The Over-The-Air HD TV signal reception in the basement of our new place is pretty weak, but Natasha likes watching “The Amazing Race” on Sundays. I thought I’d surprise her with a proper antenna, the $39 “ANT1400 Flat Antenna” from RCA. It looks cool, can be hung on a wall or laid flat on a shelf, and the feature sheet looked promising – it has ‘patented multidirectional reception technology’ (read: a loop of wire) and it ‘outperforms traditional antennas’ according to the box.

Unfortunately, despite all the promises on the packaging, I wasn’t able to get a viewable signal (audio came in fine) no matter where I put it or how I oriented it.

I would have chalked it up to poor reception in our basement, but our magical HD CoatHanger came through once again to save the day – the picture is a little on the grainy side, but if you get the position just right (hanging it on our ottoman seems to do the trick for Channel 13) you can get a pretty stable and somewhat clear image.

Not sure what’s up with that – I fully expected the antenna to clobber the coat hanger. Maybe the ANT1400 had a loose connection to the wire loop inside? Manufacturing problems? We returned the RCA antenna the next morning.

I’m willing to try a roof-mounted antenna – they’re surprisingly affordable,  and I already have cables reaching up there from the previous owner’s satellite system. I’ll let you know how that goes.