Home > Consumer Reviews > CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna

I installed this in my attic and instead of just mounting it anywhere, I installed it right behind a spot under the eaves that is covered only by perforated soffit. All the stations that appear in the channel list come in strong and clear (except for three that originate in a direction nearly opposite to which it faces, and for obvious reasons. The only station I seem unable to pull in is WNPT channel 8 in Nashville but they're not using a very strong transmitter. I'll try tweaking it a bit and may consider a quality inline amplifier, but for its size and price, it's hard to beat. I didn't have enough data to rate its high VHF characteristics, but the fact that it pulls in CH2 and CH5 with ~60% signal strength (considering attic installation and the cable length) indicates to me that it should be able to pull in channels 8-13 if they have a decent enough EIRP from their transmitter. Antennas of this type are supposed to be marginal to poor on the low VHF range and fair to good on high VHF, so it definitely does exceed my expectations.

Purchased for my grandparents. They love it. I persally have the larger model and love it.

I live in Winter Springs, Florida in a ground floor apartment of a 2 floor complex. I have my Clearstream antenna on the shelf of my coat closet and most of my local channels come in better than cable tv delivers them to my sister. I do have to move the antenna slightly when I want to watch either channel 2 or channel 6, but I move it a lot less often than I had to with my Terk amplified tabbit ears/loop antenna, and I get all my locals nice and solid. If you have trouble with this antenna, moving it as little as a foot in a straight line might make an incredible difference. I do not have it pointed in the direction I expected to be best at all. It works far better than any other indoor antenna I've tried and I don't have to plug it in a power outlet.

To understand this antenna, you have to understand the post-transition digital frequencies:

* Low VHF (Channels 2-6)
* High VHF (Channels 7-13)
* Core UHF (Channels 14-51)
* Obsolete UHF (Channels 52-69)

The early DTV stations all used UHF. After analog stations were turned off, some digital stations started moving down into High VHF. A small number of stations (just a few percent nationally) will be permanently stuck down in Low VHF. The problem is that VHF, especially low VHF, is very far in frequency from UHF. Basically you need two antennas to "do it right".

This antenna deliberately discards performance in Low VHF and Obsolete UHF, to improve core UHF performance. You need to decide if this is a problem or a benefit based on the TV stations in your area.

For many people an amplified antenna is either a waste or harmful. This antenna does not have an amplifier.

We live at the top of an extinct volcano in the Pacific NW. The signal from the TV towers really don't reach us that well but this antenna picked up the signal. We still need to position it depending on the channel we are trying to get, but the other 2 antennas I tried didn't.