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

The antenna gain is greatly exaggerated since it is nearly the same as the 4 bay version. But for the price, it's not bad

I've had this antenna for about a month now and I am very satisfied with it. My old HDU-55 had several broken elements and even when it was new I had difficulty getting all of the Chicago area stations (broadcast towers are generally between 31-39 miles away)when it was aimed in one position. Because it is winter, I have temporarily mounted the new HD88X to a 12' mast attached to a stand-off mounted to a fence post. Even with this temporary setup (which is at least 10 feet lower than the old antenna was), I am now getting more stations than my old HDU-55 when it was mounted to the chimney on the roof. I even get the CBS-affiliate station in Chicago (channel 2)without any problems (getting this signal OTA is a common issue in this area). The 60 degree beamwidth of the HD88X helps me get all of the Chicago-area stations without having to compromise when aiming or electing to use a rotor. My guess would be that even if I was another 5-10 miles from the broadcast towers, I would probably still have the same results. Construction is decent and assembly was easy. Installation took only about 15-20 minutes including removing from the shipping box to mounting it to the mast and stand-off. Getting the HD88X on sale was just icing on the cake!

Bought this antenna to pick up local and some distant UHF OTA tv channels. It says picks up VHF high band, and it does - but gain is minimal. Works on VHF if stations are high power or close, but distant stations not likely to work. UHF reception is very good on lower end of UHF band, and decent to top of the band. Has fairly wide signal reception angle, so even with both sections parallel (for max gain), it'll pick up stations across a wide angle. For max reception directions, adjust the pivot brackets so the two bays are angled apart (but 3 dB less gain). Only complaint is quality was hit and miss. My unit had bent reflectors (showing impact damage), bent directors (easily bent back), and broken cable clamp. The antenna box showed no external damage, so the antenna must've been damaged prior to packaging. Typical offshore quality these days, so nothing unusual. It works well, installs easily - though the mounting brackets are a pain to install. Given the lightweight construction, I doubt this antenna will last many hard winters here, but very few antennas are built to last these days. For wideband UHF reception, this antenna works well - especially in a limited space (where a yagi is too large). Price is good, so it's a good buy.. if it lasts.

After assembly. 2. The pole. I had Only To go in the house and hit. The scan button on my TV. And in the matter of. A few minutes. I had over 20 Channels. Which easily became around 40 plus channels. Because. Channel 4. Receive. Three other channels. Under. Same for every other channel as well.ch 4 /4.1/4.2./ 4.3.. ch5 5.1/ 5.2 5.3. and so on... And with further adjustment I am sure I can get more channels. I have not been able to pick up Channel 11 yet need to spend a little time with it. over all a great deal for the money cant tell you how much this is giving me huge points with the family... ther very happy witch makes dad a happy camper.!!!thank you solid signal for your fast and easy help...

The antenna arrived with no damage. When pivoted out to proper configuration, the 2 U bolts for the mast were offset, thus we could not mount it, and one coax would not reach the signal combiner. Wasted an hour dis-assembling and reassembling. The antenna works AOK. I am on a ridge with significant wind. With the surface area of this antenna, it changes direction and shakes most of the time. The shaking over powers the brake in the channel master rotor. I am soon going to sell this and change over to Yagi's. The Winegard LNA-200 is a good match and a good value with a low 1dB Noise figure and a dual path amplifiers, for VHF and UHF. Recent price drop makes it a no brainer decision For Yagis its going to be Channel Master or Winegard.

