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Excellent performance in poor conditions |
June 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer:
Archimedes
from CA
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After a lifetime of living in various areas all having poor TV reception, I'm used to barely visible images, heavy ghosting, snow, and poor colors.
Flipping through cable channels at hotels never turned up anything sufficiently interesting to pay a subscription for. But, with the transition to digital coming, I picked up a digital tuner (EyeTV 250+) for my computer (as the cheapest entry point) and plugged-in to the apartment's antenna to see what was available.
Only one digital channel was received, but it was so clear, I researched antennas further and eventually got the Winegard SS2000.
Although only 10 miles from antennas broadcasting from the top of a mountain in Los Angeles, I'm about 150 feet below a line of sight blocked by foothill terrain that is topped by another 50 feet of trees. The apartment has a multi-element UHF/VHF antenna about 80 feet off the ground that provides only marginal results on VHF. In fact, antennaweb.org predicted reception of ZERO digital channels at my location.
So the SS2000 was to be an experiment only; expectations were low, considering the elaborate external VHF/UHF pro antenna system at 80 feet of elevation only got one digital station.
I wired up the SS2000, plugged it in and got 42 digital channels with it just propped up in a chair, 2 feet off the ground inside my apartment. The first station I looked at was broadcasting a football game in 1080i & Dolby; seeing individual blades of grass on the field with accurate colors and no artifacts was memorable!
Got a tripod for the antenna (USAT from DVBhardware) and placed it outdoors on my patio, upping the count to a total of 54 stations (28 are keepers).
So it works, and works very well. I also got the SS3000 "indoor" antenna for comparison, but find the SS2000 to be superior, whether used indoors or outdoors. This may be because the SS3000 is a bit ungainly and difficult to orient considering it's long "wingspan". The SS2000 square isn't a visual work of art for the indoors, but it's not bad either, and could well be hung inside on a wall. It is light-weight. Given the better performance, compactness, and indoor/outdoor flexibility of the SS2000, I don't know what purpose the SS3000 serves.
Despite the reception "valley" I'm in, I do benefit from having most of the antennas broadcasting from a single site. The SS2000 is NOT suitable if you have stations broadcasting from multiple directions. If the antenna is turned more than ~10 degrees off-point, I start to lose stations. So you will need something else if you want/have to receive from multiple directions.
I briefly tried the analog VHF channels with the SS2000; they were there, but with many artifacts. Since the local stations all broadcast equivalent digitals, there's no reason to look at the analog VHF again, so I didn't pursue it.
As a side-note, I've seen reviews by people reporting failure with one antenna or another (even this one); keep in mind, this antenna is NOT for free satellite reception but for free digital terrestrial broadcasts from a ground-based transmitter. I get suspicious when I read of people expressing disgust with an antenna after getting "nothing" when pointing it "south" ...
UPDATE: The SS2000 is a powered antenna with an AC adapter that injects into the antenna coaxial cable (only one cable to unit). Out of curiosity, I unplugged the power and observed no difference in performance, even for a couple of marginal Japanese channels that drop in and out. The signal level reported by the tuner didn't change whether or not it was powered for ANY of the channels (most of which come in at 55 to 75% signal strength levels at this location, which is apparently good enough). Since the adapter was warm, it was apparently drawing power to no effect. So I leave it unplugged now. I don't know under what conditions the powered-antenna function is useful, but apparently not mine ... which is fine -- just wanted to mention the potential electricity savings.
Now with a Zenith DTT900 digital-to-analog converter box for my standard TV, I run the unpowered SS2000 antenna into a PCT MA2-4P drop amplifier (+8 dB) to split the signal and send on to the converter-box and computer tuners. Works great , but a $7 unpowered splitter did not: the -3.5 dB loss wiped out both tuners.
Thank you for your feedback on this review. We appreciate your input! 
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