2023’s top TV antenna

Never before has it been more advantageous to cut the cable and switch to free TV. To get a cheap TV antenna, all you have to do is ensure that your home has a strong signal. The greatest indoor antennas may be hung in a window, so you don’t even need to climb on your roof to use them. Put your ladder away!

For live events like sports and the evening news, an OTA antenna is excellent. You may be able to watch anything on NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, PBS, and a few more channels like MyNetworkTV and The CW, depending on your location and signal receiving capabilities. Additionally, it will support NextGen TV, the OTA’s newest development, which is currently being rolled out across the nation and offers compatibility with 4K TVs as well as other advantages. All of this content is available for as little as $20 delivered.

However, there are some drawbacks. Some locations may have a patchy or nonexistent TV signal because of distant broadcast towers or signal-damaging objects. Additionally, OTA TV is typically limited to a single television, unlike live TV streaming services, and the broadcast signal from an OTA TV antenna won’t operate on phones or other devices. Unless, of course, you take it a notch further with an OTA DVR that supports networking.

The Mohu Leaf is the top indoor antenna, according to tests by The Tech Fun. You can purchase it for $35, and it attracted the most stations in two distinct areas. Its sister, the Mohu Gateway, performed admirably as well and had the benefit of being used on a tabletop. The top indoor OTA antennas available right now are listed below if you’re curious about alternative possibilities or are interested in features like signal enhancers or detachable cables.

Best antenna overall

Mohu Leaf

The Mohu Leaf recently had an overhaul, including a new exterior and some internal changes, and the results speak for themselves. The Leaf, which bested several more expensive devices, had the better antenna of our 2023 crop. It was able to receive the most channels and performed well in both testing scenarios. Despite the Mohu Leaf costing an additional $15, the Channel Master Flattenna is almost half as much as it.

My main issue with the new Leaf is that it no longer comes with a detachable coaxial wire, so if you want a longer run to your TV, you’ll need another cable and a male-to-male adaptor.

Best tabletop antenna

Mohu Gateway

The Mohu Gateway can be useful if you don’t have a window or a wall that is out of the way that you can mount an antenna on. With regard to price and reception quality, this desktop antenna was competitive with its Leaf stablemate. But what really sealed the deal for us was that the Leaf was more suited for installation near windows, whereas the Gateway was naturally difficult when mounted to a window due to its incorporated stand. Although the Gateway is the best option if you have nowhere else to mount an antenna except on a stand, the reception on the Gateway was also inferior when sitting on an AV unit.

Best antenna with amplifier

Gesobyte Amplified HD Digital TV Antenna

The Gesobyte is still one of the only amplified variants I’ve tested that has an attenuation control after testing antennas for years. None of the other models have the versatility that this feature offers. Do you reside near a broadcast tower? Change the setting to Low. Alternately, if you live farther away, set it to High for a stronger signal.

Best budget TV antenna

Channel Master Flatenna 35/Duo

Since our initial evaluation, the Flatenna 35 has been improved with a detachable antenna. It appears that signal performance has also increased, as it has surpassed our previous top pick, the Antennas Direct ClearStream Eclipse, to become the greatest channel-puller among our seven models. People who are unable to install an external antenna would benefit greatly from this flat antenna. Although it wasn’t the finest performance, it was still an excellent value. This is a fantastic alternative if you want to determine whether an indoor antenna is the best fit for you.

Top antennas compared

 

Other TV antennas we tested

• Antennas Direct ClearStream Eclipse With its ankh-shaped and multidirectional reversible compact design, the ClearStream antenna is definitely unique. This multi-directional antenna comes with sticky tabs for attaching it to your window, which is handy. And if you need more signal oomph, there’s a $20 antenna amplifier available as well. A previous winner in this category, the Eclipse didn’t perform as well as the Mohu units in our LA location. We will be publishing those results soon.
• Ultra Vizion HD Digital TV Antenna: Despite a rectangular design, the Ultra Vizion is one of the most striking antennas we’ve seen thanks to its Perspex construction. It’s large, but it performed well when presented with line of sight to a broadcast antenna.

