For a few days now, you have been unable to watch your favorite TV program due to some reception problems that you experience all the time. Before calling an antenna technician, however, you would like to make sure that the problem is not to be found in your receiving device, that is, in your TV or in your decoder, rather than in the antenna. Intending to do it in complete autonomy, you opened Google in search of a guide who could accompany you in this “enterprise”, ending up right here, on my website.
Well, if this is exactly the case, know that you are in the right place and at the right time: below, in fact, I will show you how to check if the TV antenna works using some simple techniques, which do not require skills nor specific equipment to be put into practice.
At that time? What are you still doing there, impaled? Carve out some free time for yourself, make yourself comfortable and read very carefully everything I have to tell you on the subject: I am sure that, at the end of this guide, you will have acquired the necessary skills to understand, in concrete terms, the real nature of your problem. Having said that, there is nothing left for me to do but wish you good reading and good luck!
How to check if the TV antenna is working properly
In the event of signal reception problems, even before contacting a specialized technician, I advise you to carry out a series of simple operations to check if the TV aerial is working correctly . Below, I will show you the ones that, in my opinion, can help to effectively solve the problem. Before proceeding, however, remember to check that the antenna cable is correctly connected to the appropriate input on the back of the TV, understood?
Check the signal quality
The first check you need to carry out concerns the quality of the signal received from the television set: this check will be useful for you to understand if your vision problems (disturbed or missing) are due to an actual malfunction of the antenna or to the need to tune again the TV channels.
Many televisions and set-top boxes, even slightly less modern ones, have a built-in function for checking the strength of the signal received from the antenna. Unfortunately, however, each TV has a menu structured in a different way and, therefore, it is not possible for me to provide you with detailed instructions for your TV or decoder model: the pages of my site would not be enough to analyze them all in detail!
In general, I can tell you that you have to go to the TV/decoder settings menu, access the antenna/channel tuning section and, from there, select the signal test option , which could be called also antenna test or receiver test .
To better understand, let’s take a practical example: if you use an LG TV equipped with the WebOS operating system , you can reach the signal test section as follows: press the settings button ( identified by the ⚙️ icon ) on the remote control, use the arrow keys until you reach All settings and press the OK key .
Then, go to the Channels section , press the OK key and, after selecting the Channel tuning and setting item , press the OK key again . If everything went the right way, you should be in the area dedicated to channel tuning: then choose the Signal test item , press the OK button on the remote control and wait for the signal quality to be checked for the various frequencies .
If the antenna is physically damaged, the intensity of the detected signal should oscillate between 0% and 10% or, in any case, have very low values. If this is not the case, you can try to improve the quality of the channels received by retuning the TV or decoder: I will explain how to do it in detail in the next section of this guide.
Retune the channels
If, from the previous check, you have noticed that the aerial signal is not excellent but in any case it is not as bad as you thought, you can try to re-tune the TV (or the decoder) , so as to update the list of memorized channels, avoiding possibility of problems caused by the change of frequency of the transmissions.
The steps for retuning the channels vary, also in this case, from device to device, therefore it is not possible for me to provide you with a valid procedure for all TVs and decoders on the market. Generally, however, what you have to do is press the Menu/Config button on the remote control, in order to access the TV configuration area, choose the option relating to channel management and go to the area dedicated to automatic tuning/scanning .
If necessary, you must then enter the device’s security PIN (usually 0000 , 1111 , 1234 or, again, 8888 ), set the antenna/tuning mode to DTV and, to start the automatic channel search, press the key OK of the remote control.
For example, if you are using an LG television , you must press the ⚙️ button on the remote control and, using the menu displayed on the screen, choose the All settings item (below) and press the OK button .
Subsequently, you must select the icon dedicated to Channels , press the OK key , choose the item Tuning and channel settings and press the OK key again . Once in the new screen that appears, make sure that the Antenna option is specified under the heading Program mode (otherwise you do it), select the Auto tuning item and press the OK button on the remote control.
At this point, put the check mark next to the Antenna item , select the Next button (bottom), press the OK button , then select the Automatic sorting item and press the Next button again . Finally, specify the type of search you want to perform (e.g. Digital only search ), press the Next button again and wait for the channel tuning to be completed.
For more information about tuning channels on TV and decoders, I refer you to reading my specific guides on how to re-tune the TV and how to re-tune digital .
Check other appliances
Are you still experiencing signal reception issues? Then I advise you to carry out the checks I have just told you about on all the other devices (TV or decoder) in the house . If reception problems do not occur on other devices, the cause is most likely to be found in a damaged internal TV receiver or a faulty antenna cable.
To make sure of this, I advise you to connect the initially “non-functional” TV to an antenna cable capable of picking up the signal. Broadly speaking, two things can happen.
If, after retuning the channels, the TV/set top box returns to behaving normally, you can easily conclude that the cause of the malfunction is the antenna cable to which it was previously connected.
If, on the other hand, the TV/decoder continues to not work, then the problem is certainly to be found in the appliance.
Failure to receive the signal from all the devices in the house, on the other hand, would indicate a general malfunction of the antenna (or of the power “box” that accompanies it).
Consult the neighbors
Have you ascertained that the entire TV reception system in your home is not working? So, if you live in a building equipped with a condominium antenna , you could consult your neighbors, asking them if they, in turn, experience problems in using the television channels.
If the neighbors answer in the affirmative, then you can safely conclude that the condominium antenna is probably damaged or badly positioned. If the answer is negative, however, it is very likely that the cables extended in your apartment are no longer in good condition.
In any case, memorize all the information collected so far (including the list of neighbors who, possibly, experience the same problems as you), since it will be essential to communicate it to the antenna technician.
What to do if the TV antenna does not work
Did you follow everything I suggested to the letter to check if the TV antenna works and, unfortunately, the final result was negative? Don’t worry, you still have a few opportunities to resolve the situation on your own.
If, for example, reception problems are limited to only a few channels, you could evaluate the purchase of a TV signal amplifier : it is a device which, connected to the TV antenna, can solve the slightest reception problems, increasing the signal strength of at least 20 dB (if you remember correctly, I told you about it in my guide on how to amplify the TV signal ). Devices of this type can be easily found online, with prices ranging between $15 and $30.
If, on the other hand, the problems you encounter are much more serious (e.g. total lack of television signal reception), then you must necessarily contact a qualified antenna technician, who will have to work on the cables in your apartment or on the antenna placed on top of the building where you reside.
During the interview, explain to the technician the results of the checks carried out previously (checking the TV signal, attempts to re-tune the channels, any problems encountered by neighbors and tests on the appliances in your home), so that the latter has a complete overview of the question and is able to solve this annoying problem in the shortest possible time.
Clearly, if you live in a building equipped with a condominium antenna, you will have to communicate everything to the condominium administrator , who will personally take care of contacting a qualified technician (and dividing the costs associated with the intervention, if the problem is common) .
To temporarily make up for the malfunctioning of the external TV antenna, you could evaluate the purchase of an internal antenna, used for the reception of digital terrestrial channels: of course, the quality of the signal will not be equal to that of a “standard” system, but it is the cheapest (and fastest) method to make up for the lack of the latter, while waiting for the technician. Here are some devices of this type.
Once you have obtained the indoor antenna, all you have to do is connect it to the TV (using the supplied cable) and, if provided, to the mains power supply. Once the antenna is connected, all you have to do is re-tune the TV channels to enable reception again.