DIY, ATSC is great; when it works
By Kevin C. Tofel 
posted Jan 17th 2006 7:34PM
posted Jan 17th 2006 7:34PM
We often tout the wonders of free
over-the-air, or OTA, high-def programming, but lucky for us the Washington Post reminds us that OTA is not always
HD nirvana. The Post decided to take the RCA 27F634T for a spin along with a cheap ol' antenna. Quickly realizing that a digital
picture is an all or nothing deal, meaning it's a perfect picture or no picture, they did the whole "stand on the
chair, raise your left leg and right arm" thing for the best signals. Aside from playing a digital game of
Twister, they raise a valid point that not everyone can receive every OTA channel and even for those that do (like me),
it can be a hit or miss situation at times.If you use an ATSC OTA tuner for any programming, how well does it work for you and how far are you from your local digital towers? Is the free HD worth it for you or is it just too much darn work?
Got a $50 CM 8 Bay Bowtie, had OTA HD for 5 years best free HD Tv there is.
gotta $99.00 rca outdoor antenna, took 15 minutes to install. ota is working pretty well. espcially with my media center.
If you live in an apartment and an indoor antenna is the only recourse, then its a miss more often than a hit. When I lived about 15 mi away from the towers, a Zenith silversensor could barely pick up any channels because of multi-path of tall buildings. Now, I live about 30mi and with an external Winegard pull in almost all. Still its not a very dependable option.
Two years ago I hooked my Zenith HDTV (with atsc tuner) to the old, broken antenna on top of my house. I live about 5 - 6 miles from the towers, and the picture quality is fantastic. But you just can't convince people that something you get for free is as good or better than what they pay for. I haven't had that 45.00 cable bill for two years, and haven't missed it!
I'm in the Phoenix area and I get OTA on my Windows MCE with an ATI HDTV Wonder. I have used the indoor antenna that came with the HDTV Wonder and a DB2 from Antenna's Direct. Both work well indoor but the DB2 slightly better. I am approx 8 miles as the crow flies from the towers on South Mtn. in Phoenix. I can get all 18 or so digital stations broadcast in Phoenix. Some are better than others. I think it is a matter of power. All the major networks usually are flawless. It is basically the local stations that seem to come and go. for example: in Phx it's 3 and 61 and sometimes the PBS stations. I think I'd be ok if I put the antenna in the attic or on the roof though.
I set my aunt and uncle up with a Sony OTA HDTV DVR and put up a DB2 antenna in the attic and they are approx 13-15 miles from the transmitter and they get all stations flawlessly.
I get the feeling that only a small fraction of the public even realize that there is FREE OTA HDTV available today. I also get the feeling that the cable/satellite providers don't want people to know about OTA. It is extremely hard to find a stand alone OTA tuner. For example I got an Accurian HDTV tuner from Radio Shack for $90 bucks then they discontinued it. Then I get the Sony DHG-HDD250 which is only available at about one online store. Now it seems to be discontinued. I don't think people realize/or know how much better the digital stations will look on all the old TV's they have sitting around. You don't need an HDTV to see the improvement. But nobody seems to want to offer stand alone HD tuners.
I have a Terk indoor HDTVi antenna, paid like $30 for it and it works great. I'm about 32 miles south of the towers in Atlanta. Get a great reception, coming in at about +90% signal on all my HD channels. It was honestly suprisingly easy, at first I had the antenna on my top of my tv and was missing one channel, but decided to move it to attic and it picks up that channel perfect now.
I live in Northern Va. The guy that did this test is an idiot. He says that he lives in Arlington, Va. that's right across the river from DC.
I live 20 miles further out from him. I get all the channels from set of amped rabbit ears on 2 different TV's. I do have some problem with the weather is bad getting the signal on the TV in the basement. But the channels for PBS are a very weak signal to begin with and sometimes they don't broadcast at all.
This guy must have interference from within his building or bad equipment.
I live 19 miles from the towers on the bottom floor of a two story apartment and receive all but one channel perfectly and that is an independent that broadcasts with less power from a different location. I put rabbit ears with a loop on my patio and pointed them at the transmitters and rarely lose a signal.
I have a Philips amplified indoor UHF/VHF antenna. I live 12 to 20 miles from most of the stations except for Fox which is a few miles down the road. After a few months of adjusting the atenna (primarily finding the right location for the rabbit ears) I can tune any station in about 30 seconds by slightly adjusting the position of the faceplate. CBS is the only station that gives me any trouble.
One problem I have is that I live next to a train track and the trains would always interrupt my signal. Every night at 8:20 and 9:20 I would get a pair of trains and have to switch back to the SD broadcast until they were gone.
However, I will finally have the option of digital cable from the town I live in starting next week. I'm already on the list to schedule my installation.
I would definately recommend that people give OTA HDTV a try before signing up for cable service. Given the train tracks outside, the difficulty getting CBS, and my desire to get Discovery and ESPN in HD, I am getting digital cable.
I have an RCA rabbit-ear setup, I think I paid $8 for it about 3 years ago. I get all the major networks in HD quite well. Occasionally the ABC stations (I can get 2) don't always work. By in large, CBS comes in the best and looks the best.
Found a cheap rabbit ear antenna it worked better than any powered antenna that I have tried I get all the offerings in Houston
I got a SR15 (outdoor antenna) from AntennasDirect.com. It was roughly the same price as any indoor antenna (I tried 3 different ones) I found at the local electronics store, but the reception was a lot better. In fact, I can have the antenna on the floor of the living room and receive all but one channel, PBS. Even outdoors, PBS is the only channel that requires the antenna be pointed in a specific direction. I'm 25 miles from the TV Towers, and I recommend anyone in that range to stay away from the indoor set-top antennas. If you enjoy prime time television and sports, then free HDTV is definitely worth it. If it weren't for a handful of shows on FX and the Food Network, I would drop cable altogether and stick with the local digital stations.
