Attic Antenna Installation

Installing an attic antenna is very convenient, especially during times when you are watching your favorite TV shows and suddenly there is a network interruption caused by your local cable distributor. Though you may find that installing the antenna on the attic is less effective as compared to putting it on top of your roof, with the proper techniques for installation and mounting procedures, you can make it work as effective as the outdoor antenna. 

Step 1: Determining the Location of Your Antenna

To achieve optimal signal reception from all the channels you want to watch, you should determine where you are going to mount your antenna. The right way of determining this is by testing the signal of the desired location. You can do this by bringing your TV into the attic, attach the antenna to the back of the TV and try different locations and other directions until you get the desired reception. Once you have determined a spot, mark it with a pencil and surf all the channels you usually watch to check on the signal.

Step 2: Placing the Antenna

Usually, these antennas that you buy in local hardware stores come with mounting equipment to secure the antenna and prevent it from making unnecessary movements that could distort the reception of signals. You can also double the sturdiness of the antenna in your attic by buying some additional mounting materials from the hardware store.

Step 3: Measure the Length of the Cable

With the use of a measuring tape, determine the length of the cable you will use. You can do this by running the measuring tape from the antenna itself to the place of the TV. After getting the required length and buying the coaxial cable, connect it from the antenna in the attic to the location of the television. Make sure to lock the cable in equal and short distances with a cable clamp to make sure it doesn’t get accidentally pulled off, which could cause your antenna to move to another direction and the possibly lose reception.

Step 4: Interconnecting the Cables

If you have a number of televisions all over the house, you might need a cable splitter to connect to all of them. For this step, you need to determine a location to secure your cable connection from the attic. If you have an existing cable wire run, you can just reconnect it with a splitter and additional wires if necessary. Be sure to get the best quality splitter for your TVs to get a good reception. Once you have finished connecting all your TVs, test each one of them for the reception. If all of them get a bad reception, you can try removing the cables in each TV one by one to pinpoint where the problem lies, and here, you will need to either replace the cable or reconnect it properly. Lastly, once every unit gets good reception, secure all the cable connections with a cable clamp to prevent the wires from getting coiled or pull off from the unit.