Okay this question might be the TV equivalent to "Does my car really need gas?" but I'm a novice here on this whole thing.

All the equipment is bought.....brand new Samsung DLP HDTV, HDTV satellite receiver, and the DirecTV people are coming out next week to hook it all up (new house)

Now I did a search here on HDTV and read that DirecTV doesn't broadcast the local channels in HD.......is that right? The network shows in HD are crucial! So is buying an HDTV antenna a must?

The house is about 10 miles from Baltimore and 40 miles from DC so will a standard, indoor antenna pick up the Baltimore channels over the air? How about the DC channels? Or will some monstrosity of an antenna have to be put on the roof or something to get these channels? Some small, out of the way indoor antenna would be preferred, however being able to receive both cities' channels would be nice as well.

What's the deal?

Try www.antennaweb.org - put in your zip code and it'll tell you which type of antenna you need to receive the different stations that are available.

As far as I know, all the DTV stations are UHF. A simple test, how is your analog TV reception from those two cities? Assuming the digital stations are using similar power transmitters and equally good antenna locations, your digital reception should be a little better. Even if you need an outdoor antenna, it needn't be too large, because you really only need the UHF antenna. The VHF reception is what makes the antenna big. Im guessing Baltimore will be easy, Washington will take a decent, multi-element outdoor (or attic) antenna.

Try

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forum...?s=&forumid=45

You might need to search for your area.