How to Distinguish the Differences Between a VHF and a UHF Antenna?

If you are not happy with your cable provider and you want to cut your ties with them, cancel your subscription with their service, or you have been wanting to add some local TV stations to your presently subscribed TV bundle, installing an antenna to your current TV setup will help do all that.

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Anyhow, installing an antenna is a simple and cost-efficient process. It is not all considered as a challenging undertaking After all in the end, you will get the free broadcast signals you are wanting to have. 

The so-called free TV channels or over-the-air TV signals are the same. They utilize 2 separate sets of frequencies to make their broadcast possible. It is a minor complication.

For instance, if you have been dying to watch a specific channel on your TV, there is a good chance that it is in one band or the other. In that case, in the absence of the right VHF or UHF antenna to use, you will not stand a chance of seeing that channel on your TV. 

Choosing a TV Antenna

In general, there are two things that you need to take into account when trying to choose between antennas. Or it might be that you have a current antenna setup, but you are uncertain if it can handle the job for you. 

In such situations described above, the first thing you need to do is check out the channels you want to get. The second thing is, you need to know exactly how strong these signals are.  

For example, the local news from channel 6 might be transmitting now at UHF channel 38 instead of VHF channel 6. But it may still show up on channel 6, as a way to preserve their branding. 

If you will reference the Federal Communications Commission’s website, you will come across a dedicated page from there where you can search out a particular station using a call sign. You can use this to make a comparative analysis of the real and virtual channel numbers. 

This may necessitate you to either have a UHF antenna, a VHF antenna, or an antenna offering capable of delivering both. 


In addition, you can also utilize the online tools found on enthusiast sites as well as in antenna manufacturer’s official websites. They will show you how strong the signal is of a particular channel in your area. 

With regard to that, it will let you look for a simple and cheap indoor antenna to use for this purpose. Or you may just opt for an amplified antenna or an outdoor (full-bore type) antenna.  

UHF antenna vs. VHF antenna

TV signals, the free over-the-air type,  are utilizing two different bands to broadcast. One is the very high frequency or VHF, and the second is the ultrahigh-frequency or UHF. 

VHF channels use radio frequencies to transmit their signals, from around 54 MHz all the way through 216 MHz. On the other hand, the UHF channels take on higher frequencies that would start from 470 MHz all the way up to 890 MHz.  

A fanatic of ham-radio will  comment on the choice of frequency you have will depend on how well signals would be traveling. Before cable TV took centerstage for home television entertainment, the vast majority of TV stations would be broadcasting on the VHF band.

Their band of choice is VHF band  because it offers them less  interference risks and is likely to bring the signal farther at a specific transmission power. 

Nowadays, UHF has gained more traction and thus gained more popularity of use because it is offering people greater bandwidth, which is good and necessary for modern high-definition programming