TV Antenna Listings on Amazon Are Rife With Dubious Claims (techhive.com) 170
An anonymous reader shares a report: Early last week, during Amazon's Prime Days, I decided to see if the e-tailer had any good deals on over-the-air TV antennas. I was appalled by what I found. Searching for "antenna" on Amazon.com revealed listing upon listing for products with dubious performance claims. In Amazon's most popular and sponsored results, antenna makers were advertising unrealistic reception ranges, nonexistent over-the-air channels, and picture quality that current U.S. broadcast standards don't support. These misleading claims aren't just bad for cord-cutters. They also could harm respectable antenna makers that refuse to get in the muck with less scrupulous brands. Unless Amazon -- or a government watchdog -- intervene, this type of advertising is unlikely to stop anytime soon. When I reached out to Amazon for a comment on my findings, an Amazon spokesperson said "Selling partners are required to provide accurate information about their products to Amazon, and we take action against those that violate our policies and threaten our customer experience. We are investigating these listings now and will take prompt action against any that violate our policies."
I'm sure they're not proactive (Score:5, Informative)
They went on to say "however we only investigate false claims after someone asks us to because we make a butt load of money being a middle man, and being proactive only serves to make us less money."
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They went on to say "however we only investigate false claims after someone asks us to because we make a butt load of money being a middle man, and being proactive only serves to make us less money."
Someone with money and/or power.
There are so many things on Amazon in the wrong categories on Amazon. It is one of the most frustrating things about it.
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Isn't that a marketing tactic? I mean the CompUSAs changed the store around annually to make the customers walk around the store to find the relocated items that they want to purchase. Best Buy does that also but less frequently. Other stores do that also.
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If somebody is using a product listing fraudulently and you post a review telling people what the review is for, and pointing out that the product listing has been recycled fraudulently to reuse the reviews, Amazon disallows that review but doesn't remove the product listing.
They're fully complicit in all of this, and the claim that there is somebody else whose fault it is is just a lie. Amazon actively participates in all the scams, because it shields them from honest reviews. They're an accomplice, consis
Amazon is insufficiently managed. (Score:2)
Amazon plans drone aircraft: Would you allow aircraft in your neighborhood? Drones can be DANGEROUS! [slashdot.org]
Amazon is insufficiently managed.
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Yes!!
They are equally as proactive AND effective as (also tax dollar wasted) donotcall.gov.
Thanks for your $$. We''ll be living in mansions.
Same for cellular antenna (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother lives out in the country, the fastest internet connection I could find for her was a wireless cellular hotspot.
Because the cell reception is also kind of bad, I went to some effort to look for a wireless cell receiver that would accept antenna input, and got her an antenna to go with it as well.
Looking at cellular antennas, I feel like the same kind of deal is present as described for TV antennas - dubious claims of performance.
In the end what I got did boost the signal somewhat, but it was not as great a boon as you'd expect from the description... I figured that would be the case though, so it was good enough.
I wish I had the equipment to properly test the strength of the antennas to evaluate a few different models and see what would work best for that area.
Re:Same for cellular antenna (Score:5, Informative)
Classic Bowtie with reflectors, or Yagi style, tend to work well. Omnidirectionals of any sort have limited gain and higher probability of destructive interference.
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That's not entirely true. The boosters I used to sell have an omni-directional "indoor" antenna and a highly directional "outdoor" antenna. The ones on cell towers are arrays of directional antennas, and not very practical indoors/for close ranges.
The best advice for purchasing a setup for this is to go talk to a professional at a radio store. The mopes at the Verizon store generally aren't going to know what they are talking about. (No offense to Verizon store employees, they just generally aren't RF
Re:Same for cellular antenna (Score:4, Informative)
1. Go to TVFool to get a very reliable prediction of the TV reception probabilities for your mother's exact location: http://www.tvfool.com/ [tvfool.com]
2. Don't buy junk, build her the very best TV antenna on earth: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org] (we did all the testing for you so you don't have to)
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I find that TVFool is years out of date. Use antennaweb.org instead for current data. It's a shame, too, because TVfool calculated the power level you get instead of telling you that you need a particular "color" antenna.
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My mother lives out in the country, the fastest internet connection I could find for her was a wireless cellular hotspot.
Viacom/Exede offers 20Mbps, although they do throttle video, and there's about a second of latency.
Shocker! (Score:2)
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Let the buyer beware.
