Antop AT-415B Antenna Review

By Greg Martinez / November 4, 2019
Antop UFO 720 Antenna Review

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Some modern antennas can be used indoors or outdoors, and are convenient to assemble and mount. The Antop UFO 720° antenna offers such convenience; not only does it have a low profile, but it includes a number of parts to reduce your efforts in setting up a TV antenna.

For instance, it includes a preamplifier and 33 feet of RG6 coaxial cable that you connect directly to your TV or converter box — saving you the trouble of getting these separately.

Its rugged, waterproof exterior allows installation in different places, be it inside or outside your home, your RV, or on a boat.

This is particularly useful if you know that an indoor antenna won’t work at your location, but you don’t want to go through the trouble of setting up an outdoor antenna on your roof.

Features

Omnidirectionality

The antenna is omnidirectional, meaning it receives signals from 360 degrees around. In other words, given sufficient signal strength, it should pick up any surrounding TV stations.

Now you’ve been probably wondering why this antenna is called “720 degrees.” Isn’t that the sum of two circles?

It actually boasts both horizontal and vertical reception (all around). So this means it’s picking up signals both above and below.

This is unique among many antennas I’ve seen, as most antennas pick up radio waves traveling along a horizontal plane.

The North American TV broadcasting market is horizontally polarized, but a number of US broadcasters have added a vertical component to their signal (especially after having undergone channel repacks).

Vertically polarized TV signals generally improve reception for indoor antennas.

This antenna has a nominal range of 65 miles so you should ensure the stations you want to pick up are well within this range — by looking at your RabbitEars.info signal report for instance.

However, if you install this antenna indoors, you probably won’t get this range.

Amplification

The antenna also comes with a built-in preamplifier, which ANTOP refers to as the Smartpass Amplifier.

This preamplifier boosts the strength of TV signals the antenna receives and should generally increase the number of channels you get.

The antenna has a nominal gain of 20 dB, but switching on the preamplifier should increase this antenna gain to 30 dB (this makes the signal stronger and better able to overcome any loss as it travels down the coaxial cable to your TV).

Filtering of Cellular LTE Signals

It also comes with a built-in 4G LTE filter, which ensures that cell phone signals don’t interfere with the UHF TV signals you’re receiving.

This filter reduces noise interference from nearby cell phone towers.

Channel and Frequency Types

The antenna supports broadcasts of up to full HD (1080i or 1080p), and 4K. It picks up signals on both high VHF and UHF.

RF channels are not the TV channels you normally think of and are also known as broadcast or real channels.

They’re allocations of the radio frequency spectrum that stations use to broadcast signals.

It’s important to know which frequencies your antenna can pick up (before buying one!). You can find out the availability of RF channels in your area by consulting RabbitEars.info.

Assembly and Installation

Assembling the antenna is easy, as you won’t need tools to attach the parts.

You’ll need to decide the best place for the antenna by choosing a spot that has the least amount of obstructions in the line of sight to surrounding transmission towers.

You can mount this antenna indoors or outdoors. Some customers put it in their attic or balcony, but many get best results by mounting it outdoors and as high as possible off the ground.

The antenna comes with a clamp and U-bolts for mounting it on a mast like the Channel Master CM-3090 Universal Antenna J-Mount.

After mounting the antenna, you run the supplied coaxial cable to your set top-box or TV. If the cable is too short, you can extend it with high-quality coaxial like MediaBridge Ultra Series tri-shielded cable and F-type connectors.

Attached to the end of the coaxial is the SmartPass switch I had referred to earlier, which allows you to turn the preamplifier on or off.

On the antenna itself you can find LEDs indicating whether the preamplifier is switched on.

After installing the antenna you should ground it. You can find more information on grounding an outdoor antenna in this article.

In case you have more televisions in your home and want to hook these up to the antenna, you can attach a splitter to the end of the coaxial and then run further coaxial cables to your TVs.

Pros

  • Receives OTA broadcasts from all sides (omnidirectional)
  • Built-in preamplifier to boost received TV signals
  • Filtering of cell phone signals that could potentially interfere

Cons

  • Supplied coaxial cable may not have sufficient length for your situation

Antop UFO 720° vs 1byone New Concept Series

The New Concept Series Omnidirectional TV antenna from 1byone offers comparable features to the ANTOP UFO 720°. Both are small, aesthetically designed, and lightweight units intended for installation in a variety of settings.

