What's the Best HDTV Antenna?

Jack380AC

Member
Jan 28, 2008
877
West Chester, PA / North East, MD
Boat Info
2000 380 Aft Cabin
Engines
Twin 454 Mag MPI Horizon MerCruiser
I'm no expert but I also don't get enough info online (that I can find) to help me select the best product(s) for my boat. My goal is to ultimately boost the reception of all the electronice (other that GPS which is working fine). First priority is HDTV because the Admiral wants to watch the news and the marina has no cable. But it also makes sense to boost the wifi so we could possibly stream some TV or movies. Third priority would be cellular boost but its not as important as that OK.

Shakesphere has been suggested but their web page does not give me much help on how to choose. In facy, you can browse and find their TV antennas you have to use the search featyre to even find them.

All suggestions and advice are welcome. Thanks in advance.
Jack
 
Others will follow, but the very first thing to do is see how your reception is at the marina. That is pretty easy to do.
First, go to antennaweb.org and use the signal tool to see what the possibilities are.
Second, try it yourself. Borrow or buy an over the air antenna, and take it to the boat. you can hook the cable into the cable adapter near the shore power connectors, and set your reception on board to "Cable" or "Shore", and do a channel search. The higher the antenna is on your vessel, and the less obstructed, the better. If your slip is covered, that is a negative. If you have other obstructions around you, that is a negative. If you can permanently mount the antenna on a pole or the roof if covered, that is a positive.
Strong wifi is a preference over strong DTV reception, as there are a hundred ways to present tv, with many more options should you be able to stream. It is, however a bigger investment unless the marina is pretty well covered. If news is the only real driver, then I would either stream from my phone to the tv, or try the over the air option.
Being a 2000 380 aft cabin, you likely already have an antenna on board. Have you tried a channel scan with your existing equipment? What you may not have, is a TV that is capable of receiving digital signals. You will need one that knows how to scan for digital channels.
 
I replaced the 3 TV's with smart TV's and we primarily use the original Glomex antenna. It works perfectly no matter where we go and picks up 30+ channels. We have the capability but It is rare we would stream off the marina wifi as there is no reason to.

image.jpeg
 
IMG_4230.JPG
We used the UFO that Tiara installed at the factory. Majestic digital TV. In metropolitan areas, lots of TV channels are available.
 
My original Glomex is long gone. I need to buy a new one for HDTV. Hoping someone has some experience withese and has some advice on which ones are best and perhaps which ones to avoid.
 
We skipped the new tv antenna approach with the new boat. We went with a Glomex WebBoat WiFi antenna. This is an amplified WiFi antenna and can receive WiFi signals up to several miles away. We found that even with the new OnSpot system the marina (and others) have installed WebBoat improves wifi. It also has two sim card slots that are attached to what amounts to a cellular hotspot, like an iPad or whats found in some newer cars. The third feature is that it also creates a wireless internal WiFi network for the boat.

When one wifi source is not available the antenna defaults to the other. The choice of which is primary is up to you. We have ours set up with an ATT pay as you go sim card that we have only tested. We use the marina wiifi most of the time. The rationale for this is that the days of open wifi nodes seem to be diminishing with more places that offer free wifi implementing some level of security, so the cellular option seems like a good add.

We added this to a new LG smart TV, Fusion AV-755 and Apple TV. Before we had the antenna installed the LG with built in Amazon Prime and Netflix worked ok. The Apple TV worked and connected but the signal wasn't good enough to actually watch either Apple content, or the CBS/NBC/ABC/Cooking Channel etc mobile apps. After we installed it they all work great.

This also gives us a wifi network internally and when we visit another marina we only have to make the new connection for the webboat and everything else stays the same.

I don't know whether the interface is kludgy, or just poorly documented. Glomex is an Italian company and when I emailed for some technical help they responded quickly in Italian. Although my Italian is rusty I was able to sort it out.

H
 
I installed a Glomex on my 260 DA with the antenna gain and the 44DB had one. Both work flawlessly on the water or under the roof at the dock.

Bennett
 
We skipped the new tv antenna approach with the new boat. We went with a Glomex WebBoat WiFi antenna. H
I looked really hard at that antenna...what thru me off was the size.... My radar would have hit it if I put it where the tv antenna is now"... So I would have had to fill in holes and make new holes. I don't know why it's so big... The guts show the HD antenna size but it doesn't need to be that big and the wifi antenna is just that a short wifi antenna... I think they need to shrink the thing so people can replace the original and they would be on to something
...but if you have the room and the money I am sure it's exceptional ... Glomex has a great reputation for performance and standing by their products..
image.jpeg
 
I looked really hard at that antenna...what thru me off was the size.... My radar would have hit it if I put it where the tv antenna is now"... So I would have had to fill in holes and make new holes. I don't know why it's so big... The guts show the HD antenna size but it doesn't need to be that big and the wifi antenna is just that a short wifi antenna... I think they need to shrink the thing so people can replace the original and they would be on to something
...but if you have the room and the money I am sure it's exceptional ... Glomex has a great reputation for performance and standing by their products..
View attachment 74697

We had a similar situation. I wanted to mount in in the front, but it wouldn’t fit under the radar. I ended up mounting it on the back of the Hardtop. I wanted to make sure I had access to the sim ports.

That said before it was permanently mounted I had it kludge mounted to one of the grab handles (needed to have it functional for a multi day trip) so that it was actually under the Hardtop. It still worked great.

Interestingly enough its actually shorter than the Roguewave WiFi only antennas.

H
 
So what I'm learning is there are several antennas that will work. What is impossible to find is a simple converter to attache the digital antenna to the old analog TV so neatly installed on my old boat. Sheeeesh
 

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