The problem is, there is zero chance ANY buyer of TV antennas will understand the technicalities involved. There is way more to this than saying "Works to 60 miles away!" or some such garbage.
Who, unless you work in the industry, even knows how far away the various TV stations transmitters actually are, much less what direction? Then, who can tell if that 60 Mile number applies to your unique situation? 60 miles line of sight up on a 200' tower is totally different than the ground floor of a 5 story apa
This is why we need Radio Shack back (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is why we need Radio Shack back (Score:4, Insightful)
I miss the Radio Shack of my childhood.. you know, the one with do-it-yourself kits for teaching electronics, all the weird replacement parts you could imagine for everything from radios to tape players.
The one that tried to morph into a cellphone store? Not so much.
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I miss HeathKit too! RS once had the Archer line of TV antennae that was co-manufactured with AntennaCraft. All of that is gone now in place of Chinese crap. Build a Gray-Hoverman.
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I've got a Heathkit HERO Jr robot next to my desk, so I'd probably be willing to buy an antenna kit if they still existed and had a digital one.
Luckily there are over 1000 youtubers competing to teach people how to build that Gray-Hoverman, along with all the more traditional howto sites.
I'm actually still using rabbit ears. They're still OK for digital.
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Fry's has arguably taken this mantle in the modern day, although they don't have the Forrest Mims DIY books created specifically for Radio Shack.
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Not to mention a staff of retired engineers and EE majors.
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Re:This is why we need Radio Shack back (Score:5, Informative)
There is no such thing as a "standard definition" or "high definition" TV antenna. Picture definition is a property of the signal modulation (the payload) and not the wave propagation relationship between the broadcast and receiving antennae (the Fresnel Zone). A UHF TV antenna from the 1960s can receive "digital" and "high definition" signals just fine when all is in working order.
Modulation tolerance of wave propagation (Score:2)
Picture definition is a property of the signal modulation (the payload) and not the wave propagation relationship between the broadcast and receiving antennae (the Fresnel Zone).
Unless one modulation is more tolerant of certain wave propagation relationship challenges than another. For example, ATSC (US TV) uses 8VSB instead of COFDM because 8VSB works better over long distances to receivers in rural areas.
The big challenges that I remember reading about during the U.S. DTV transition are 1. multipath and 2. signal strength near the critical level for the error correction to work reliably. That and during the DTV transition, higher-frequency channels were sold to the cellular indus
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I know what you're saying, but really the broadcast reception problems affecting the data stream were the core of those decisions regardless of the actual payload of said streams (picture definition, multi-channel digital audio, captioning, 2nd language, etc.). Even if the data was only 480i with DD 2.0 the reception problems would have still needed handling. Thankfully, after several major versions, ATSC was ready. 5.0 was almost there, but 6 was combat-ready. Of course ATSC was also the home team and DVB-
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Even if the data was only 480i with DD 2.0 the reception problems would have still needed handling.
Better handling of reception problems might have included more FEC for the low spatial frequencies and main stereo image of the .1 channel, with the higher spatial frequencies and surround difference protected by less FEC This is how old-school GSM Full Rate audio worked, for example.
Thankfully, after several major versions, ATSC was ready. 5.0 was almost there, but 6 was combat-ready.
Are these version upgrades implemented only at the broadcaster, or do receivers need to make changes as well? A lot of people formed their first impressions of ATSC propagation performance based on the limits of coupon-eligible
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I guess one might interpret the "digital" and "HD" antennas to mean something to the effect "Compared to older 2-83 antennas, this antenna is no longer compromised based on the need to receive higher channels that are no longer part of the US TV band plan.
Yup, which means it may result in a cheaper to build antenna and lower warranty costs. A win-win.
Other changes have been made to the design to optimize for receiving ATSC stations."
Only if it results in a cost savings for the manufacturer.
Or would that give manufacturers too much credit?
Possibly, see above.
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Aw, give him a break, he was probably in a hurry.
Also, that wooshing sound as the humour flew by might have confused him.
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Oops, I had the sound muted so I missed the canned laughter that was supposed to tell me that humour was being employed.
Dubious antenna claims is nothing new (Score:2)
I usually buy direct from ChannelMaster (Score:1)
Rather than deal with a middle person/affiliate/wholesaler, I always get my antenna direct from ChannelMaster. They make the claims, they backup their product. It's the same antenna my dad bought in 1988. Still works the same way. Nothing's changed in all those years. Only now it's receiving a digital RF signal instead of an analog signal. No change.
