RCA ANT1650 Flat Digital Amplified Indoor TV Antenna

I ordered this product with the hope it would work okay. Was amazed at the picture quality, ease of installation, and would recommend this antenna to anyone looking for a cheaper way than high priced cable.

I've only used this a little so far, mostly for watching some of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. It did a great job of pulling in the local HD signal and feeding it to my HDTV. The image approached Blu-ray in quality. Set-up was just a matter of plugging it in. I'm very happy with this unobtrusive antenna. (I just couldn't stomach some of the ones out there that look like they're from an episode of Star Trek.)

I live in Downtown Jersey City surrounded by big buildings and, yes, even trees. Hooked this up (with the amplifier [included]) and, voila`, 40+ channels (although at least half are of the spanish language/culture variety). I'm very pleased with both the quality of the picture and sound. Bottom line: if you're looking for an indoor digital antennae I recommend this one.

I read the reviews here and decided to buy this because I wanted to get rid of my rabbit ear antennas. First I thought this picked up a few more channels than the rabbit ear antennas because the reception seemed stable. After awhile, I had to keep moving it around to get better reception. I had to keep moving it to a different position for every channel i changed to. Annoying! The reason why this picks up more channels than the rabbit ears is because of the amplifier. I tried my rabbit ears antenna with the amplifier and it worked even better. I am returning this and buying an amplifier to use with my rabbit ears antenna instead.

I purchased another brand a few months ago and while its reviews were solidly in favor of its attributes I found that it was just an unidirectional amplified antenna with nothing much to praise other than the fact that it worked fundamentally well. Having a sense of perfection in some things, I bought this RCA 1650 antenna becasue of the write up and recognizing fully that some reviewers compared it to rabbit ears or worse. Upon opening the box I immediately saw that the dimensions were stated incorrectly. The antenna is NOT 1.7X8.9X2.6. It is about the size of a sheet of government paper (8X10) and about 1 inch thick. NO big thing but a consideration I had since I had the perfect mounting spot for the dimensions reported. I further expected an omnidirectional antenna and received another unidirectional antenna. Perhaps a note of disclosure would be appropriate here. We live in the valley between two mountains (hills to some until you try to climb one) next to the creek. The terrain suggests, rightly so, that any antenna would not work well and sure enough this one does not work much better than the other one as far as signal strength. Given the flat design compared to some modern art stature that looks ugly and the simple and most imporant fact that this antenna draws in most of the digital and high definition stations in this area I would have to give a significant number of kudos to the RCA compared to the other. Another slight factor is the manner in which the hardwired coaxial cable exits the bottom of the flat piece. At the bottom of the flat piece (I do not know the technical name of this but I hope you can see what I am attempting to describe) the cable exits on its way to the amplifier or the TV's connection point. The manner in which the cable exits causes it to put pressure on the flat piece in such a manner that connecting the provided stand not to work properly. An attempt to have the cable run below the stand did not work well nor did placing the cable over the stand work well either. A design flaw that should be corrected with the next model. The coaxial cable's gauge should be a bit larger in an effort to handle digital signals. In the directions it suggests that the antenna not be placed near metal so that the signal would not be diminished but it would be well worth the slight extra cost to make the cable shielded to eliminate that condition if possible. I know picky, picky. Bottom line: it works fairly well and it is better than the other one that I bought.