One For All indoor TV antennas – SV9436 (AV review)

19/12/2022
By Ray Shaw
In Reviews

One for All indoor TV Antennas may be the solution if you do not have a roof-mounted TV antenna. And if not, then you will need to install an amplified external TV antenna.

Sorry for the odd start to this review but either a One For All indoor TV Antenna will or won’t work. And unfortunately, you won’t know until you get it home and try it. So, we recommend purchasing from a reputable retailer and carefully unpack it if you need to return it.

To be clear, it is not One For All’s fault if it does not work. It is more likely that environmental factors are in play. For example, we have Bouddi Mountain National Park to our east and Blackwall Mountain to our west. Roof-mounted TV antennas are all at least 10m from the ground and point southeast to the Bouddi repeater, about 5km away. No matter what we do, we simply cannot get enough height indoors to get over those mountains.

Add to that things like glass windows, insect screens and plants/trees blocking our line of sight – we cannot use an internal antenna no matter how good it is – and I believe the One For All SV9436 is pretty good.

Australian review: One For All indoor TV antennas – SV9436

Website	Company TV Antenna selection Product Page
Price	$89 but have seen it for as low as $59
From	Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Good Guys, Bing Lee, Appliances Online
Warranty	1-year ACL
Country of Manufacture	China
Company	One For All is a brand of US company Universal Electronics (Est 1986). It is best known for its remote-control technology used by many major TV brands. It also makes TV wall mounts/stands and remote controls.
More	CyberShack TV news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – Pass+

After using the Choose the right TV antenna website wizard, it determined that the SV9436 (this review) would be best, but I could have used the SV 9482 and a few more.

That is because they are all indoor amplified TV antennae, 4K compatible, and good for up to 25km signal strength. So, if you are shopping, use the website app first.

The 22 x 15 x 2.5cm rectangular SV9436 is covered in textured grey fabric and cream plastic. It has a too-short 1.8m combo coax and USB-A power cable requiring a measly 5V/.15A/.75W, so you can also power it from most TV USB-A ports.

Last is a detachable ‘leg’ for portrait or landscape mode. That is important as some TV signals need a particular orientation. In Australia, landscape is most common.

Placement

Remember that we could not get a stable signal, so this is about the theory. It has a free antenna setup app for Android and iOS that helps you to orient the antenna using GPS positioning. Essentially you tell it the antenna model, and it opens a real-time camera view that you can point to find the best direction for your nearest TV repeater tower. It is very handy.

Caveat

This model has no signal strength indicators, and our test TV, a 75” LGQNED99 8K LG webOS, no longer has a signal strength meter (some TVs do).

It would be nice to have a cold, warmer, warm, and hot meter like the Model SV9482 (three LEDs). As it was, we spent considerable time trying to get a signal before realising there was none.