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The spectrum used here is still all over the place. Its not been reduced. Both UHF and VHF at different ends of the bands. A good TV antenna is still a good TV antenna. Go with a brand like Channelmaster for quality.
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The excellent ChannelMaster antennae of the 1980s have been gone for awhile. ChannelMaster outsourced all their R&D and manufacturing to China years ago, with the result that the original CM4228 and CM4221 UHF bowtie reflector models were replaced with lesser, different models with almost identical names. Don't be fooled. Build a Gray-Hoverman instead.
You should try the thumb drives (Score:3)
Search for 1TB thumb drive and weep. Page after page of fraudulent products. Amazon doesn't care.
Eventually EU law is going to catch up with them. If you advertise something, you have to provide what you advertised, unless the buyer is aware that the advertisement is by mistake. They can try to hide behind the Ebay excuse of just being a front and not being a shop, but they will fail, just like when Uber tries to pretend they are not an employer. It won't work forever, sooner or later they will be on the hook for providing real 1TB thumb drives for €10.
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Which is most likely the importer being dishonest. Go to AliExpress and you don't see this nearly as much despite the fact that you are dealing directly with Chinese retailers.
I have actually bought a good deal of Ram, SDDs, and thumb drives from that site with no problem. Usually there are plenty of reviews from Eastern Europe/Russia with extensive testing or even teardowns of the tech equipment to show you the speeds/chips/etc.
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Usually there are plenty of reviews from Eastern Europe/Russia with extensive testing or even teardowns of the tech equipment to show you the speeds/chips/etc.
Can you recommend some review sites? I read Russian so it should not be a problem.
Oh please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, we all know advertising is always dubious. But the 2nd floor in the middle of Kansas is not a great example of optimum. The would be the side of a mountain facing a big city that is 100 miles away. And it's not the antennas fault that HBO isn't offered over the air. If they did, then you could use it. Same with 4k, not the antenna manufacturers fault the FCC hasn't mandated 4k. If the stations offered it the antenna would work just fine.
The good 'ol days (Score:5, Informative)
In the old days, you'd stick with a known name brand antenna like Sears or Realistic/Tandy to avoid being ripped off. It's no guarantee, but the big brands wanted to keep a decent reputation to get further sales on other products. They were about 30% more than the "cheapo" product, but usually worth it.
We don't have much of that anymore because either the brands change too often, and/or there are too many counterfeits that ruin their reputation even if they do make good stuff. It's trial and error now. I'd rather pay more via the old style than waste my time with trial and error. Time is money. Something is backward.
I'm not sure which lawn to kick the kids off of anymore.
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In the old days, you'd stick with a known name brand antenna
In the old days many people stuck with the antenna that came with their TV.
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In the old days, you shoved a paper clip in and you were good to go. If you wanted a great signal, you added some aluminum foil.
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No way. A paper clip is way too small; you needed something at least the size of a coat hanger.
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No, you added a child to hold it Just Right.
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And when watching a tie ball game in the bottom of the ninth you had to shout at everyone in the room to stop breathing so that the picture stayed steady!
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Packard-Bell was probably one of the first brands to have this happen - they were known for making decent quality TVs and radios in the 1950s-1970s. The name was resold in order to market
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Some of them do it to themselves willingly. Toshiba stopped making most of its TVs for the European market, and re-branded some crap ones instead. Philips let PC World make laptops with its name on them.
Neither of those companies were in financial difficulty, they just decided to sell out their good names.
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In the old days, you'd stick with a known name brand antenna like Sears or Realistic/Tandy to avoid being ripped off. It's no guarantee, but the big brands wanted to keep a decent reputation to get further sales on other products. They were about 30% more than the "cheapo" product, but usually worth it.
We don't have much of that anymore because either the brands change too often, and/or there are too many counterfeits that ruin their reputation even if they do make good stuff.
We don't have that any more because the brands went to shit in pursuit of profit. Sears charges $20 for a $5 Walbro primer bulb for a lawn mower, and there's four different companies making shit that's sold as Kenmore — and two of them fucking suck.
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The problem is that the more expensive stuff is often the same made in China crap with a 200% markup for a nicer-looking box and a brochure in passable English.
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Rating systems are rigged by fake customers and counterfeits that drag real products down unfairly. They are not policed well enough.
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Couldn't you just say "my experience is different" instead of calling me a grumpy fogie?
Here's what Fakespot says (Score:4, Interesting)
Antenna #1: Amazon gives it 5 stars; Fakespot, F for authenticity of reviews.
