Rabbit Ears To Stage a Comeback Thanks To DTV 265
Jeffrey Breen writes "Like Monty Python's Killer Rabbit, cheap indoor antennas seem harmless to satellite and cable providers. But with the digital TV transition in the US, rabbit ears can suddenly provide digital-perfect pictures, many more channels, and even on-screen program guides. Already feeling pressure as suddenly budget-conscious consumers shed premium channels, providers must now get creative to protect their low-end as well."
Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Informative)
A one-inch piece of wire or a dampened finger will "pick up" UHF, VHF, or Martian signals. It's all a matter of how well, not whether or not they do.
The "loop" is nominally designed-for and tuned to pick-up UHF signals. The "rabbit ears" is designed-for and tuned (by varying the length of the ears) to pick-up VHF signals. But either will "pick up" both bands with some degree of success. ("Both" bands is actually a misnomer, since the VHF broadcast TV allocations span multiple ranges with holes for other services, such as public safety, etc.)
Given that almost nobody bothers to tune rabbit-ears by adjusting their length, the non-adjustability of loop antennas, and the incredible width of the broadcast TV spectrum, most simple indoor antennas like this are essentially "random wire" antennas for most channels anyway.
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking of random wire.... (Score:5, Interesting)
HDTV antenna on the cheap. Coaxial cable adapter, coat hanger, screws & a board. [youtube.com]
The coat hanger antenna out-performed a $40.00 'HDTV' antenna from Philips and another from Radio Shack.
Here is one made with a coffee can... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Enter the "whitespace" Ipod or Ipod-knockoff with its ability to broadcast on channels 2 through 51, thereby blocking DTV. (The official FCC term is TV Band Device - TVBD.) Coming Christmas 09 from your friends at Comcast. ;-)
Rabbit ears/loops don't cut it.
For almost forty years I've watch analog television with nothing but a settop antenna, and got around 20 stations. With digital I only get 3. Yes from 20 downto 3. Pathetic. The FCC designed the DTV system with the assumption that everybody would h
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I have found DTV reception to be far more sensitive to the direction of the antenna, combined with the fact that my television doesn't allow manual tuning, means that with only one antenna there are only a subset of channels available at one time, to get a different subset requires a five minute autoscan.
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I had the same experience in NYC. A week beforehand, I had great NBC reception. Then for some retarded reason, reception totally died. The day of the Superbowl, reception was still weak. I figured I'd have to hit a sports bar to see the SB. But then, right about an hour before gametime, the great NBC reception I used to have was restored. Its maintained that great reception since.
I understand that antenna work is going to cause stations to drop in and out. What I don't understand is why they cut tran
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The Lancaster-York stations mount their transmitters along the Susquehanna River, which is near... well... basically nothing.
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:4, Funny)
Anyway you need a 25 foot or higher antenna. Rabbit ears/loops don't cut it here in "rural" Lancaster PA.
So basically, you're saying that what you need is giraffe ears ?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) Don't discount the possibility your DTV converter box is a piece of junk. avsforum.com has a wealth of DTV information.
2) You need to hit tvfool.com or antennaweb.com and figure out your distances to the transmitting towers and the orientation to your home. They also give approximate dB strengths. If you can get better than -47dB on a signal, you'll probably get DTV. (That's my observed signal threshold where I live in the Bronx. That's not based on direct instrument readings.) Then see what kind
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Insightful)
Well its more like digital showing flawless quality where analogue would show some fuzz, but too much fuzz and digital dies completely where as analogue still shows something.
Its better than analogue if you dont have a strong signal, but you still have enough.
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Insightful)
In general "rabbit ears" are set-top TV antennas of any type. Also, VHF is not going away (some DTV stations will still be using VHF). Only the top part of the UHF band will no longer be available for TV stations.
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You don't need special approval to use channels 2 through 13. Those channels are just as valid to use as channels 14 to 51.
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You couldn't have been more wrong if you tried...
