Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
 Good recption even when installed in garage February 9, 2010
Xiaofan LIN (San Jose, CA USA)
My old big rooftop antenna was blown off during the storm. Instead of repairing the big and heavy thing, I tried this much smaller antenna. To save even more work, I managed to hang it at the top inside the garage and positioned it in the dominant signal direction, and then routed the signal to each room using existing cable and signal splitter. It worked perfectly and I got almost all the digital channels shown on [...], many labeled 60 miles away and a few of channels were not received well by the old rooftop antenna. Maybe my house's location also contributes to the good result. Anyway, Channel Master 4221HD saves me all the trouble of setting up outside the house or in the attic while still getting quality signal.
Good inner city digital antenna January 10, 2010
George Colson
My inlaws are retired and on a fixed income. They were complaining about their cable bill while over at our house. My fater-in law commented how good the quality of my HDTV was and I let him know that we use an HD antenna and he was impressed.
We got him the channel master 4221HD for Xmas and hooked it up for him. I had purchased an amp and another HD-VHF antenna to run through a splitter. After hooking up the 4221HD seperately with out an amp, I found his reception 100% on all local stations.
To be fair, he is located less than 20 miles from most of the TV stations in Jax, Fla, so he is destined to get good reception, but the Antenna sits on a five foot mast at the peek of his roof and there is a 25 degree range for all of the stations.
This is an excellent antenna for the inner-city/urban area and he even gets stations as far as 70 miles away. This was an excellent choice for his needs.
Price/performance winner November 20, 2009
D. Rhoades (Gainesville, VA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
You can search several forums and find out that this antenna is 90% of the 4228 (in some cases more than 100%) for about half the price. The design of the 4228HD is flawed, and this one is right. It's working very well for me, but I'm going to try some tweaks to make it more directional (search for CM4221HD hacks for more info) and to fix what I think is a manufacturing error (the balun should be away from the relector - not between the reflector and the "whiskers"), and probably try some of the other suggested hacks that aren't permanent. The only antenna that I'd consider for a replacement would be the VERY directional 91XG, and that's because of the trees I'm getting my signal through. I'd have better multipath rejection and probably more signal. It costs 2X this one. This is a great antenna for anyone that 1) is 30 or so miles away from the antenna (closer to 60 if you use the CM7777 amplifier), 2) doesn't need a super-directional antenna due to hills or trees, and 3) only needs UHF (I use a separate VHF antenna to get 7 and 9 in the DC area). BE SURE to visit antennaweb or tvfool to know what your actual station frequency is, so that you aren't disappointed when you can't get your VHF station. This is NOT a VHF antenna!
I love Amazon, but I saved $10 paying $34 plus tax with free shipping somewhere else (better not say, I guess I'll keep that ace in the hole). Mine is outside atop a 30' mast, with a preamp and rotator. I'm behind a hill and trees so I need the height. I tried the attic, but even with the rotator and amplifier it wasn't good enough.
I have 30 channels and subchannels. 25 of them are on this antenna. Dump your cable and satellite! Or get OTA (over the air) stations as a backup and keep your monthly billed service. OTA really IS higher-def than cable and satellite, by the way. The picture is georgeous. This is really NOT a short-range antenna. It's a medium to long-range directional antenna in performance - maybe nearly as good as a 91XG with the balun fix and the hacks - we'll see. It's not quite as long-range or directional as some others, but without bad terrain or building interference, a really good antenna. As always, "your milage may vary", but if you get SOME signal with your indoor antenna now, prepare to be amazed.
BTW, your "antique" rooftop antenna may be be excellent as, is - don't be fooled into thinking there is really any such thing as an HDTV antenna. There are RF antennas and all TV signals are RF, HD or not. There ARE UHF, VHF and combo antennnas - the latter being the most common in "older" antennas. You don't need the low VHF of the old antenna and your UHF probably isn't quite as good as this one, but it might be. If you have a good (read "large") older antenna, do NOT expect to be amazed, plus be SURE you don't need that VHF portion any more.
Attic is the answer November 12, 2009
Cleaner Man (Virginia)
I purchased this antenna to feed a TV I installed in my bathroom. I did not want additional cable charges for the small amount of time the TV in the bathroom would be in use. However, I did want good HD reception for at least the networks. To test reception I connected the antenna and sat it again the window wall in my 2nd floor bedroom closet facing toward the network channels. In the closet I was receiving a strong 4 bar (out of 10 bars) reception on the major networks with some jumping up to 6 bars. However, this resulted in some ghosting and dropped signals. I then placed the antenna in my attic directly above the closet and amazingly the signal jumped to solid 10 bars on all networks. Perfect picture with no ghosting even though it was raining outside. I could not believe the attic would improve the signal strength that much over the antenna being on a finished level of the house. I am getting a better signal that I receive on my outdoor antennae that is connected to a basement TV. I am only 20 miles from most stations but after auto channel seeking on the TV I am picking up over 30 channels. I am 20 miles south of DC so a good area for TV stations. Impressed with this antenna.
Excellent Buy November 10, 2009
127.0.0.1 (Gold Country, CA USA)
I purchased this antenna when I moved to a new home in Auburn, CA. My home is 110 air miles from Sutro TV tower in San Francisco and about 50 air miles from the Sacramento towers in Walnut Grove, CA. The home is on a gentle hill and, based on my Google Earth mapping, has no hills blocking the path to either set of towers. There are some condominiums and trees behind me that seem to be high enough to obstruct the signal, but I think it is mostly a clear path otherwise. The antenna is installed in my attic for aesthetic and practical purposes, so it also must pull the signal through asphalt shingles and plywood. Since the 4221 is quite directional, I ran into a few minor problems with having to compromise signal levels on some stations to have reception on the maximum number of channels. I also had to give up a couple channels I like to watch in order to reliably get stations I watch more often. Last weekend, I installed a rotor on the antenna to allow directional tweaks to optimize the weaker stations. With the addition of the rotor, I am now able to reliably receive most of the San Francisco stations as well as some San Jose stations, the Santa Rosa station (about 90 miles away) and all of the Sacramento stations, a total of 59 channels. As others have mentioned, a significant percentage of them are non-english or junk channels, but there are at least 30 that I watch. At this point, my only problem is when there is heavy weather. I lose some SF stations when there is heavy rain or fog or high wind, that's where the 4228 might help, not sure. Overall, I am very happy with this antenna. For the money, and free shipping through Amazon, it is only slightly more expensive than a set-top amplified antenna (which I also tried and which was a miserable failure). I might also remark that before I had completely moved out of my old home, I took the 4221 over there and tried it. I was able to get many of the Sacramento channels with good (65-80 of 100) signal level. Before digital TV, I had a mast-mounted antenna at that house and could not get any channels well enough to be 'watchable'. With the 4221 sitting on the floor inside the house connected to the TV with a 6 foot piece of coax, the reception was 100 times better than I ever achieved with the huge outdoor analog antenna. Additionally, dtv.gov listed that location as having NO reception, but the 4221 proved it wrong.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 32
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