What can I actually pick up over the air in Bastrop County?

Why reception here is not the same as reception in Austin, and how to find out what reaches your specific address.

Bastrop County sits far enough from the Austin transmitters, and is hilly and wooded enough, that over-the-air reception varies enormously between addresses a few miles apart. Anyone who tells you what you will receive without knowing where you live is guessing.

What decides it

Distance and direction to the transmitter sites.
Terrain between you and them. A ridge is a wall. This county has ridges.
The pines. Trees attenuate UHF noticeably, and worse when wet.
Antenna height and type, which is the part you control and by far the biggest thing you control.

How to find out for your address

The FCC publishes a reception predictor that takes a specific address and returns the stations predicted to reach it with expected signal strength. It is free, it is the authority, and it beats any general advice including this page. Predictions are conservative — a decent outdoor antenna often does better than the tool suggests.

Practical notes

An outdoor antenna beats an indoor one, comprehensively. Height matters more than the antenna's price.
Aim it. Most Austin transmitters lie in broadly one direction from here, which makes a directional antenna a sensible choice.
Rescan after any change, and periodically anyway — stations do move channels.
Amplifiers do not create signal. They boost what arrives, including the noise, and can make matters worse. Fix the antenna first.

Our reception page covers what is broadcast locally; this entry is about whether it reaches you.

Terms on this page

UHF: Ultra high frequency - most digital television. More affected by trees and terrain than VHF.
Rescan: Making a television re-survey available channels. Needed after moving an antenna or when stations change frequency.
Directional antenna: An antenna that favours one direction, trading coverage for gain.

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