I am having trouble picking up stations despite living in the city only 15 minutes from downtown. I have the square antenna pretty high up the wall, and even have a signal amplifier. But the reception still sucks for PBS and a few other stations. Are there cheap things I can do to improve reception? The only possible thing I can think of is that the TV and antenna are at the part of the house furthest from the TV stations. (Most stations are NW of where I live. The TV and antenna are at the SE corner of the house. The house is a duplex, so 50% of it is off limits.)
Have you checked antennaweb.org to see if you can pick it up with your color antenna? I don’t know if it still matters and all antennas can do most colors.
The colors on that website only correspond to outdoor antennas. I can’t use one of these because I rent.
I’ve been watching this guy’s channel for the last hour. It’s pretty informative.
The antenna thingy says don’t use amplifier if signal is too strong, try that.
It sounds like you have one of the flat antenna? Try and put it as close to facing the towers as possible - having it in the SE corner is doing you no favors. Near a window and on an exterior wall will also help.
Also, it depends on the station’s channel/frequency. The flat antennas are awful at picking up Hi-VHF (channels 2-13 roughly).