Nope. ALL TV broadcasters have the option of continuing to use their newly alloted UHF channel, or keeping their old (sometimes VHF, sometimes UHF) channel. In either case, they had to notify the FCC long ago. There is no special requirement either way.
Also no. Outside of Alaska, just about all broadcas
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Informative)
ALL TV broadcasters have the option of continuing to use their newly alloted UHF channel, or keeping their old (sometimes VHF, sometimes UHF) channel. In either case, they had to notify the FCC long ago.
Even this is more restrictive than what the FCC allowed.
Basically, a station could request any frequency (within channels 2-51) as their final digital location, and as long as it was going to be available, they would get it. Stations with a "relationship" with an existing channel got right of first refusal, so any that asked for their old analog or temporary digital to be their final digital were always awarded it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Please tell me you're joking. Hmmm. How did the antennas that look like two Bugs Bunny ears get named "rabbit ears". Boy that's a real stumper. A real puzzler. Why don't you ask me something easy, like how to solve the water tower puzzle in Zelda Ocarina of Time?
>>>UHF is not going away (some DTV stations will still be using VHF).
Yep! That's the understatement of the year. In my area I have:
6 - Philly
7 - Harrisburg
8 - Harrisburg
9 - Philly
10 - Harrisburg
11 - Baltimore
12 - Philly
13 - Baltimore
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Do you really know how? I've been stumped for the last couple of weeks.... So what's the answer?
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gamefaqs.com walkthrough
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1) Subchannels are not the same thing as actual channels.
2) Those are probably "virtual channels" as the box reports them. The actual UHF frequencies are different.
3) I haven't sat down to understand the issue, but the FCC allows certain stations in very close proximity to broadcast in adjacent frequencies. I presume there's different hardware involved that allows that to happen.
4) The FCC keeps stations from different markets from overlapping into active frequencies in adjacent regions. If they were
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all DTV is broadcast on UHF and rabbit ears DO pickup UHF on the lower end of the spectrum. There ARE far better designs though and rabbit ears will not make a return.
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In my area, they're staying on the VHF spectrum - better range in fairly uncluttered area.
I get good signal >45 miles from the transmitters.
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Interesting)
You're absolutely WRONG.
Rabbit ears are back (at least in my house)! I am one who has realized that me and my family mostly watched "network shows". I am one who canceled my cable service and traded it for rabbit ears.
At this time DTV looks better than cable services. Digital Cable Services look worse then analog TV and tons worse than DTV, the compression is too high.
Rabbit ears are back baby..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You should splurge the $20 and buy a better antenna. My problem isn't against antennas or even indoor antennas, but specifically rabbit ears. Why use a 1940s era antenna when there are far better and smaller designs. Check out the Silver Sensor or mount a $40 Radioshack antenna in your attic and you will get far better reception.
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Interesting...I find that I'm pretty much the opposite. The only thing I watch on network is the news, both local and national to mix in with cable news.
Other than that...I'm mostly cable only...new shows on Discovery, History and sometimes the Food Channels (food is going downhill of late tho)....and often reru
Re:Not rabbit ears (Score:5, Informative)
There are even better designs than the UHF loop. I built one of these [blogspot.com], and it works great, even without a reflector. Extremely easy to build too. Something even better and a little more complex would be the Grey Hoverman [digitalhome.ca].
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Bah! I did a little bit of experimentation [bargainshare.com] with different antenna designs, and found that loops seemed to work better for me than bowties. So I ended up building a quad loop antenna [zoominternet.net], and it's been working incredibly well for me.
Note that I live directly between Pittsburgh & Youngstown, so leaving the reflector off means that I can pick up stations from both cities simultaneously!
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VHF is not going away. VHF-Lo (2-6) is going to be less used, but it's not going away completely. VHF-Hi (7-13) is going to be well-used.
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VHF-Lo is not going away. The frequencies auctioned away by the FCC last year were in the UHF spectrum and correspond to channels 52-69.
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Here in Chicago, the DTV with rabbit ears is much much better than the old analog signal.
I live close to downtown, and there were certain channels I couldn't get at all with an antenna.
