Antennaweb.com revolutionized the concept of predicting TV reception for a new generation of enthusiasts installing over-the-air antennas. It graded reception by color and gave recommendations, if flawed, about what kind of antenna to put up. When they went conservative with the results, those who had put real work into their systems found the predictions only listed a fraction of the stations they could get.

For those who want a little more science, there’s a new kid in town. Try out TVFool.com and for the address you enter, you will get a chart of precisely calculated reception parameters. I especially like the listing of antenna heights needed for line-of-sight (LOS) and -100 dBm thresholds. You also get a marker for all those nasty co-channel allocations we have in SoCal now.

It turns out that for my home just east of La Jolla, predictions come pretty close, though I’m guessing that some transmission antennas outperform predicted levels because of what I see on my flat response receive antenna. For example, I consistently receive KCBS-DT (real channel 60) better than some locals and better than even consistent KTLA-DT 31 on my recently rebuilt Create log-periodic. In reality, there are numerous factors that I haven’t bothered to measure scientifically, but the empirical results match closely enough those of TVFool.