Antenna #2: Amazon, 3.5 stars; Fakespot, F.
Antenna #3: Amazon, 3 stars; Fakespot, B.
Antenna #4: Amazon, 3.5 stars; Fakespot, D.
Antenna #5: Amazon, 3.5 stars; Fakespot, D.
Antenna #6: no reviews.
It seems the authenticity of the reviews is inversely related to the Amazon rating.
"image quality [not supported by] US broadcasters" (Score:2)
Is this really a fraudulent claim? I mean, if broadcasters use same underlying tech, the same antennae could easily work in many countries around the world, it is hardly a novelty for one product to be sold around the world, including in the US, right? It would be more weird for the seller to essentially LIE by stating lower capabilities than their product actually supports. Not everybody has high speed optical internet connection, but that doesn't mean computers or routers must limit their claimed specs.
Ul
Reminder: GPLed DIY Super TV Antenna (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you missed it years ago, the very best TV antenna in the world is the free (as in free) Gray-Hoverman:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Select plans that have been refactored for today's UHF 14-51 bandwidth and you'll be glad you built one.
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The Gray-Hoverman is optimized for certain conditions, and you can do much better if you violate the conditions.
If you have good building skills and know where to point the antenna, the best you can reasonably expect to do is build a large parabolic reflector -- what you put at the focus is a problem I'm not prepared to give good advice for. The parabolic reflector is essentially frequency independent for wavelengths smaller than the diameter of the antenna.
Re:Reminder: GPLed DIY Super TV Antenna (Score:5, Informative)
Woohoo, I get to do a "Korn vs Microsoft" here! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I am one of the fathers of the Gray-Hoverman antenna (I know Mr. Gray, and I read up on the late Mr. Doyt R. Hoverman and his patents extensively). With a cadre of professional and keen hobbyist members, we created one hell of an amazing antenna if I say so myself.
Back in the 1950s Mr. Doyt R. Hoverman simply took a WWI-era radio antenna design called the Chireix-Mesny, turned it 90 degrees for TV signal polarity, and rescaled it to the UHF TV frequency band. In 2006-2008, under Mr. Gray's initiative, we completely modernized and optimized the GH for today's reception requirements. The original Hoverman was an okay UHF TV antenna, but that is all that can really be said about it. OTOH, the Gray-Hoverman's performance and "free as in free" design disrupted the TV antenna business forever.
In all our tests over the years against some of the most highly engineered UHF parabolic TV antennae (ex Wade PB-82-BB, Channel Master 4251, etc.) as well as the best of bowtie and yagi-uda antennae, the results were consistent: the Gray-Hoverman DBGH in its best evolution had equal or better gain and reception. It is far, far easier to build than a parabolic, simpler than a bowtie, and generates better results.
Don't just take my word for it; go and join our community of OTA TV antenna geeks: https://www.digitalhome.ca/for... [digitalhome.ca] and you'll see the vast amount of reproduceable data sets proving the superiority of our design and its many variants.
Mod Parent UP! (Score:2)
Wish I had points available for you, drat.
A few years ago I referred a friend to this design after his cable priced him out.
Following a plan he found on the net he built one out of cut clothes hangers, he wasn't terribly precise.
It brought in more channels than my fancy $90 antenna from frys. Wish I hadn't tossed the receipt.
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Not quite. UHF 14-36 are available as a contiguous block for television use. Chanel 37 is reserved for radio astronomy. From 38 to 50, its TV again. Above that, allocations for 4G cellular and UHF TV are interlaced.
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Correct. Thanks for the reminder of the channel repack.
Re: Reminder: GPLed DIY Super TV Antenna (Score:2)
Note that an antenna optimized for UHF 14-36 isn't *quite* good enough to reliably pull in VHF 7-13. HOWEVER, if you already own a UHF antenna & just need a little help for VHF, there are now add-on VHF antennas you can get, like this one:
VHF Retrofit Kit:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L... [amazon.com]
If you're buying a new antenna, it's cheaper to buy one with proper VHF and UHF elements to begin with. But an add-on like this can fix your VHF problems easily if you already HAVE a good UHF antenna that you're satisfi
Next, you'll tell us that advertisers lie. (Score:2)
Call me shocked.
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Build it Yourself (Score:2)
Buy parts from a hardware store and build it.
Easily looked up DIY antenna, there are several types, they don't even draw power, unlike the ones you have to buy.
