Absolutely the best antenna for DTV reception on the market! I upgraded from a DB4 in hopes of getting reception out of market and it easily locked in all the local stations at a distance of 40 miles, But I was blown away at how well it captured many stations from a town over 100 miles away. I live on a hill so that obviously helps and your mileage may vary, but I never had as much consistent long range reception with any other antenna. Another plus, it's no larger than a DB4.
One tip: The position of the binding posts used to attach the buss bars do not leave much room to tighten the wing nuts, so connect both sets of tapered loops with the buss bars, first, before assembling the rest of the antenna. That should make things easier.
FWIW, the negative review below is obviously a troll and should be disregarded; he has posted the exact same comments about the DB2 and the DB4. Hmmmm.. Antennas Direct ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna
I've been using a DB4 antenna for about a year and a half, and it was OK. It was connected to a 4-port amp, which outputs to a pair of HDHomeRuns. Out of the ~15 HD stations in my area, I could get a good signal on ~4 of them at a time (depending on how the antenna was pointed), marginal on 3-4, and the rest were totally unusable. I finally got tired of this, and was about to purchase a DB8, when I noticed this little beauty. I figured I couldn't go too far wrong, and ordered it. After 5 minutes for assembly and 5 minutes to mount it in the attic (just guessed which direction to point it -- the wide beam on this antenna is wonderful), 13 of the 15 stations get near-perfect reception (>90% signal, >90% SNR); the other two are good (>70% on both). WOW - what an improvement, especially for an antenna that is only slightly larger than the DB4!
Highly recommend this over the previous generations of Antenna Direct antennas. And with Amazon's Prime shipping, you can't go wrong on this!
I have an antenna in the attic which has pulled in analog signals for us just fine over the years. Got one of those digital to analog boxes so I would be able to continue getting off-air after February '09. Even though the box was attached to the same old antenna I was surprised that I could receive no digital stations.
Looking at the reviews I decided to get the Clearstream 4. I placed it in the attic, although the material recommended not to. It pulled in the 4 local digital stations but two of them were badly pixilated. I moved it up to the roof and am now receiving good signals. We live 25 miles from the TV towers, in a low valley with large trees between us and the towers. This antenna works! I also appreciate that it is light and thus was easy to move around to the different placements. If you are in a difficult location, be sure to point it at least roughly in the direction of the digital tower(s).
I have been very pleased with this antenna. I am ~43 miles from the TV towers in LA. I did have to mount this antenna on my roof, above the roof line of neighboring houses, but the signal I receive is great. I simply used the previously installed cable coax from the cable company, and hooked it up to the C4, and am able to get a perfect signal on three TVs in my home. So that's three 2-way splitters, ~100' of coax cable, and no pre-amp is necessary. Compared to the large traditional outdoor tv antennas that for my location would need to have a 5-10' boom length, the C4 is quite small. I was able to get 58 digital channels after doing the auto channel search on my digital converter box. And I can now enjoy FREE HD quality TV. I ordered and received the C4 from Amazon, but some of the metal parts arrived bent out of the box. I was able to assemble it anyway, and luckily they didn't seem to be critical to its function. With the advent of free digital TV, this is absolutely the way to go. There is no more of the fuzzy analog signal with digital. Ditch your cable TV provider and get rid of expensive monthly cable fees, get free HD TV with an antenna, and then you can always watch shows that aren't broadcast for free on the internet (Hulu.com, etc.)
The C4 antenna is excellent when you consider its size. I placed it in my attic (as a backup antenna during hurricanes threats) and it works very well. I am 18 miles from the Miami TV stations to the south and 25 miles from the West Palm Beach stations to the north and I am able to receive all of the UHF digital transmissions. I placed C4 and C2 antennas in my attic, back to back, on the same 4 foot mast.
I gave it 3 stars because it has no reception capability on the VHF-Hi channels (7-13). I tried it outdoors and there was no reception on Miami's channel 7 (transmitting on channel 8 until June 12) and channel 10 (transmitting on channel 9). The same was true for the Palm Beach station, channel 12 (transmitting on channel 13). Antennas Direct/Terrestial Digital claims "consistent gain throughout the ENTIRE DTV channel spectrum", but this is totally false. The DTV channel spectrum includes channels 7-52 (both VHF-High & UHF), not only channels 14-52 (UHF). Channels 2-6 (VHF-low) are rare exceptions when they are used to transmit DTV, so I have no qualms about no reception for these.
Since I also got a C2 antenna (C4's little brother), I was able to compare them and there is practically no difference as to their reception capability. For the size, I think that the C2 is better.
One surprising result is that it works great to receive FM radio (something that their product literature does not claim).
At first I thought that the C4 had poorer reception than the C2. I had a little problem with a rattle inside the C4's 75-ohm connection box which required me to disassemble it (a nut was loose inside). I finally figured out how to put it back together on my own, but I had contacted Antennas Direct (twice) through their website, and they failed to respond. It seems that they respond only if it is going to lead to a sale. Once a sale has been made, they are not interested in helping their customers. Shame on you Antennas Direct/Terrestial Digital!
If you want an outdoor antenna for channels 7 to 52, I recommend the ChannelMaster 4228 (unfortunately discontinued) and the Winegard HD76xxP series (i.e., HD7696P). - Hd Antenna - Outdoor Antenna - Antenna - Clearstream'
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