If your TV has a digital tuner, you can get any HD channels if you use the correct antenna pointed at the transmitter and are close enough to the transmitters. (Antennas labeled as HD are not always appropriate for your location.) Your TV will downgrade the signal to 480i if the TV can't support a 720p or 1080i resolution.
First where do you live? Use
antennaweb.org or
tvfool.com to determine the correct placement of your antenna for your area/stations. AntennaWeb uses a very conservative signal strength calculation despite assuming an external antenna. Tvfool will give the antenna color rating which is also provided on the antenna package. When properly installed (with no trees or hills blocking the signal), the matching antenna should receive the listed channel.
If you use a splitter to share the signal with several TVs, you may need an amplifier to bring the signal strength to that needed for the tuner to interpret the digital signal. (Note: amplifiers and splitters can fail and the amplifier may become a signal filter blocking the signal; test the antenna strength on a direct connection if there is a problem.)
If you do not have a digital tuner in the TV, you may have gotten an SD digital to analog converter. These are the more common (and available with the government coupon) converters. You will need to get an HD capable tuner to see the full HD signal.
Please add a comment with your TV model and antenna choice for additional support.
Cindy Wells
(antennaweb indicates that my external antenna should only get the stations 10 miles away. We actually receive the channels from 30 miles away. We use an amplifier splitter to feed the signal to several TVs. I set up two indoor antennas for a neighbor's TVs. One gets the signals from the transmitters 30 miles away and the other from the transmitter 10 miles away. Both get HD from the stations with HD broadcast (not all channels are in HD here). The difference is totally due to antenna placement.)
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