/amplifier/PVR combo, but not without a few daylight hour dropouts. The 5 year old AM21 seems to be an excellent tuner.

I would reconmend this antenna to any one haveing touble picking up tv signals

This unit works good I got it because I have several transmitters that are 85 degrees apart I also on advice from there tech dept got the inline booster It works ok but I will try a amplifier to pull in a station 50 miles away I have the antenna on a 30 foot tower and I am located at 900 feet above sea level The aiming is very pinpoint so there is not a lot of room for error so do use a compass and set it to the degrees recommended on antenna web I get about 33 channels and we just had a ice storm coating it with 1/2 inch or ice and has not affected its performance or seemed to have damaged it . The only thing the instructions were missing a page just looking how it was made I had no trouble assembling it .

This is a great little antenna for the price, but it is not quite as advertised and there is a limitation that may not affect everyone, but it is a problem in my situation. The HDB8X is advertised as a UHF and high band VHF antenna. Of course you can tell by the photo that there are no high band elements, which is why is has a shorter range for those frequencies. But that's not the problem. The signal combiner provided has a frequency range of 470-862MHz, which effectively kills off the two VHF high band stations in my area. One local station operates at 186-192MHz. After replacing the signal combiner with a broadband model, the antenna works fine. This antenna should not be advertised for use with VHF high band with the signal combiner provided, though. The other issue I have is that I need one section pointed slightly Northeast while the other one needs to point slightly Southeast. While I love the fact that this antenna can be pointed in two directions, it cannot be folded enough to point both directions needed in my case. The good news is that its coverage angle is sufficient for it to work even though it can't be set to the optimal position. Don't get me wrong… it's a good antenna for its price range and I would recommend it without hesitation, but these limitations should be noted.

Assembly was easy (I did watch the video), although I was very deliberate and tried to install one panel and one bracket (two screw-ups) up side down. I said some bad words and then easily recovered. Assembled in the living room and tested TV reception (it was pretty good. Received most stations, 6 out of 7, but one of those was pretty weak). I managed to move it to the attic without dis-assembly. It was close, but it folded enough to get it through a small attic access. Although I bought a mast and one bracket, I didn't use them. I mounted it on an old lamp pole. I pointed both panels to the weakest station with no success (worse than the living room). Apparently I got my directions wrong or something else backwards. So, I trained one panel to the original location and the other to the stronger stations in two cities. That worked great (I really don't know why). I get 7 stations on 15 channels, all within 20 miles. No amp, two old cables with one union (good cable one customer, one manufactured, both old dirty and rusty). I was planning on getting new cable and an amp, if necessary; but I don't think I will be able to make any more improvements for the local stations. The next stations further out don't provide anything else, and I would probably need an outside mast at least on the roof. Summary: Assembly pretty easy, no cut or missing fingers. Mounting pretty easy, no broken bones or necks. Training was easy, perfect on second try (because of the multiple separately trainable panels). Reception is great, I get all of the local stations (3 at 10 miles, 4 at 20 miles) with no amp from the attic with no repositioning/training. Swearing (bad words/thoughts) was minimal (not always the case for me). Price: fantastic (Solid Signal sales and discount is the only reason I bought the antennae). Solid Signal order status updates and online account order status needs some work. Everything indicated that the antennae was shipped while it was actually on back order. It took a month to arrive, and I called twice for order updates, and finally I got lucky because I would've cancelled the order on the third call and robbed myself of this great antennae at a fantastic price. Comcast, cable, satellite, phone companies, etc. can take a hike.

I am taking down outside antennas and moving everything to my attic to avoid lightning. This antenna has proven to be a great ATTIC antenna. Though I have to use a booster because of the signal loss due to roofing and trusses, I am picking up everything except two very weak stations that I NEVER watched anyway. I recommend this antenna.

The signal quality it much better than I expected. Living in a heavily wooded are at the bottom of a hill, I can still pickup 40+ channels from MA, and RI. My only complaint is that the assembly instructions shipped with the unit are abysmal. I highly encourage anyone who purchases this product to watch the setup video associated with this unit. It's also worth mentioning that the product was shipped and delivered much faster than anticipated! (Also worth mentioning that I purchased this on 11/22 for $60 when there was no advertized sale, so I don't know why this is being advertized as the reduced, limited-time offer sale price?!)

It is really far out! Great images. Only better if I were standing there myself. Great engineering!