• Btfdreem Smart TV Antenna Have you ever bought a product off Amazon which has a good rating, but you can’t work out why? The Btfdreem is one of those. Sure it looks like a rocket ship, but that’s all it has going for it. Sadly it was the worst performer in this test.
• 1byOne Indoor Amplified HDTV Antenna: Last reviewed in 2021, the 1byOne includes a nonremovable coax cable, and at only 10 feet long, it may not work in some rooms where it cannot pick up a very weak signal.  It was toward the bottom of the pack in terms of signal performance, but this indoor HDTV antenna was the only television antenna to pick up CBS from a TV tower at our Manhattan location.

• U Must Have Amplified HD Digital TV Antenna: The U Must Have amplified antenna comes with a sticky pad on the back and a relatively long, though nonremovable, lead at 18 feet. The included amplifier gives the antenna some flexibility and the product feels more solidly made overall than the 1byOne, though they performed similarly. Last reviewed in 2021.

How we test TV antennas

In 2023, we evaluated seven various indoor antennas, each costing $20 to $50 (considerably less than even the most basic cable TV). Even on “problem” channels, the top TV antennas were able to pick up more channels than the competition and delivered stronger, clearer TV signals. The seven TV antennas we examined are listed below:

• Antennas Direct Clearstream: $40
• Btfdreem Smart TV Antenna: $29
• Channel Master Flatenna: $20
• Gesobyte Amplified HD Digital TV Antenna: $30
• Mohu Gateway: $35
• Mohu Leaf: $35
• Ultra Vizion HD Digital TV Antenna: $44

The Gesobyte and the Btfdreem were especially picked since they were two of the most popular antennas on Amazon, even though the majority of the antennas were produced by “name” manufacturers.

Like real estate, the effectiveness of a TV antenna depends on location, location, and location. We tested the antennas in two key locations: Reseda, California (final findings to be forthcoming), and uptown Manhattan, New York, with a line of sight to the Empire State Building broadcast tower six miles away. Depending on where you are, you might be able to receive broadcasts from several antennas. Hills or massive structures in the route will affect the frequency range and TV channel reception.

The TiVo Edge, which provides information on signal strength and a total channel count, was linked to each antenna, which we placed in the same location. Which TV antenna performed the best was determined using two distinct parameters. The first was a simple count of channels it was able to identify, whereas the second entailed a selection of pre-selected “problem channels.” For both testing locations, we used a list of channels that was compiled from several forums, and we evaluated how well the antennas pulled in each channel.

Our list of “problem” channels in Manhattan included WNJB 58.1 (PBS — NJ only), WPIX 11.1 (CW — Manhattan only), WABC 7.1 (ABC), and WNET 13.1. We also added well-known networks as CBS 2.1, WNBC 4 (NBC), and WNYW 5 (Fox).

We discovered that the best-performing models received more of the most popular channels, as well as local channels, additional radio broadcasts, and Spanish-language stations. However, the results will vary depending on where you reside and how distant you are from TV towers.

The majority of TV antennas used the same rectangular shape, but there was one crucial factor to take into account: the cable. A lengthy, high-performance coaxial cable, or even better, one that was removable, did the antenna have? Longer is preferable because you’ll be sticking one of them in your window, which may be far from your TV.

It’s important to note that some of these antennas, such the Ultra Vizion Plus, Gesobyte, and Btfdreem, incorporated gain-boosting amplifiers. Our observations over the years in various locales suggest that amplifiers can have wildly unanticipated effects on signal strength. The same was true with the 2023 batch: for example, although the others worked with the amp connected, the Ultra Vizion did not. With or without amplification, the best outcomes are represented by the values above. A gain amp could not truly help you if you can’t receive TV with an indoor antenna, and in other circumstances, it might even worsen your reception by oversaturating channels with a strong signal.