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AntennasDirect C4 antenna reviews: 184
AntennasDirect C4 average rating: 4.2
| Excellent | 121 reviews | |||||||||
| Good | 28 reviews | |||||||||
| Average | 8 reviews | |||||||||
| Poor | 12 reviews | |||||||||
| Very Poor | 15 reviews | |||||||||
| Band: | UHF |
| Placement: | Outdoor |
| Amplifier: | No |
| Range: | 65 miles |
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Below are 5 randomly chosen reviews of AntennasDirect C4 antenna. See all C4 reviews.
| AntennasDirect C4 Review #0 | ||
| Rating: 4 (good) | Nickname: anonymous | Date: 2010-06-07 |
| Summary: A lot of antenna for a small package-great for cramped attic installations | ||
| I live in a very windy area, with a lot of snow & ice in the winter, so I don\t want to put delicate equipment up on the roof and have to replace it in a few years. My 2-story house has an attic above the second floor rooms, but those rooms have sloped ceilings, so the attic is small and has a lot of trusswork in the way. So I needed an antenna with a very small form factor, but with good range as well. My 4 main metros are 41, 44, 70, and 85 miles away, in four different directions but within 190 degrees of each other. I have the Clearstream 4 mounted on a rotor in the highest part of the attic, using a Radio Shack 2-piece preamp and a liitle over 100 feet of RG-6. In this configuration, I can reliably get all of the Chicago, Rockford, & Milwaukee stations, and those from Madison that are not on Chicago co-channels or VHF. I have also dx\d stations from Green Bay, Grand Rapids, South Bend, Peoria, and the Quad Cities. I am able to get VHF reception on RF 7, RF 12, and RF 13, which are close to me. During tropospheric enhancement, I am also able to gets staions on RF8, RF10, and RF11, all over 70 miles away. Overall, I\m very happy with it. There really isn\t anything that can rotate in such a small space that can pull in this many stations. One thing I like about the C4 is that the gain curve is very consistent across the UHF 14-51 range, which is important for me as I have staions on almost every frequency. | ||
| AntennasDirect C4 Review #1 | ||
| Rating: 5 (excellent) | Nickname: MBer | Date: 2010-05-14 |
| Summary: Much better than expected | ||
| The cable company got too greedy, so I decided to investigate OTA TV just on a lark. After some proof-of-concept testing with rabbit ears, I purchased a C4 and installed it up in my attic at about 27 feet above grade. I was easily able to lock solid all of the stations in Chicago and Rockford (except NBC-13, which is borderline). When I turned the C4 towards Milwaukee, I was able to get the two most powerful stations, but not the rest. I figured that since the C4 has a net gain of about 10 dBi, and my attic installation cuts about 10dBi, that I would need a preamp to grab those Milwaukee stations. After the installation of a preamp and a rotor (to make it easy to change positions), I am able to lock solid all of the Milwaukees except for PBS-10 & ABC-12, and I\m able to watch a few stations up in Madison (ABC-27 holds a signal-to-noise ratio of 19 or 20, from 85 miles away!) So I have locked over 90 subchannels on all but 8 of the UHF DTV frequencies (14-51, 37 is not used for TV). I generally leave it pointed at Milwaukee, so it gets all of those plus most of Chicago (even with a 100 degree difference in azimuth). I have around 40 channels programmed in for surfing, after removing stations I\m not interested in (or can\t understand the language) and some duplicates (like the Ions and subchannel networks like This and RTV). Overall I\m really happy with my little experiment, and with the ClearStream 4. I would never have been able to put a larger antenna in my attic, as the rooms below have vaulted ceilings (reducing clearances). | ||
| AntennasDirect C4 Review #2 | ||
| Rating: 4 (good) | Nickname: anonymous | Date: 2009-12-06 |
| Summary: Good to Excellent | ||
| Our house is in a geographically slightly depressed area. After the move to HTV we were unable to get a few of the stations with our previous roof-mounted antenna. The C-4 did the trick without an amplifier but it required some directional fine tuning. Two things I would add to previous reviews: 1. A change of 35 to 40 degrees in the facing direction made a significant difference. And don\t forget to rerun the station scan on your converter box or HTV receiver. This website provides a free list of the the stations/signal strength/distance from your house and a diagram of how to face your antenna to get those stations - www.antennaweb.org (click \Choose an Antenna\). This was VERY useful. 2. Do not assume that the way in which the attachment bolts and nuts hardware (including U bolt mast clamps)are assembled when you receive them is correct. Go by the pictures and directions. Also the final step - connecting the buss bars on the box that receives the coax cable to the back of the tapered loops - this required that I loosen the bolts that join the loops to the antenna. Without loosening the bolts it wasn\t possible to get the wing nuts off or on two of the connections. | ||
| AntennasDirect C4 Review #3 | ||
| Rating: 5 (excellent) | Nickname: Lushamania | Date: 2009-12-01 |
| Summary: Excellent Single Direction Antenna | ||
| One of the big things I\ve noticed about most of these reviews is that lack of details concerning the surroundings of the user. So, let me get the details out of the way: According to AntennaWeb, I live 35 miles away from the broadcasting towers, which are all broadcasting from the same location. I am fortunate enough to live about 40 miles outside of Chicago. The only real obstacle in between me and the broadcast towers is Lake Michigan. There are trees surrounding my house, as well. The antenna is roof mounted, at about 20 ft in the air. I am also utilizing the Antennas Direct CPA19 pre-amp as an \insurance policy\ against a 50-60ft coax run and the distance between me and the towers. As for reception, I have absolutely no problems receiving any of the Chicago based channels. They all come in clear and signal strength is strong. My 50 foot coax line is junctioned after about 30 feet and then feed into a surge protector before reaching my HDTV. I have noticed pixellation twice on the TV, but it was only on one channel (not one of the major broadcasters, either). All in all, I am exceptionally happy with this antenna. Not only does it pull in all of my TV signals in well, but it is also more appealing to the eye. Its clean minimal appearance is less of an eyesore than a Yagi antenna. | ||
| AntennasDirect C4 Review #4 | ||
| Rating: 5 (excellent) | Nickname: FarmerBob | Date: 2009-10-22 |
| Summary: Started with the C2 and . . . | ||
| . . . and due to all the incomplete information that the stations were putting out prior to the conversion it was nearly impossible to choose the right antenna. In Denver they had all the HD stations temporarily located in the center of the city (North) and not on Lookout Mountain (WNW) where the VHF towers were. So until they moved them up there you had to grab from several directions. Once they moved them all to the mountain it made it easier, but they still didn\t tell us that they were transmitting at half or low power, which again made getting ready problematic. Here comes the C2 which I bought on at Amazon for a great price and by all the specs it should have been perfect being that I was only 15 miles out. I do have two groves of trees to shoot through though. AND the best part is that these antennas are rated VHF 7 and up, of which the FCC let many stations go back to their original VHF locations, but nobody told anyone. So if you got a \new\ HD (no such thing) antenna they primarily were just rebranded UHF antennas that start at channel 14. In Denver that leaves out our ABC and CBS affiliates. Having \problems\ with the C2 because of all of this I called AntennasDirect and got the best CSR, but during the call the President of the company took the phone and I was talking to the top. Unfortunately, he didn\t realize all this FCC and station commotion either, so within a couple of days I had a C4 on my door step to replace the \failed\ (not really) C2. Now installed without a Yagi, and the stations now where they belong, the expanded pick-up pattern helps, it works great. I am getting very strong signals through the trees and this Winter it should be even better. Thank You AD - You\re the Best. And quite stylish too. | ||
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