Television in the truck...help!

I would stay away from amplified antennas they can actually drown out weak signals if there are strong signals nearby and you probably don't need one (amp)any way.

If you want to purchase an antenna the "silver sensor" is a nice compact medium gain antenna, the rabbit ears window mount one you described worked much better than I thought it would (pre-digital transition).
Almost all pre digital antennas still work on digital TV

Most antennas are directional to some degree (gain is really directivity) .
This site maps all the nearby tv stations/towers.
Put in any zip code you want and "map this" it's an interactive google maps overlay. Zoom out and put 20 ft or more as the antenna height and drag the balloon along your route to find what station you could expect/hope to get. It gives a lot of info like signal strength,real and virtual channel number,direction to point you antenna,network
http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=90

If you want to try building a simple antenna you could try a "stealth hawk"

Regular old rabbit ears type antennas also work in strong signal areas and not so strong if used and adjusted properly, and are more useful than alot of other antennas at VHF real channels 2-13.
Hope these help you find a good solution for you.
OH youtube antennas are very suspect and most are dimensionally or fundamentally flawed.

 

When they made the switch to digital the coverage areas of many stations decreased. I found that if on a night I wanted to watch a specific show, I would receive every network but the one I wanted! But of course you can ALWAYS get the religious channels, and the channels in languages that I don't speak! I bought the amplified antenna from Radio Shack, it helped some and that was with it on an extended painting pole, up above trailer height, but still much worse and less stations from back b4 digital.

 

Selecting an antenna is always a compromise, for truck use it's even more so because durability is even more important.

Actually my experience has been quite the opposite, I now get stations from 80+ miles and 60+ miles (two different markets) in addition to local.

Your results wont be that good cause I have a high gain (not amplified gain) deep fringe antenna at 27 ft. AGL that would be quickly destroyed by the road.
And I have no foreign language channels yet
and I cant get a religious channel to make my wife happy for anything.

We had a TBN repeater b-4 digital but they couldn't afford the digital transition for the repeaters.

The site I pointed at should at least help in picking a better parking spot ( for tv reception ).

It kind of depends on your preferences and route do you park at truck stops or at pickle parks or do you rest at the shipper/receiver.

 

I have a Sony 24" Bravia mounted to one end of my sleeper. I have the little antennas like the OP was talking about. If I'm in a decent size city, I'll pick up their local stations. Seems to be maybe 40-50 mile radius.

But I love sports and most shows I like are on cable so I invested in the Dish Tailgater portable satellite. Similar to the VuQube set up. I love that. As long as we have to set and wait on shippers/receivers sometimes......

 

I just looked up that tailgater system. Pretty impressive!

 

I'm the same as Logan. I want a tv to check the news and sports and probably fall asleep to!! I've been looking at the small 19-22" tvs and held off because I don't want to rent a box or pay monthly for a satelite service. The tailgater looks good but... I really don't need it.
I think I will try a tv with built in dvd and an rca antenna

 

I had a design to mount a V style antenna from the qualcomm mount and have it sit just a inch or so above the sleeper but running a route that gets me home everyday now I never did it.

I'd defiantly recommend getting an signal amplifier of some sort but if your near a major city it can actually causing issues with the incoming signal.

 

That's why I don't suggest an amplified antenna. If you think you must get an amp, get it as a separate device.
Good ones run ~$40-50
Amps generally make the signal to noise ratio worse.
And usually that is more important than signal strength.
Unless untill you get out in the rural fringe areas an amp is likely to do more harm than good.
Since you rest mostly at the consignee/or I don't think you will need an amp especially on the east coast.
And industrial areas are "noisy" already.

If you ran the midwest and rested in pickle parks then I'd recommend a kitztech
dB of amplification mean nothing to you because your cable will be relatively short and you will only be running one TV (no splitters)
What an amp can do (for you as a driver) is give you is it's low noise factor instead of your tuners.
Most tuners are almost as good as the amps, but the tuner is farther from the antenna after losses are incurred.

A cheepy "indoor " antenna deployed at the stop will give a good baseline for comparing what the "tv fool" says you should get and what you can easily get. You should get the stations in green with no problem.
Plus the tv fool helps you point the antenna in the right direction.

 

Yeah, I really like it.

They also offer the "Distant Local" channels. Gotta jump through some hoops but once they approve you, you wont get your typical local channels. Do you no good when out of the area. So instead you get locals out of LA and NYC. So always get the major networks. For no extra charge.