I gots the "big" RCA antenna that The Depot sells sitting on my roof. I've got the Channelmaster pre-amp as well. I'm 28 miles from the Sears Tower in Chicago, and I get EVERY station, including the white whale of ASTC, WBBM-DT, broadcasting on Channel 3.
However, all is not well. Low VHF stations absolutely suck, suck, suck. During Steelers-Colts on Sunday, somebody in the neighborhood was doing something with an electric motor (probably a drill, I figure). It was throwing out electrical interference that would cause the picture to pixelate and the sound to drop out. It was merely causing some snow on the analog station.
My hope is that, once the digital transition is complete, VHF goes the way of the dodo. I have never, ever had any trouble with a UHF station, they come in wonderfully. And then I could ditch the monstrosity on the roof and use a much smaller UHF antenna.
Hampton Roads, Va (Virginia Beach). - Our Cable Co. (Cox Communications) does not carry anything but CBS and PBS in digital, due to blah blah blah (I'm sick of hearing it-just carry the damn channels)
Anyway OTA is no problem. Make sure you have a Zenith or LG, TV or STB to recieve the channels if you are in an urban situation (Zenith came up with the 8VSB transmission standard, so they tune it the best-especially if multipath is a problem for you). Whatever STB or TV you got, get a highly directional antenna. Goto www.antennaweb.org to find out what you need and where to point it.
The best indoor antenna was the Zenith "Silver Sensor". Terk, although being the worst antennas made, now has a blatent rip-off of the silver sensor. As for attic/outdoor mount, channelmaster has some good stuff.
All our channels broadcast from the same location in my area (Driver, in Suffolk) so no further adjustment is needed. I could pick up all the channels with a little adjustment in my crappy apartment, and now with the attic antenna, I set it and forget it.
I've got a left over OTA antenna from my VOOM install, with the ATSC tuner built into my TV I've had moderate success with receiving the local channels my cable provider doesn't (Charter Cable).
Anywhere from a couple of miles to 30 miles. Using a DB2 in my attic. Great reception even from the 10kw ABC that is 30 miles away. Overload from the 1000kw FOX affiliate (I am the Director of Engineering for this station and the 1000kw UPN that is 30 miles away) that is a couple of miles away, but I hung the antenna sideways and all is great. OTA is the only way to watch your locals!
I have a samsung SIR-t451 and have tried rabit ears, terk indoor directional antenna, roof antenna and now a terk indoor powered antenna. All of them have had similar results (channel 2, 4 , 7) the rest are sketchy at best. I am only 6 miles from the broadcast and have line of site to the towers from my apartment. I have tried to compensate with to strong of signal and have tried moving the antenna for a reflected signal. Still nothing would get me 5, 9, 11, 13.
I switched to a fusionHDTV5 gold plus card in my computer and plugged it into my free cable (apartment picks up the tab i think) and I get more than I could have ever hoped for digital and analog. Now if there was just some decent software that supported the card.
I agree though, OTA is great but for some of us there is just no explaination to why it doesn't work.
Bay Area, Berkeley. About 15 miles from towers.
I have a cheapy Zenith antenna attached to a small amp in my living room, which has no westward facing windows.
I don't pick up the OTA signals too well there.
However in my office, which has a window facing south (and a clearer sightline to San Francisco), I pick up all channels just fine.
I'll possibly buy a more powerful amp, or amplified antenna, if I want to continue getting OTA signals in the living room.
I'm using the silver sensor that came with my ATI HDTV Wonder card on my MCE box. I'm about 3 mi from Sutro Tower in San Francisco and everything from there comes in great. Of course, that assumes Sutro is online, which was not a great assumption over the past several weeks. They have had antenna problems and have been shutting down all DTV broadcasts during working hours to fix it. In the evenings, they occasionally were able to power up to 20% full gain, sometimes not at all. Hard to believe that major networks (we're talking ABC and PBS) can be down for weeks because of tranmitter problems.
The other problem is that NBC comes from San Bruno Mountain, which is not only 90 degrees off of Sutro, but it is also the only local to transmit in VHF. The silver sensor surprising picks up the VHF signal pretty well most of the time, but I get occasional dropouts. It's also sometimes difficult to tune in both NBC and the other stations from Sutro at the same time - since I have dual tuners, this can be an issue.
Bought this Samsung 26" last year with the built-in OTA tuner, and connected an old rabbit ear that I had bought about 5 years back to it. I live in an apartment about 15-20 miles from the towers. I get NBC, ABC and WB in one position. For CBS, I need to go through the stand on the chair, raise your left leg and right arm hoopla, and when I do get it, I lose NBC. I used to get FOX, but not NBC. Now, Im getting NBC, but no FOX.
I just read that "review" of the RCA. Is it really a SD TV? A tube TV with an ASTC reciever HAS to be better than SD, right?
$359 is sweet. I gots to get one for my 'rents.
The problem is definitely three part: 1) the antenna, 2) the distance from the stations and the terrain, and 3) is sometimes we forget the tuner is an essential part. I have two HD tuners, the one built in to my SONY HDTV which pulls in great signals, and the one in my DirecTV HD TiVO DVR, which sucks, because the unit is relatively spectacular in every other sense.
I am loving free-over-the-air HDTV! Nine miles from the towers, I receive all digital channels ALMOST all of the time with just a cheap indoor antenna (SilverSensor). With a cheap roof-top antenna, I receive all digital channels ALL of the time. Homeowners that run into problems should consider professional installation of a roof antenna.