I prefer TPB to CATV or SATV, so paying for cable was never going to be an option. For the rare occasions where I want to see something on old-style television, the new digital signal is fantastic. We're getting lots of new channels, too.
How happy I would be if the cable-tv and satellite tv industry got hit with tremendous
DIY (Score:2, Interesting)
Using rabbit ears, I picked up several new stations (other cities). But with such weak signal, they cut in and out too much. "Coathanger" antenna to the rescue!
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Does it actually pick up all the channels in your area?
Is there a good guide out there to putting one together? Something smallish maybe?
I thought about putting one together, but then wondered if it was just a sick april fool's joke. I guess the fact that they seem to be a bit large and ugly is the tradeoff.
Excerpt of an Email from my Brother (Score:5, Interesting)
"It's really not that tough to make. You could make one yourself just as easily in an hour or two. Construction is as follows:
Make eight Vs from 16" lengths of coat hanger, with stripped insulation at the point(EDIT: Guess he means the plastic coated coathangers). The mouths should open about 3.25".
On a 33" or longer stick, about 2" wide and ½" thick, measure off 8" increments on both sides of the ruler. At each of these marks use a wood screw and washer to hold down a V. It should look like four cats stacked head on head when the stick is upright. These V's, now lying flat, should be pulled forward about 20-35. Just pull on one wire at a time to reduce strain on the screw.
Next the Vs need connected with two more coat hangers. Each of these hangers is bowed, connecting to the two center Vs on one side, and the two end Vs of the opposite side. Insulation needs removed at all eight woodscrew junctions, but must be intact where the wires cross over each other between the end and center bows.
Finally, at the center of these two bows (which should be the width of a ruler apart), also strip insulation, insert two additional screws, and attach a UHF-VHF transformer. This is $2 radio shack item which allows one to hook a 300 ohm spade-lug antenna to 75ohm threaded-tube coax cable. The ideal one should be small tube with male threads at one end, and the two spades at the other end which you will screw to the antenna.
Installation. Hook a 75ohm coax cable between the antenna and the 75ohm air-antenna connector of your tuner. A brass hook in one end of the stick, and another in the ceiling is a convenient method of installation. Mounting it to a pole on the roof would provide even better reception, but then would be difficult to aim if not all your TV stations come from the same direction. Here they all come from Mount Wilson which is 41 East of North from me. Directions of your stations from your zip code and signal strengths can be found at tvfool.com. The cat faces aim at the stations. I pick up all stations with a signal strength of 41 Db or more (the ones shaded in green)."
I guess he used a cool piece of driftwood for structure.
Hope this helps.
How about a fractal design? (Score:3, Interesting)
Has anyone tried out this design?
Plans for a homemade Sierpinski triangle antenna. [ruckman.net]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I actually misquoted him in my first post....here is an accurate description of his results.
Decide for yourself which measurements get results.
"Wow, I just spent two hours making a UHF antenna from driftwood and coat hangers, in hopes of picking up some digital TV reception. It turns out it matters which antenna input is used for DTV. Anyhow, end result is that I've gone from 15 mostly fuzzy stations, like just half the local VHF networks, to 90 crystal clear stations, including several variants of each loc
If only this was truly a threat to them (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think that rabbit ears are going to be a threat anytime soon. That PayPerView things is pretty compelling. Admittedly, in tough financial times switching to just a few local channels for free would be an option - until you look at unbundling your catv from internet and phone etc. I'm pretty certain that cable providers have a grip on how to bill this so changing really doesn't save you anything worth getting excited over.
Now, if bundling of services with savings was not allowed, and catv ISPs were forced to act like common carriers things might be different. That doesn't look likely to happen any decade soon.
As cynical as I am I expect that soon I'll be paying a penalty for using Vonage instead of the catv ISP version of VoIP; which is a sucky service BTW. None of the available VoIP services can compete with Vonage for features or price or price per feature in my area. No soft phone, no taking your phone modem on vacation, and North America Plan means only US and protectorates - no Canada or Mexico etc.