A few years ago when we got high speed wireless internet in our rural, mountain community. In a money-saving mode we cut the cord with Dish Network. We had a large yagi style antenna so I decided to hook it up to see what channels we got. To my surprise a few came in. But some of the longer elements of the antenna had been damaged in snow storms so I had replaced it with a Lava, amplified antenna with built-in rotor. It was on sale and I had intended it as a test to see what we could pull in. I never counted the channels but we did get about 25 keepers or so I think, including all the major networks. I never liked the Lava's rotor control since it had no indication as to the direction it was pointed nor the direction of rotation. Plainly speaking, if you need to rotate an antenna regularly for minor tuning or for very different directions, I do not recommend the lava-style antennas. I ended up buying a refurbished, all-metal rotor which worked well. That Lava antenna lasted about five years and we started having reception problems. As it turned out it was the coax cable that it came with that had failed. The entire length of the cable, all the way up the 40-foot tower had began to crumble and crack and the foil had failed in a couple of places. It had no braiding to speak of. I decided to do it right this time. I pulled the old antenna down and the mast from the top of the tower. I spray painted the tower as it was showing rust in spots. Aerosol Rust-o-leum Professional is an awesome product and I highly recommend it. I am glad I did it as the final outcome of this system was worth the time and effort. I contacted Solid Signal by phone and the assistance I got was not at all helpful in helping me decide. I also sent an E-Mail which was never answered. So I did my own research here and purchased the Solid Signal Xtreme Signal HDB8X High Definition Blade 8 Bay Xtreme Antenna and the Televes 2-Input Mast-Mounted TV Antenna Amplifier Combiner. I also purchased a 50 foot and 10 foot Solid Signal RG6 cables along with TII lightening surge protector. I had considered the Channel Master 4228HD antenna but I chose the HDB8X for a number of reasons including its narrower design and separated section for what appeared to make for a stiffer design, less likely to be affected by high winds or the weight of possible icing or snow. The antenna was easy to assemble and the Solid Signal coax cables are of very high quality. The Televes coax stripper that comes with the amplifier made preparing the coax ends that plug into the preamplifier simple, accurate, and fast. Since the rotor turns a full 360 degrees and puts the stress on the length of cable from the antenna to the amplifier I bought the separate 10 foot length for that lead. The 50 foot portion goes from the preamplifier on the mast to the lightening arrestor on the side of the house near ground-level. The Televes amplifier was chosen for its filtering as well as its adjustable gain and the way it controls maximum gain to eliminate over-amplification. That is handy because our transmitters from which we receive are from about 25 to just over 120 miles away. Additionally, the length of coax from the antenna to the TV is about 110 feet of coax cable. The antenna was simple to assemble. I had watched the video linked here and did not have to use the instructions to assemble it. Even the wing-nuts are of very good quality. They are not the usual stamped sheet metal with threads cut. These have captured nuts with deep threads and a wide spread of the wings which made it easy to tighten them securely. The clamping ends of the horizontal bars that hold the two elements together and clamp to the mast are thick and well designed. Installing the antenna and preamp on our +/-40 foot tower was fun. I like climbing and have training from when I was a firefighter. I have mountaineering-quality webbing and know how to tie my own safety harness. If you do not have these skills, hire a professional if a tower installation is necessary. Gravity can be a cruel mistress! With a rope and my wife's assistance we hauled the antenna and rotor to the top of the tower. When I first got the system working I was concerned that there were four channels I previously had been able to receive which I was not getting now. While I questioned my sanity, my wife did some online research and found that the station's antenna had been severely damaged a few days before in an ice storm! Phewww! We had checked the signal strength of the Lava before installation, and after installation we compared it to the signal we now receive and the difference is remarkable! With the Televes amplifier's gain turned to maximum, we re-scanned for channels from the two directions from which we normally receive and after eliminating about fifteen or twenty channels we did not care to watch (Chinese, Korean, religious programming, shopping channels, etc.), we now have 39 channels, some from the San Francisco Bay area which is about 125 miles away. Many of these channels are duplicates, but it gives us the opportunity to have alternate choices in case of interference or dropping signals (or ice storms!). I suppose that this number of channels is not terribly impressive but we are in a lightly forested area in the mountains and have hills around us. According to the mapping for our location at http://www.tvfool.com/ none of the stations that we are receiving are considered to be in line-of-sight. Using the signal strength readings in the TV's menu system, our maximum signal strength with the Lava was in the high 40's. With the HDB8X and the Televes Amplifier, many stations are now reading in the low 60's. The signal to noise ratio for many stations is now around 170 to nearly 200db with 0 errors! We are not getting any of the real channels such as 2, 5, 7, and 9, etc. After eliminating unwanted channels, for virtual channels we are getting a total of 19 VHF digital stations like 2.1, from 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 9.x, and 12.x, 13.x. We are also receiving 20 UHF stations including seven in the 60's (64.x, 65.x, and 66.x) which were never picked up by the Lava. I am sure that having my antenna about 60 feet above ground level helps a lot, but that was approximately the same height at which the Lava was located. I am very pleased with my choice of equipment. Even with the supplies and additional parts I bought (three cans of spray paint, ground clamps, mast pole, ground rod, tie wraps, etc.), after investing just under $300 total I feel my money was well spent.

I have a cabin located in the mountains of SE Tennessee and did not want to pay the extreme cost of Satellite for just weekend use so I installed a RCA ANT751 outdoor antenna. With the aid of a Winegard LNA200 signal amplifier I have been receiving 28 channels when according to Antennaweb, should only get approximately 12 which was a pleasant surprise. We do get some channels dropping off on occasions, but with the mountainous terrain coupled with weather I had a feeling that could possibly happen. Last year I decided to cut the cable at my home north of Cincinnati, Ohio and installed the HDB8X in my attic with 4 bays directed at Cincinnati and the other 4 bays directed at Dayton, OH. Much to my surprise, we were receiving 64 channels total from both cities including several channels from Kentucky. This antenna was providing a strong signal to two televisions in our house and without a signal amplifier which is astonishing in my opinion. Recently I decided to see if I would gain better reception by installing a HDB8X at the cabin in Tennessee and to hopefully reduce the dropped signals that we have experienced with the RCA antenna. When installing the HDB8X, I decided to direct 4 of the bays toward Chattanooga as I did with the RCA antenna and the other 4 bays toward Knoxville, 130 degrees in a NE direction to that of Chattanooga to see if I could receive channels from that city as well. Once I installed and still using the pre amplifier, I did a channel search and gained another 8 channels from the Chattanooga direction that I previously did not have, additionally I am now receiving another 12 from the Knoxville area for a total of 48 channels! Some of the channels were weaker and dropping out so I experimented by pointing all 8 bays at Chattanooga, the DB gain of doing this eliminated the weaker channels from that city from dropping out. I then did the same by repositioning the 8 bays toward Knoxville and the weaker channels that were dropping out from there were now coming in crystal clear. Knowing the capability of this antenna and after reading the benefits of stacking antennas to gain signal strength when pointed in different directions, I purchased another and will do so following the instruction on this sight to optimize signal strength and maximize the overall number of channels I can receive from both cities. This antenna is well worth the money spent, it arrives promptly and it good shape, easy to assemble/ install and most of all, does one heck of a job!

Excellent quality, took about half hour to install, get over 40 OTA stations, strongly recommend if station antennas in your area are not all in the same general place

The maximum possible gain of 4 dipoles with a reflector is 11.2 dBi. Adding 4 more facing in the same direction makes it 14.2 dBi. If the two stacks of four are pointed in different directions, the gain will be less. How much less depends on how different their aiming is.

would not recommend it!