The Best Indoor TV Antenna

Hey, this is Brian from DisableMyCable.com, and today I'm doing an updated review of the

Mohu Leaf flat indoor TV antenna. Now, I'll be testing and reviewing the unamplified version

of this antenna. And just so you know, this is not a paid advertising. I purchased the

Mohu Leaf with my own money, and I've not been in communication with Mohu about this

review, and that enables me to give you the most unbiased opinions in this review. Now

I've been a user of the Mohu Leaf ever since I started my blog back in 2010. I've been

recommending it since then, because in my testing, the Mohu Leaf got me the most channels

out of all of the indoor antennas that I tested. And there have been several iterations of

this antenna over the years. It started out as kind of a laminated paper antenna with

a permanently attached cable, and then they changed to a plastic design with a removable

cable. So it just had a coax connector at the end, which I actually really liked, because

this allowed me to attach any length cable that I wanted to, and it actually allowed

me to also upgrade the cable to an RG-6 cable instead of an RG-59, which is what it came

with. So I really liked this iteration of the Leaf. So I was actually kind of disappointed

when the new Leaf came out with a permanently attached cable. Hopefully, yeah, you can see

better here. And so you cannot remove this, and it looks like it's a pretty thin cable

It's probably not an RG-6 by any means. And so I was pretty disappointed in this. But

the real test is how many channels does it bring in? So that's what I'm going to talk about today. Did this change cause a decrease in the quality of the reception? So a few

cosmetic issues first. The previous Leaf was white on one side and black on the other

This has gotten quite faded and started turning yellow, but it was white. The new Leaf is

gray on both sides. And what they say is that this is a paintable material, so they just

say, well, you should just paint it to match the color of your wall. So let's talk about

how I tested the Mohu Leaf. I used a Tablo Gen 4 as my tuner, and I taped my Mohu Leaf

to my window and tested it by running four channel scans. Then I removed this antenna

and replaced it with the new Mohu Leaf in the exact same position with the tape in the

exact same position, and I ran five channel scans with this. Then I took this off again

and just to make sure nothing had changed and no atmospheric effects had affected my

testing, I went back to the old Leaf and ran two more channel scans. And so after I averaged

all of those channel scans, my results were the old Leaf picked up an average of 146.5

channels. That's an average number. And the new Leaf picked up 151.4 channels on average

So 146 for the old and 151 for the new. So just based on the raw number of channels that

they were able to pick up, the new one was slightly better. Now let's talk about the

quality of those channels, because a lot of times these extra channels are like foreign

language channels that you don't care about. So what if this brought in more channels that

you did shopping channels or whatever that you don't need? Well, the interesting thing

and really the surprising thing about the new Mohu Leaf is that it actually did a better

job of bringing in some of the network channels that I have trouble bringing in in this position

The old Mohu Leaf had trouble in that position bringing in some of my networks, like ABC

especially, and some of my local channels. The new Mohu Leaf was not able to consistently

pick them up, but it got them on some of my scans. So it's not just that it picked up

more garbage channels, it actually picked up the main network channels better than the

old Mohu Leaf. So that was a real surprise to me, given that the new Mohu Leaf has this

kind of weak-looking, permanently attached cable that I didn't like. In spite of this

cable, it actually picked up more channels and better channels than the old Mohu Leaf

So how could that be? How could an antenna with a worse cable pick up more channels than

another one with a better cable? And by the way, I was using an RG6 coax cable with this

antenna, not the one that came with it. So this should have been better. Now the answer

I think is in the internal structure of the antennas. In the new Mohu Leaf, they have

changed the shape of the antenna elements. And I noticed this when I put this against

the window, and noticed that the antenna was slightly translucent, so I could actually

see through and see the shape of the elements. And so they've radically changed the shape

of the antenna elements versus the old leaf, which I was able to see the antenna elements

when I destroyed a previous version of this, an older version of the leaf. I actually destroyed

it and took it apart to see what it looked like. And so the shape of the antenna elements

inside this plastic is different, or at least between this and the older one that I destroyed

So, they have been optimizing the antenna elements over the years, and so I looked for

some evidence of that change, and right here on the box, it says smaller and more powerful

than the first generation. And it is indeed a bit smaller than the previous version, you

can see right here. So, it's a little bit less wide and slightly shorter. So, it's a

little bit smaller, but more importantly, they say they've changed the antenna design

since the first generation. So, I think that explains why the reception is better. They've

just optimized the antenna elements better, which is great that they're continually doing

research in this area and optimizing their product. So, to sum up, I am still a big fan

of the MoHu leaf. I was very surprised that the new leaf with permanently attached antenna

got more channels more reliably than the old one, which had already beaten a lot of the

other, well, almost all the other indoor antennas that I tried, and some outdoor antennas as

well that I used indoors. Now, having said that, speaking of outdoor antennas, you'll

always get the most channels if you use an outdoor antenna. So, if that is possible

then there's really no substitute for putting an antenna on your roof or in your attic when

it's really high up and has fewer walls to go through. So, if that is possible, you'll

get the most channels that way, and you'll have the most solid signal. But a lot of people

can't do that, like if you're renting or whatever, or if you just don't want to. And if you're

like me, I live in Los Angeles, I can pick up all the channels I want with this indoor

antenna if I just put it in the right position. So, overall, I would still recommend the

MoHu leaf antenna if you're looking for an indoor antenna. Now, if you have the old

leaf and you're getting all the channels that you want fine, then I would just stay with the

old leaf. No need to buy anything new if this is doing the job for you. If you have

some borderline flaky channels that you really want to get, it might be worth trying out

the new leaf. Like I said, for me, it got me slightly more channels, which might be just

enough to push you over the edge to get those flaky channels that don't come in right

This antenna might get those channels solidly for you. I would just be prepared to return

this if it doesn't do the job for you. So you can get and try it out. So, anyways, that's

my review of the new MoHu leaf. Let me know what you think in the comments. And if you

have any questions that I didn't answer in this video, please leave a comment as well

I'll try to answer those. And check out my blog, disablemycable.com, for more detailed

information on the MoHu leaf. Thanks a lot