My mom has DTV and during a storm it sucks. Yes, with indoor antenna it still sucked. Pixilation was devastating to viewing pleasure. It had nothing I'd switch from catv for.
This is an interesting thought, but nothing we'll see in reality.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't have cable and didn't even before DTV became widely available.
Hell, I don't even have a TV, I'm not sure I have any relevancy in this thread. I'm thinking about canceling my internet service and getting my fix from work, friends, and coffee shops.
pay-per-view (Score:2)
With a bit of cleverness one could manage pay-per-view on broadcast tv. For example sacrifice a few channels for a rotating set of movies all requiring a decrypt (sent via the telephone).
add a tivo to this and everyone could have dozens of movies stored, ready to play as long as they subscribed to the decrypt code.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How much bandwidth do you think is available to broadcast television? Seriously? That little pipe coming into your home is bigger and will *always* have more capabilities... at least for the foreseeable future. So while you have a point, it's not relevant to this thread. More to the point, even wikipedia authors have pointed out that getting real High Definition television (1080p) is not going to happen on DTV. DTV has a number of advantages over analog(ue) television transmissions, but none over catv optio
Saw this on Superbowl Sunday. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no substitute for the higher bitrates (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't work for me (Score:2, Interesting)
We have a small set in the kitchen with rabbit ears, after putting on the converter box I can only pick up two channels. With analog tuning I can get six. I tried the box in another room that has a jack for the outdoor antenna and it picked up everything plus new some new stations I didn't know we could get, so I decided to do a coax drop into the kitchen.
I live about 25mi from the transmitters. Such is the life in rural America I guess.
I cut the cable (Score:5, Insightful)
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Is that 42 primary channels, or is that including subchannels? If those are all primary channels, than that is an awful lot. Also, surely only a few of those are major networks. What are the rest? Do they have much good content?
Not for me! (Score:2)
Currently, I use a DB2 bowtie antenna since rabbit ears don't work back in end of 2005. Even with a bowtie (30 miles), sometimes I get dropouts and weak signal strengths like on KABC7's digital 53 (channel 7 for analog), KNBC4's digital 36 (horrible since Super Bowl day almost two weeks ago), etc. I am only under 20 miles to most of these stations (NW direction at 323-324 degrees heading on a compass).
Two weeks, KABC did its digital test on 7 instead of 53 and shutting down its analog channel 7 for 15 minut
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I use the DB2 on a microphone stand, antenna four feet off the ground, pointed out a patio door, ground floor into a two story courtyard, 150' down the back side of a hill fifteen miles from the transmitters and still pick up reliable signal. That is, however, directly into a television. Maybe PCI tuner cards aren't design for optimum sensitivity.
And yes, OTA digital look spectacular if source permits.
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Yeah, OTA digital rocks when it works. The antenna is in my upstair room (can't put it on the roof or in the attic) and face facing the wall next to the window on its left (can't face the window becuase its glass has those special coating to keep heat out and it's new from last summer. I did notice downstair's folks have this Terk antenna (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21gxjlDsZwL._SS500_.jpg ) and have very little problems with their Zeinth converter box (manufactured on April 2008).
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By the sounds of it, you need a decent roof-mounted directional antenna. I have one and it works for getting TV from over 45 miles away.
Of course, my antenna is longer than I am tall.
http://www.winegarddirect.com/viewitem.asp?p=HD8200U [winegarddirect.com]
And I don't even need an amp!
For you, something cheaper would work:
http://www.winegarddirect.com/viewitem.asp?p=ANWGHST [winegarddirect.com]
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Yeah, I was told that but I can't put it on the roof or in the attic. :(
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Also, how did you mount this to your roof? Is there a mounting kit? How difficult is this? Did you DIY or hire someone?
How did you run the wire from the antenna into the house? Does it go into some kind of splitter to go out to the different tvs in your house?
Do you have to somehow ground these things?
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Mounting in my case is by tower. The antenna comes with mounting hardware required to attach it to a standard antenna pole; the tower/pole and mounting for it is for you to provide.