One notable difference is the fact that the ANTOP antenna has vertical reception, which the 1byone doesn’t have. In addition, the ANTOP antenna has built-in cellular noise filtering. Otherwise both antennas have matching features.

The Verdict

If you’re looking for a compact, over-the-air antenna that comes with a kit including everything you need to set it up, then have a look at this Antop AT-415B.

The antenna has a few features for boosting channel reception, such as built-in amplification and LTE filtering.

Receiving both high VHF and UHF frequencies, you can also install it indoors such as in your attic or at an upper floor window. ANTOP products have a reputation for quality and reliable technical information.

Antop AT-415B User Manual

For those looking for additional technical details, here is the product manual for the Antop UFO 720° antenna.

Specs

Design

Direction

Omnidirectional

Coaxial cable length (feet)

33

Dimensions in inches (H x W x L)

15 x 15 x 6.6 inches

Preamplifier

 

Our rating

4 / 5

Reception

Antenna range (miles)

65

Channels

Full HD (1080p)

Frequencies

UHF/VHF

Help & Support

Warranty

1 year

Email support

 

Phone support

 
10 comments
Soren Woodard - September 3, 2019

We live in a remote location and 26 miles from the closest signal tower. I finally decided that in my “Cutting the cord” process I might want to invest what my last cable bill was and see if this works. Based on some of the reviews (one of those is yours) I decided to give it a try. I was surprised when I was able to pick up over 30 channels with this antenna placed on a 10′ pole on my roof. No regrets, fabulous product and no more cable bill!. Wanted to mention the product is well built and not visually offensive at all.

Reply
    Greg Martinez - September 4, 2019

    Hey Soren, thanks for sharing!

    Reply
Jo - October 12, 2019

What is the best way to mount this antenna?

Reply
    Greg Martinez - October 13, 2019

    Hi Jo, this antenna can be installed indoors or outdoors so it depends on where you want to place it. For outdoor installations I find a J-mount to offer a lot of flexibility (must be purchased separately). The Antop also comes with U-mounts/bolts for easy installation on poles of different diameters.

    Reply
Larry - October 22, 2019

If I connect this antenna to indoor pre wired cable outlets, can all of our TV use the same antenna?

Reply
    Greg Martinez - October 23, 2019

    Hi Larry, you might be able to repurpose the coaxial cables previously used for cable TV for the purposes of OTA television. Cable TV installations into a home often use splitters with attached cables and in theory you should be able to reuse that equipment to feed TV signals to the various TVs in your home. The trick is attaching your antenna cable to the cable TV infrastructure. You need to first find the junction box into which the cable company had been feeding signal and then run a coaxial cable from your antenna to this junction box. This may or may not work, but if it works it definitely will save you the time and expense of getting a splitter and running cable through your home.

    Reply
Angela Adams - November 2, 2019

What does a built-in 4G LTE filter really do? What benefits can I get to it?

Reply
    Greg Martinez - November 2, 2019

    Hi Angela, telecoms actually use radio frequency signals to transmit 4G and 5G over the UHF spectrum. UHF is also used by OTA TV for broadcasts. As the FCC manages bandwidth used by both telecom providers and TV stations, there’s no risk of both sharing the same frequency thereby causing a conflict, but on the other hand some frequencies used by both may be so close to each other that they interfere. To avoid this, some people install an LTE filter right between the coaxial cable and the TV or set top box. But I would only use one if I suspected that a nearby cellular tower were interfering with some of the channels I’m getting.

    Reply
scorpio876 - December 3, 2019

Is there anything I can add to this antenna to make it reach farther?

Reply
    Greg Martinez - December 4, 2019

    Well, the antenna already includes a preamplifier, so I wouldn’t necessarily install or use a distribution amplifier (additionally) unless I were using more than 50 feet of coaxial cable, or if I were splitting the TV signal among more than two televisions. But amplifiers are not the magic solution to extending the antenna’s reach, but rather strengthens TV signal already picked up by the antenna and traveling down the coaxial to your TV. Your best bet is to find ways to mount the Antop as high as possible – the higher it is, the more range and channels you’ll probably get.

    Reply
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