I live in a heavily wooded townhome community and was nervous about my chances to receive local digital channels, even though the transmitters are less than 20 miles from my house.

I opened up the box and had it connected to my Hughes HTL-HD receiver within 2 minutes. I bought 15' of RG6 cable (beware: the unit only comes with 3'), thinking that I would need to route the antenna outside under an eave or wherever. Well, I didn't even have to go that far. As soon as I flipped to my local digital channels (we have 20 here in Norfolk), I was AMAZED at the reception quality. No drop-outs or pixellation. And this was by just having the antenna INDOORS, ON TOP OF MY TV!!!! Now that I know I can get such great results, I plan on mounting it outdoors so I don't have to look at it indoors.

Well, that's it. I have never written a review here before, but I just wanted to add my two - cents worth after getting such terrific results with the Terk TV55. Thanks Terk! My next step was going to be a monstrous YAGI type antenna on the roof, so I am obviously happy that I didn't have to go that route.

Great product...works as promised. Good luck to you.


My [cheap] rabbit ears gave me better reception!   May 6, 2002
 16 out of 18 found this review helpful

I thought that if I was going to pay [alot more money] for an antenna, I was going to get perfect reception, I was wrong. I can get a great picture on only one side of my house, the trouble is my bedroom TV is on the other side. I hoped that if I mounted this antenna on the outside of the house on the "good" side, I would get a clear picture. However, before I did this I decided to test the antenna. I connected a 75ft cable to my bedroom tv and dragged to the other side of the house to a tv that gets great reception. I hooked up the antenna and ran back to the bedroom to look at the great reception I was going to get. To my surprise it was worse than what I had prior. I then removed the Terk antenna and attached my $2 rabbit ears to the 75ft cable (still on the good side of the house) and got perfect reception. Just to be sure, I went ahead and crawled on my roof and tested the Terk. Awful reception! Again, I tried my rabbit ears on the roof and had great reception. The Terk has been returned and I am now going to waterproof my rabbit ears and stick them on the roof. This is my second and last try with a Terk product. I purchased and kept the [price] TerkQ radio antenna and found it to be worse than the antenna that came with the stereo. I will never try Terk again.


Location is Key   October 15, 2004
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

I bought this antenna to replace a Terk TV4. I wanted to get better reception on some weak UHF stations.

I was a little leery of the TV55 based on the negative reviews, but I wanted something I could mount on the back porch if necessary. I was very pleasantly surprised. True, in my living room it didn't do much better than an indoor antenna. But out on the porch it's fantastic. I'm getting VHF from about 40 miles away and UHF to 25 or so. And this is an urban neighborhood with lots of tall buildings.

Best features are the versatile mounting options and the inline amp, which greatly improves UHF signals. Drawbacks are that it's expensive, and works much better outside than inside.

Most importantly you should look for the best reception location before you buy. My living room is tough for TV but the porch is fine. It sounds like some of the negative reviewers don't understand that it varies from room to room.