My antenna is very directional, yes. All of my stations are effectively in the same direction, so I'm mounted statically. My grandfather has a motor as he's located between a number of different cities, so he'll turn the antenna depending on what he wants to watch; a lot of duplication today though compared to when I was a kid
Overly Optimistic (Score:2)
Even in the NYC metro area there are a number of issues that are preventing my taking advantage of this theory. The channels that have switched to DTV seem to be harder to receive, and few are broadcasting in HD even though they have HD on the cable feeds.
I'd have to be pretty hard up to to turn off my cable subscription.
not just tv (Score:2)
In any case, I suspect that while basic cable service is important to cover costs, not much profit it made.
Better than cable (Score:3, Interesting)
The Olympics last year were what motivated me to attempt to do the TV thing . . . so I found a very small set and got some rabbit ears. It was pleasantly surprising to discover the dual nature of the channel settings available . . . the old analog signal is still full of snow and noise while the digital airwaves really are better than cable. Channels are a little bit longer (e.g. KQED is 09-003, needs to be manually entered with the dash and all. Best of all, no monthly cable bill!
It's likely that the cable / satellite television industry is going to take a hard hit once people figure out that the can get clarity without paying for ridiculous "service contracts" and "package deals" and "bundles".
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Interesting. My understanding was that most companies would broadcast primary content from -001, and use the other possibilities for alternate content. (Show re-runs, etc) and perhaps smaller local style channels.
For local channels consider that some small towns have simple channels available that display high-school basketball games, and the like, the rest of the time broadcasting literally a PowerPoint presentation of a few textual slides in a a continuous loop, with a local radio station rebroadcast as t
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I envy you and others who can get good signals over the air. I live in an urbanized area (San Diego) and still (for a few more days, at least) am using the analog feed. It's a bit snowy on some channels, but watchable, and I can change between two channels very quickly (ideal for football season when there's two games on two different channels).
The digital signal, when it comes in, is very clear and has much better picture and sound. Problem is, aside from the PBS channel the quality is horrendous. It pixel
I wonder how long this will last. (Score:5, Insightful)
My brother hooked up an antennae at his place in LA, and now gets somewhere around 60 channels. All in perfect clarity.
Considering how much I HATE paying a cable company for ads(what happened to Ad-supported?), this is looking very much like something I am going to try out. Fuck Comcast.
But how will cable companies respond when broadcast stations start taking back business?
My guess, they will start BUYING them.
And do what? (Score:2)
Seems to me, what you are getting at is that they want the programming... so they would have to buy the "network", then start dropping affiliates... but that has the same issue as buying stations and not using them, since the value of the network, is the audience of the combined affiliates.
There are lots of shows I watch that aren't broadcast anyhow (Discovery Channel, History, etc.) So, I am stuck with cable.
Cable su
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I wasn't implying they would shut them down. Simply control them.
If they can offer ad slots to BOTH mediums to a prospective client, all the better, not to mention issues of conflicting political agendas. They would also be able to maintain "exclusive" programming slots(premium programming confined to cable service).
Closing them down would just open the market for someone else to move in.
Digital-Perfect (Score:2, Insightful)
Measuring perfection should include the ability to degrade gracefully, and digital TV is absolute shit at that -- far worse than analog TV signals. Perhaps the worst part is that audio dropout happens much more easily than with analog signals; not only will you have tons of stations with pictures that lock up - as my parents digital cable did so often while visiting over the holidays - but you won't even be able to keep up on the story via the audio (
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Better delay it some more then (Score:2, Informative)
If rabbit ears ever come back, don't be surprised if it's delayed forever. Any plan which allows individuals to bypass cable providers is a conflict with the broadband tax credit, which explicitely requires you to pay a subscription plan for 5 megabit internet access to a major corporation, mainly Time Warner & Comcast.
Why give money to Time Warner if you're just going to let individuals suck it away with rabbit ear TV?