It's happened before (Score:2)
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That kind of "sell the sizzle, not the steak" TV Antenna marketing occurred once again during the digital OTA transition with all sorts of hokey "DIGITAL HD" tv antenna slogans, as though the newer modulation somehow changed all the known laws of electromagnetism and wave propagation. Sigh... there's a seeker born every minute.
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HBO OTA is apparently even possible... (Score:1)
I noticed this myself during Prime Day, some of the image links for antennas went beyond just exaggerating range and quality to implying premium cable channels like HBO could be magically conjured by antenna. I'm REALLY surprised the author of the article didn't make a point of it, as it would have bolstered his case even further, and he came sooo close, as an image he included consisting of 18 Amazon antenna links happened to capture one such example (look at the top row, far right, HBO is the first thing
amazon is worse than ebay now (Score:2)
3 rules of safely buying from Amazon (Score:3)
"In lieu of stronger protections for consumers, you can take a few steps to avoid misleading antenna marketing:"
1) Don't buy anything from that rife-with-Chinese-crap-and-counterfeits cesspool known as the Amazon marketplace
2) Don't buy anything from that rife-with-Chinese-crap-and-counterfeits cesspool known as the Amazon marketplace
3) Don't buy anything from that rife-with-Chinese-crap-and-counterfeits cesspool known as the Amazon marketplace
Amazon is a dump (Score:2)
Amazon is flooded with crappy products with questionable quality and claims coming from shady chinese sources. The prices are also not great. The site has become a trash dump.
It used to be the gold standard for antenna was a large yagi type antenna, the larger the better, like you could get at Radio Shack or from Channelmaster, etc. For the price of what you can get for one of these trashy chinese antenna, you can get one of these more powerful monsters that would work better.
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The classic TV antenna of yore wasn't a Yagi-Uda, but a log periodic. Totally different designs.
Drink Brawndo! (Score:2)
The "Age" of Lie (Score:2)
Its just the beginning.
Disinformation. Its all over.
Social Media, Social networks, YouTube, News...
White House has a master...
Hope democracy is resilient.
This is not new... (Score:2)
what isnt "rife with dubious claims" on amazon (Score:2)
Go do a quick search on "titanium chain" (mens necklace)
Amazon even has a filter for "metal type" and you can choose "Titanium". That does NOT remove all the entries where the chain is actually made out of "stainless steel" yet still says "Titanium".
This is blatantly misleading, stainless steel Titanium.
Then there is the fake reviews, etc to deal with.
I use to be a big amazon shopper, but moved to ali express. If i am going to get "made in China" stuff anyhow, i'd prefer to remove the middle men.
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Fun logic, but going from amazon to a(nother) known fraud/hack site?
I hit it from a virtual instance, WOW what a piece of work.
Not going back, but thanks for the excitement.
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Eh, you do realize ALI Express IS the middle man, right?
Look for meaningful specifications (Score:2)
Always look for real specifications such as gain in terms of dBi or dBd. Just "dB" is useless since it's a dimensionless quantity that must be compared to something.
Barring any real specifications, assume it performs somewhere along the spectrum between coat hangar and potato and pay accordingly.
Objective antenna/reception information (Score:2)
This site [eastmasonv...eather.com] describes DIY antennas, and appears to be solid and objective. I ordered the kit, and it seemed to be good, but I got lazy and bought a commercial version with 3 bowties, and it worked well sitting in a window. The house was 20-25 miles from downtown Chicago, with flat ground in between, so it was not a challenging location.
TV Fool [tvfool.com] has good data on the proximity and direction of stations. Their compass heading worked perfectly for me in Chicago suburbs, but again, not a challenging location.
It's true - 200 miles! (Score:1)
I calculated that if you were 200 miles from Denali and it had a 30 MW ERP transmitter on top, you could get good reception with one of those stick on the wall antennas. As long as you were on the 34th floor, and you used an outside wall.
Otherwise, you could use a Live Wave antenna, no wires at all, just plug in the wall. It gives you 22,000 miles of reception from any geosynchronous satellite with enough transmit power. They're only $40, a bargain for the 5 cent capacitor inside and the Military Technolog
Current administration won't help! (Score:1)
These creeps feel that a totally free, unregulated market can self-regulate.
The current admin even has gone to great lengths to undo so many necessary
regulations that corporations are having best profits ever ripping folks off!
WAKE UP people!!! These regs are there to HELP citizens, even if it hurts corporations a little!
Stop whining and get your ass out there to vote for an administration that works FOR the