Count me among the believers in the 5th-generation LG/Zenith ATSC receiver!
We just did a test, this morning, in my apartment, and I thought the news was too important not to release immediately. Present were two senior research engineers from LG Electronics in Korea, Bob Miller and an associate from Viacel, and Richard Bogner and an associate. Miller had arranged for the test in my apartment. The receiver was the LG LST-3100A.
With a simple loop antenna, with NO care in the positioning, we were able to pull in seven DTT stations reliably. When I say "reliably," I mean not only that the pictures and sound were okay but that people could move around the room and I could move the antenna around without causing any breakup. It WAS possible for me to find an orientation where I could make it fail, but I really had to try, even on WNYW-DT, which could previously be received only with the antenna on the floor. That's a big jump from previously trying to find an orientation (and position) where I could make it work. For the first time, I could receive signals (six channels) from an antenna atop my TV, where I normally get analog channels. I received three channels reliably from New Jersey. We got the same results with the classic Radio Shack dual bow-tie with reflector, but other (fancier) antennas did not work as well.
The only channel I have previously received that I could not get this morning was (which we confirmed with a spectrum analyzer) off the air. Two of the other channels I could not receive are operating at very low power, and one has its transmissions beamed away from me.
I now believe that any schmo with reception conditions similar to mine can simply take the receiver out of the box, connect a cheap loop antenna, stick it wherever it looks good, and start to receive ATSC signals from all full-power, full-pattern stations.
For the record, the channels I received were: WCBS-DT, WNBC-DT, WNYW-DT (which carries WWOR as a subchannel), WABC-DT, WPXN-DT, WNJN-DT, and WFME-DT.