Waste of time? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's not just in the UK. We also have them in North America, in apartment buildings, etc. Of course, you can "broadcast" on channel 3 by plugging the video out from your dvd or vcr into the wall jack. One of my friends used to interrupt the Saturday morning cartoons with 5-10 minutes of p0rn.
Re:Waste of time? (Score:4, Informative)
In the US the major network affiliates generally broadcast on VHF frequencies, for which these rabbit ears are sufficient. In the UK we use UHF, which doesn't perform as well without a dedicated external or loft aerial.
The UK used to use VHF for television, back in the days of the 405-line black & white service. BBC1 was broadcast on VHF Band I, whilst ITV was on VHF Band III. You can still see some of these aerials on the tops of some buildings; they were needed as the UK transmitters were often many miles away, although it was possible to pick up some services on an indoor aerial. These transmitters were eventually switched off in 1985.
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"Why don't you guys just install a proper rooftop / loft aerial and get a decent signal without all the fiddling? In the UK all most buildings where people live have an aerial and tv points in the rooms, in the same way each room has power sockets."
This was once common in ancient suburban America.
Re:Waste of time? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, there's this thing called the "OTARD", which is basically a case of a governmental agency (the FCC) telling a bunch of quasi-governmental petty fascists (HOAs) to stay the fuck out of their territory. The OTARD says that if you need an outdoor antenna, homeowner's associations can't prevent you from getting one. They can't even delay you or try to make it hard through bureaucratic BS (the FCC is obviously well-acquainted with red tape).
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html [fcc.gov]
If you don't own or control a spot to mount the antenna, you still may be SOL, but if you own your home, the OTARD lets you tell an HOA to STFU.
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The one I'm living in can hardly be called a tower block (5 stories), but there's a TV aerial on the roof, and an FM antenna, and a satellite dish. There's sockets connected to this in my flat.
A few years ago the TV one was upgraded for digital TV.
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People who care enough about aesthetics in the UK put the antenna in the roofspace, inside the building. I suspect the real reason is as mentioned below, that the different frequencies used mean rabbit ears are no help in the UK and you need a rooftop antenna (or else a *lot* of patience).
stations not broadcasting at full power yet (Score:3, Interesting)
I get NBC, CBS, and PBS and all the crap spanish language channels just fine.
ABC and FOX aren't broadcasting at full power yet.
NBC is 1000kW right now and FOX is 35kW.
Even outside of city proper, you will be able to use rabbit ears once they make the switch and start broadcasting at full power.
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I only need one ear (Score:2)
I get all the local Baltimore HD channels fine with a single telescoping radio antenna located in my basement. Does need a bit of tweaking when you switch channels, but it's awfully easy to tweak.
dont forget (Score:2)
Comcast (Score:2)
Reduced the number of channels you get on basic cable. This is how they protect their bottom line, screw the customer.
Bullshit (Score:2)
However, the DTV transmissions are terrible, absolutely horrible, and pretty close to unwatchable. The picture is crystal clear, but has a very bad habit of breaking apart. I'll tell you, I'm excited that the opening
IPTV (Score:2)
IPTV is another route providers can turn to. As an example see the package offered by Free.fr [www.free.fr] (in French). For example a company such as Bell in Canada which currently offers DSL and satellite TV could provider IPTV to their customers. This is an important alternative they should be turning to, especially when you consider the number of apartment blocks that do not allow the installation of satellite dishes.
When you consider the amount of junk on TV and the amount of adverts, I am not really sure I want to
Broadcast TV is dying... antenna's or not (Score:2)
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Broadcast TV won't go away... but their programming is going to focus more and more on local news and cheap "pop" programming (like Idol).
And don't forget infomercials. I get seven channels over the ol' bunny ears. On a Sunday afternoon one station may have a football game on, PBS is showing this guy with crazy hair and a smarmy smile playing the violin to thousands of attendees, and the other five channels are showing between them two different infomercials from the possible set of: the px90 workout; the
Gray Hoverman antenna (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to do DTV over the air right, you need to build yourself a Gray Hoverman Antenna. There are lots of plans for it on the net, including the hackaday sight. Takes most people a couple of hours to build and works very well. You can stick it in your attic, or just behind the telly.
