Over the air TV


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Old 05-16-13, 01:52 PM
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Over the air TV

Thought I would move over to this forum....I get around Anybody out there have any experience with over the air tv. Getting ready to cut the cable and have been kind of reading up on just going through the air. I am just across river from Philly so a lot of channels should be reachable and supposedly some also in HD. What recommendations as far as antenna or any other advice. TV's are both newer and digital so tuners should be able to receive without a box. I was thinking I would go get a cheaper antenna, plug in and tell TV to "auto program" and see what happens and after that I'll see
 
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Old 05-16-13, 02:14 PM
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Got a few free boxes when they went over to digital,also put up a outside antenna on the roof.It's kinda of liberating to have but then again grew up with few channels and black and white.It's tough at first to ween off but now just less channels with nothing worth to watch.
 
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Old 05-16-13, 03:21 PM
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I have been contemplating a similar move, but before cable we only had 3 channels. As I understand it now, none of them broadcast the old fashion way. I will confirm that, but was wondering are there any satellite options available that do not require the monthly fees that can be legally accessed via some available box and dish.

Also, even if you have stations still broadcasting, how long into the future will that continue. Or is the issue that they now only broadcast digital? I know my little emergency battery powered tv now gets nothing.

Bud
 
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Old 05-16-13, 03:22 PM
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I have never had cable. In my opinion digital sucks but I suspect the cable companies like that and may have encouraged its adoption because of that.

I actually do better with rabbit ears then I was doing with an older outside antenna I was using when the final transition was made. The PBS channel, 8, just doesn't work sometimes, didn't work at all for three months after the original transition despite the fact I am within 25 miles of the transmitter. Other VHF stations I have to do custom configurations of the rabbit ears then find a new configuration that works three or four weeks later when that configuration no longer works. I have the rabbit ears on a long cable so I can find the sweet spot in the room at any given time.
 
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Old 05-16-13, 03:27 PM
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Maybe six months after the digital transition I tried using an indoor antenna with a converter box. I was able to receive maybe a half-dozen stations, most of which had no appeal because they were religious or foreign language programming. Some time later I bought (on sale) an outdoor antenna and I experimented a bit and could get the converter box to "recognize" around 20 to 28 channels but it would only get a watchable picture on the same 6 or 8 channels as the indoor antenna. Even then, it was extremely sensitive as to the aiming of the antenna and more often than not the picture (and audio) would drop out and return several times a minute.

More recently, within the last couple of months I have tried both the indoor antenna and the outdoor antenna and could not watch ANY channels. The converter box would recognize the same several channels as before but NONE of them would lock in to give a watchable picture. I have read that the various television stations have severely cut back on their output signal strength over the last year or so, mostly to save on their electrical bills. Along with this I have read that they (TV stations) would like to completely eliminate over-the-air transmission and are currently lobbying the Congress (and FCC) to do so.

Now my situation may be somewhat unique. I live in a "hollow" where even the analog broadcasts were problematic. My antenna for digital (the outside one) was not all that high and maybe if I were to raise it another ten to twenty feet I would have a completely different experience...maybe. I have only an ultra basic cable plan so I have already weaned myself from most of the crap shown on "expanded basic" cable. I have never had premium cable so I never got used to it. It DOES bug me that in the approximately ten years I have had my cable service the programming has become less but the cost has literally doubled. I have tried watching TV via the Internet (through my laptop connected back to the television) and while it IS an option for a program I somehow missed it is NOT a solution for me. I normally use the closed captioning feature and so far I have not found it to be available via the Internet.
 
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Old 05-16-13, 04:50 PM
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We have an outdoor antenna with a rotor and I personally think a rotor is a must have if you are going to have your antenna outside. A signal booster can be helpful in my opinion but you will have others say they are just junk and to save your money on a booster that you can connect to your antenna. So the best bet would be to go with just the antenna and then also install a rotor so you can move the antenna because these digital channels change every once in a while.

As to internet television I really like it myself and use Netflix. Furd I did use Hulu I think and I looked at the settings on the bottom of the screen where you see the progress bar and I could set up captions if I wanted that. Look for something that looks like gears at the bottom of the screen with your mouse and you should be able to find captions. Now as for good internet television you need to have high speed internet so if you don't want the cable company perhaps your telephone company has fiber optic service to your house.
 
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Old 05-17-13, 04:42 AM
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A few years ago all OTA broadcasts in the USA except low power (LPTV) were required to transition to digital. This means you probably won't get NBC, ABC, CBS or FOX unless you have a digital TV or a converter box with an older analog TV.

Any TV antenna will pick up both analog and digital. The antennas don't care. However, many stations now broadcast in the upper UHF band instead of the VHF band so make sure you have the correct antenna for your area.

Go to AntennaWeb - Home to see a list of stations you can receive with various antenna types.
 
 

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