Watch free HDTV with an outdoor antenna

There are lots of outdoor HDTV antennas available today, and choosing the right one may seem like an intimidating process. Happily, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has created a Web site that makes deciding on an antenna much easier. It's called Antennaweb.org.

There you'll enter your address and be told which antennas best fit your location, based on relation to the broadcast tower(s) in your area and factors such as the height of your house (single-story or multistory) and whether you have any tall trees or buildings nearby. The resulting list will show you which type of antenna best suits your location. The CEA uses a color-coding system--for example, red designates a "medium directional antenna," which the CEA describes as follows:

"These medium-size, multielement antennas are the most popular rooftop antenna because of their modest size and ghost-reducing characteristics. These are best used if there are any ghost-producing reflective structures near your location."

So you simply purchase a CEA-certified outdoor antenna that qualifies for that color coding. Many antennas qualify for more than one color, and the list that the site generates often has more than one color. If you'd like to receive stations that encompass more than one color, you should buy an antenna that qualifies for those colors. You still may have to make a compromise when aiming the antenna, however, if some of the nearby broadcast towers lie at disparate compass points. Antennaweb has a mapping feature that can greatly assist in aiming your antenna (you'll learn more about how to use this feature in step 5).

We recommend using a dedicated antenna for HDTV, but it never hurts to try hooking up an existing antenna to your high-def set and seeing what you can grab--just make sure it's properly grounded before connecting your precious high-def equipment. Chances are, however, that you'll get much better results with a separate, specialized HDTV antenna.

It's a good idea to get an antenna with a good return policy, in case it doesn't work for you.