Antenna question

[pewell]

Well, I have made my decision on a purchase. I'm going to buy the Mitsubishi 65" WS65819. I am going to also buy the hughes HDTV Direct TV reciever. Here's the question. First I assume I hook the local antenna into the hughes reciever and can switch to that for local HDTV broadcasts. If they are not I can use the local feed from Direct TV (non HDTV) Second, I'm about...oh....15-20 miles from the reciever, can I use amplified rabbit ears or do I need a rooftop antenna? I can get uhf channels analog with the ears. Doesn't that mean I should be able to get the digital signals?

[zarlor]

Sounds like you've got the setup right when it gets in. It is not necessarily true that because you can get an analog signal with rabbit ears that you can still get the digital signal. For one thing some stations are operating their current digital signal at a reduced power level so it might not make it to you.

However, it is probably still very worthwhile to just try your current set-top antenna and see what you can get in. You may be just fine with that. If you can't get anything you could try an amplified set. Although you could also try checking out AntennaWeb (http://www.antennaweb.org) as they should be able to provide you with some idee of the kind of antenna you might need, although I think they tend to be a bit conservative in reccomending antenna sizes that may be a step up from the actual type you really need. Of course if you have the larger antenna they reccomend you'll be on the safe sideand should get the signals fairly well, at least.

[kevinw]

Wishfull thinking that it will be that easy, Go to
AnTennaWEB (http://antennaweb.org) and
titantv (http://titantv.com) Both of these will help you with antenna choices and what programming is available.