Channel Master Bows World’s First Smart, Processor-Enabled Indoor Antenna

Channel Master plans the CES debut of its SMARTenna+, which it describes as the world’s first over-the-air smart, processor-enabled indoor TV antenna available to consumers. It uses “active-steering” technology from components manufacturer Ethertronics, and has built-in amplification and noise-filtering, so it automatically can find the “optimal antenna settings for the available channels, with the option for fine-tuning via a push-button control,” said Channel Master. That combination of features increases viewer “convenience and flexibility while maximizing the number of channels received across all VHF and UHF channels,” it said. The SMARTenna+ has a built-in tuner, which scans the available channels on the “initial plug-in of the antenna,” said Joe Bingochea, executive vice president-product development. It can receive from seven different positions, he said. “It will scan all those seven different positions, and will determine which one of those positions can receive the most channels.” The scan takes about two minutes, he said. Improved Channel Master algorithms reduced the scan time by more than 75 percent, he said.