Re: (Score:2)
The Gray-Hoverman is good for UHF and some VHF-Hi, but not the only choice in the build-it-yourself category; there's also the 4-bay reflectorized bowtie. The AVS forum has a whole thread on variants of that, including the "mclapp" antenna, named after the user who optimized an
Mine looks more like a serrated triangle (Score:3, Informative)
But even an omnidirectional antenna gets every major network beautifully. Cable is an insanely weak value proposition. A good cable package in digital is like $75+ where I am. For $900 a year, I can buy every series I watch in HD, and have a lot left over. (In my case, a heck of a lot, since I only watch one show) And I have the antenna for backup.
Rough times yet for broadcast... (Score:2)
First, I will say I use antenna only for TV. My signal does break up from time to time because I have a crappy attenna and haven't bothered to correct. With the same setup, the analog channels go really bad before digital starts to break up. I will the point where digital starts breaking up it does so rapidly. It's a misnomer to say digital doesn't accomodate degraded signals at all, it's actually fairly resilient due to the error correction available in the stream. Added bonus of no DRM-like crap in t
News? Not and they DO work, sometimes. (Score:2)
Indoor antennas are the last resort for DTV (Score:2)
This forum has a lot of information on the subject: http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=32846 [dtvforum.info]
Whilst this is specifically about Australian DTV channels, I would expect the concepts would be the same for the US implementation.
The main things to note are that you need to have your Rabbit ears HORIZONTAL (or VERTICAL), but NOT in a V shape, and typically very short.
The PDF linked from this posting shows you how to set your rabbit ears up: http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=70193 [dtvforum.info]
Where I live w
Here's Your New Cable Package (Score:2)
Drop Kick the Cable Box:
http://7r4n5.com/blog/?p=10
Re: (Score:2)
Drop Kick the Cable Box [7r4n5.com]
VCRs? (Score:3, Insightful)
One *in* for the Cable Companies might be to offer a cheap basic PVR along with basic analog cable. That might lure away the mom and pops who can no longer timeshift.
TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is this TV you speak of? Is that a program that runs on a computer?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Grab a $50 USB adapter and the aforementioned rabbit ears, hey presto this 'digital TV' appears on your PC.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
How To Protect the Bottom Line (Score:5, Insightful)
Cable companies, you want to protect the bottom line?
Stop sending me six-page glossy advertisements first class mail every week. How much does that cost you in printing and postage? Quit begging me to upgrade to services I already have. Stop bombarding me with ads that insult my intelligence. Stop offering me "this price for six months!!!1!!" deals that will rip me off in half a year and hope in vain that I'm too stupid to notice. Stop cutting all of the channels I actually watch and moving them to premium packages. Quit reordering my channel numbers every two weeks. Stop lying about how many "HD" channels you have. Stop trying to screw me by playing billing games - my bank tells me when you cashed my check, so don't try to rip me off with fake late fees. Hire operators who are neither surly nor clueless...
Is this so difficult?
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I still prefer analog's reliability because you can get between audio and video quality (fussy, dotty, etc.). With digital, you either get clear picture and audio or none! No between. :(
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It's because they're only broadcasting at like third power or something.
When analog is shut off, and the DTV stations increase their power, we should see things a lot clearer.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Two possibilities:
- The things mounted on the head of a rabbit to increase its ability to hear
- The antennas you put on your television to recieve analog(digital possible?) television signals.
In some countries this was widespread, others had antennas put up on top of the roofs.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Third possibility:
- private firms and individuals contracted by a government to raid the carrot patches of an enemy
Re: (Score:2)
Here ya' go! (Score:2)
Rabbit Ears [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Cable (both TV and internet) is so much less expensive here in the UK, where there is actual competition amongst cable operators!
Virgin.
What's the other cable operator?
(Granted, there's competition from Sky, and a couple of IPTV ones.)