Mohu taps military tech for its new SkyHD outdoor antenna, promises 1080p from up to 60 miles

By Ian White Published April 2, 2013

Cutting the cord is becoming a hot topic again with yesterday’s potentially historic legal victory for Aereo, and a surge of new products to help you capture free OTA (over-the-air) HD broadcasts. Mohu has been busy this week with the release of its Jolt antenna amplifier and again today with the release of its new SkyHD outdoor antenna. At $190, the SkyHD doesn’t come cheap, and it faces some stiff competition from the DB8e antenna from Antennas Direct, but early results from our evaluation are showing it to be highly effective.

The SkyHD is Mohu’s first multi-directional, outdoor/attic-mounted antenna and, at just 3 pounds and 1-inch thick, the should be an easy install.

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The folks at Mohu claim The SkyHD can pull in signals from as far away as 60 miles, thanks in part to a 15dB signal amplifier which can be powered by USB or DC adapter. If those specs sound familiar, that’s because the signal amplifier is essentially the Jolt bundled in the package.

“The Sky antenna is closely related to the mudflap antenna developed for covert, wide-bandwidth, military communications by Mohu’s parent company, GreenWave Scientific,” said Mike Barts, Ph.D., Senior RF Engineer at Mohu. “The Sky belongs to a class of ultra-wideband antennas, which are inherently non-resonant and provide even performance over large frequency ranges. This is a big advantage for over-the-air (OTA) TV reception where the frequency range from high to low is more than 10 to 1. The Sky’s performance is remarkably consistent across the channels and we are extremely proud of it.”

“The patent pending Sky is a variant of an antenna developed for Naval Surface Warfare special applications and has no similarities to any HDTV antenna products on the market,” said Mohu Founder and President Mark Buff, Ph.D. “The design has inherent frequency independent properties, leading to optimized performance across the VHF and UHF bands.”

If the SkyHD works as well as the Leaf antenna in our extended testing, this may be a great way for those who live in apartments or with roof access to pull in some free HD broadcasts and save on their cable bill.

The SkyHD is already available for purchase and comes with 30-feet of coaxial cable, and mounting accessories.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ian has been a full-time A/V journalist since 1999, covering the world of high-end audio, video, music, and film for Digital…

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