PBD WA-2608 150 Mile Outdoor Rotator HD TV Antenna Review

This my video review of the following: "PBD Outdoor Digital Amplified HDTV Antenna, 150 Mile Motorized 360 Degree Rotation, Wireless Remote Control, 59FT RG6 Coax Cable, Coaxial Grounding Block, UHF VHF 1080P 4K, Support 2 TVs." You can find for about $50 on Amazon. It has a built in amplifier, rotor (rotator), and control box for two TV sets which makes it seem like a great deal. I show how to assemble the antenna and how well it performs on both VHF and UHF TV stations about 45 miles away.

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[AntennaMan]

📡 Do you have reception problems? Consider an antenna recommendation from me below:

[jsigmon]

I bought an RCA medium size antenna when I built my house in 1997. I installed it on the eve of the roof. I think I paid $40.00 for it. I got it mainly as a backup whenever cable was down. I pointed it towards the broadcast towers which are about 40 miles away. I get around 50 channels, ( counting sub channels). It's been working for over 20 years. The Antenna Man is right, don't waste your money on junk! I watch some events like the Super Bowl with it because it has a better picture than cable. Don't buy junk!

[Nicholas_Chris]

The frustrating part is when you tell people there is no such thing as "HD" antenna and your old antenna from analog days works good, the antenna doesn't care about analog or digital it only receive the frequency band which is designed for, and yet they still buy "HD antennas" because "AS SEEN ON TV". Ah yes even these "HD antennas" in most of the cases performs poor on some frequencies. Most of them have a built in amplifier and mess up your channels especially if you live close to a tower. Not to mention when the amplifier breaks then you really have a junk antenna. My big thanks to you for testing different antennas and tell your real opinion unlike some YouTubers which tells you everything is fine. I stick with my Yagi antenna, I don't have any problems.

[billphister]

As soon as I saw "150 mile" and "HD" mentioned in the title of this video, I had a good idea of how this review was going to go!

[jamessharier]

That antenna looks like it should be in a low budget sci-fi movie as a ray gun or mind reading antenna...lol

[LuybXAzH]

Tyler: I bought 2 of those "wingdingbing..." antennae 6 years ago and they kinda worked for awhile. Because I live in line of sight area to my favorite stations, I figured it was better than "rabbit ears". Both rotors failed in short order. Useless even if they worked because you have no idea which way the antenna is pointing anyway and it will get stuck at rotation limit. Even manually pointing them, the are still more "attenuator" than antenna. Last summer I bought a 8 bay solid signal high band VHF and UHF antenna. It is well built and rugged. I doubt any other "consumer antenna" is that well built -- lots of heavy aluminum. They have it on sale right now. The beauty of that antenna is that you can "split it" so that you can aim 4 bays each at two groups of stations in different directions ( 90 degrees apart in my case -- so I get more stations). I do have a channel master amplifier which I may try, but if the occasional "tiling" is due to sporadic "multipath, that may just amplify a bad signal --- we'll see.  Or that tiling may be due to interference from "strong" same or adjacent channels from far away that catch a "tropo" reflection for awhile. That's not unusual in the summer time on calm humid nights.

Before I forget, I do have one of those "distribution amplifiers" in the house at the "front end" of where the antenna coax comes down to the basement. It is one of the 4 port units that you reviewed in the past. I needed that because of long cable runs and the need to split the signal w/o incurring loss. I tried using a passive 4 port splitter, but that and the longer cables wiped out all but the strong stations. Distribution amp was the way to go! It runs on 12-24 volts dc. Wish you were YouTube reviewing the "wingding..." antenna before I wasted $$$ on junk. I spent about the same amount of money on the "Solid Signal" antenna! I have to see how the channel master amp works. I did buy a quality coax lightning arrestor (not cheep). Hopefully that'll protect the amp from all but a "direct lightning hit". I figure the amp is pretty vulnerable! The amp may end up causing more problems than it solves because of some STRONG stations in the mix.
I just gotta tinker.  
Keep up the good work!!!!"

[jacobhochstedler]

Yes the 150 mile claim is bogus, but I have used this antenna outdoors at my home for two years, Mid-Atlantic region. Mounted at about 20' height. It has performed admirably and picks up 27 channels in my area. It has been through a handful of wind, rain, and snowstorms without issue. It may not last for 10 years, but if it does crap out I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one at $40.

[InkBunnyBlindRabbit]

PingBingDing... The sound when you chuck it in the damn trash can..

[Madness]

I just had one of those passed along to me; branded "LeadZM." The saving grace is that the previous owner had it in his attic (so it all works). But the big surprise is that it picks up WGBH-2 (Boston), physical 5.

[ClassicGuy]

Love the “Piece of Junk” montage. Keep it up. Thank you for answering our antenna questions especially during these troubled times. Hope these “Recent Events” end soon.

[ICCInternationalCordCutters]

I bought one of them at Christmas time of 2019 and and just took it down on 05/06/2020, so less than 6 months and I have had performance degrade. THESE THINGS ARE A WASTE OF MONEY. I unfortunately found you after I bought this. Great video, information and keep up the great work.

[tonymuto]

I have one of these antennas. I agree that it is flimsy and would not survive outdoors. But I set it up several years ago in my attic and it pulls in the 4 major TV stations which are only 9 miles from my house. So if you live close to the TV stations this might not be such a bad choice for an attic antenna.
I'm happy with it so far.

[beautybyhammerllc]

Much better back drop! Glad to see the channel getting better. OTA is gonna be huge in the next few years. Keep up the good fight !

[profighter]

Good video. I bought this antenna in 2017, installed it on top of my chimney and it's never failed me. Thinking about purchasing another for a different TV and installing it in my attic.

[gregbolls]

Have one like in video. Have been able to pick up stations 75 miles away and get 45 stations. Has been mounted on pole on side of house and has lasted 3 years sofar even through 2 hurricanes. The elements does have screws holding to the boom though.

[toddstewart]

I bought one of those at Micro Center for $25 about 10 years ago (or one very similar). It was longer and had a couple more oval elements on it and had a little rotator and preamp on it. It did OK being 25 miles from the transmitters, but it wasn't that great. For $25 bucks though it wasn't bad if you were within 30 miles or so I guess and you had it somewhere like on a covered deck where it wouldnt get wet often. 150 miles, maybe during tropo or e-skip, but thats it. Get what you pay for.

[trevordance]

There are only a limited amount of frequencies available for broadcasting television. Therefore frequencies have to be shared, and to reduce interference between different stations using the same or adjacent frequencies the transmitters have to be kept a certain number of miles apart. Therefore if you actually can receive a long distance out of area station, whatever aerial/antenna you use, reception is likely to be marred by other stations competing on the same or adjacent frequencies that you may also receive alongside your intended target that will undoubtedly cause problems in attaining a reliable and watchable signal.

[robertogalvez]

Hey Tyler,

We did it! On may 4th, 2020 we went to Playa Tamarindo, Guanacaste in Costa Rica and got signal at 220 km (135 miles) from the Irazu Volcano (broadcast antenna at 3, 502 meters), Cartago! We used the Televes UHF LR antenna in passive mode only - our signal meter's 12 V- power source did not work - and got most channels from the San Jose area, except for the weak ones as expected.

It is all about a clean line of sight (LOS) between two points!

What is next? The radio horizon at 240 km (over 150 miles)!

[dannypalmer]

5 years now getting Tv stations 107 miles away in Wyoming.Worked great in Oklahoma too 100 miles away from OKC

[omcdude]

I tried several antennas and this one got me the most channels by far!