Should You Install a TV Antenna Inside or Outside the Roof?

Installing an antenna inside a roof space (especially tin or colourbond) is an outdated technique, which is not advised for today’s technology.

Before Digital TV, when analogue transmission was in use, a lot of antennas were hidden in the roof cavity to protect them from the elements or because they were thought to be an eye sore. While this was commonly accepted practice with analogue TV, it is not appropriate for today’s digital TV reception. Current digital signals are very different to old analogue signals and require an external antenna to be properly captured. 

That being said, here at Jim’s Antennas we are still often called out properties where clients have placed their antenna inside the roof, creating reception issues for themselves. 

Grant from Jim’s Antennas Kingsborough recently got a second service call in a day where a customer was experiencing poor reception due to mounting an antenna inside a tin roof. As Grant puts it, “you just can’t do this and expect to get a good signal”. As the antenna was of good quality, all Grant had to do to fix this problem was to relocate the antenna out onto the roof. 

In a similar installation where Grant relocated an antenna from inside the roof of a home to the roof, he measured an increase of signal strength by about 40db! In this case the signal had gone from too weak, to slightly too strong. After adjusting the signal to ensure the best possible reception, Grant also fitted some spikes on the antenna as this customer has possums that love to play on their roof!