The RCA Compact Yagi Outdoor antenna is a directional antenna that is best suited for rural areas with hard-to-reach UHF and VHF signals. It’s a great pick if you want to put your antenna in the attic instead of a roof peak.
Generally speaking, a bigger antenna can often yield better results. A larger surface area and bigger UHF and VHF elements can all contribute to better reception. However, as I learned firsthand, this compact Yagi is lightweight enough that you can easily improve rooftop reception by elevating it on a mast or pole.
After experimenting with elevating the antenna, and adding an adjustable amplifier, the RCA Compact Yagi performed the same or better than some larger multi-directional outdoor antennas that I have tested in the same location..
The RCA Compact Outdoor Yagi is a directional outdoor antenna with UHF and VHF elements. I tested the antenna over the course of a few summers in Southern Maine alongside a couple of other popular outdoor antennas.
The Yagi antenna requires some assembly. After fitting the front and rear sections together, you use a mast clamp to assemble the antenna. The Yagi includes everything you need to mount the antenna to a roof peak, side of a house or inside an attic. The included hardware includes a short J-pole.
Design
This Yagi-style antenna measures 34.5 inches in length, with its widest element spanning 33.1 inches. It has separate sections for UHF and VHF elements, allowing it to effectively receive a wide range of frequencies.
These elements are useful for areas where channels are spread across both VHF (channels 2-13) and UHF (channels 14-51) bands.
RCA doesn’t get very explicit with the gain of the Yagi. I had trouble finding exact information and RCA appears to have created slight variations to this antenna over the years. One Home Depot product page lists the antenna gain as 12 dB and no exact information on dBi.
Performance
The RCA Yagi has endured several harsh Maine winters without any broken elements or surface rust. The location is a low-lying house lot surrounded by dense forest. The surrounding trees are several feet higher than the roofline.
For years, the RCA Yagi was mounted at gutter level then moved higher toward the roof peak.
The Yagi got roughly 30 channels, including NBC, ABC, PBS and CBS stations about 20 to 25 miles north of the house. Initially, there was no reception for the local FOX station from a broadcast tower approximately 40 miles away.
Two modifications were made to maximize the RCA Yagi’s reception and double the number of channels it could receive. We combined two J-Poles to create one that is approximately five feet tall.
Then, we added an ANTOP SBS-602B HD Smart Boost Antenna Amplifier. It took some fine tuning of the amplifier to get the elusive FOX station.
Initially, simply plugging in the amplifier didn’t increase the number of channels or immediately capture the elusive FOX station.
The best reception was achieved by using the amplifier’s dial. After a few channel scans, reducing the maximum amplification gain by half got the best reception.
The cable run was slightly over 30 feet. The channel lineup remained the same whether it was connected directly to the TV or plugged into a Tablo Dual Lite.
After adding an amplifier and raising the antenna by five feet, the RCA Yagi excelled in capturing harder-to-reach stations in Maine and New Hampshire between 40 to 50 miles away.
Even though the Yagi is compact by design, it serves as a good example of how, in some cases, having a bigger antenna isn’t always better.
A directional antenna yield can produce better results than a multi-directional antenna based on factors such as terrain, geography, and distance from broadcast towers. RCA has been making this style of Yagi antenna since at least 2009. It comes with a 12-month limited warranty.
