We got a new TV, but more on that later.
Since the TV that we got has an ATSC tuner inside, I wanted to give it a try. I did not have high hopes for getting OTA DTV and OTA HDTV. But, I had to give it a shot. I read that the el cheapo indoor RCA “rabbit ears” and loop indoor antenna were actually the best ones to use — if you’re not going to be doing the whole outdoors-on-the-rooftop thing. So, I picked up an $8 RCA indoor antenna (ANT110) from Fry’s and gave it a shot.
To my surprise, the TV actually got nine stations. These were from antennas that are within 20 miles of my house. The other broadcast antennas (according to antennaweb.org) are more than 30 miles away — those stations I couldn’t get. The nine stations were a mix of Spanish-language channels and public broadcast. There was one independent broadcast station also. All stations were broadcasting their standard 4:3 analog stuff in DTV format — meaning, no HDTV signals and I was getting the same stuff as I get on my Dish.
Oh wells, it was worth a try. The antenna is going back to Fry’s. I’ll have to explore other ways of getting HD content — paying an extra $10 a month for HD stuff is not costly, but it’s not something I want to do either. A Bluray machine would be nice so that I could watch HD stuff from Netflix.
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Mar 30th, 2008 at March 30, 2008 2:10 pm
When I lived in Oregon, my Radio Shack bunny ears had no trouble picking up every single local station that had an HD broadcast. In San Jose, I get nothing. Not a single station. I’m not sure what it is about this area. The hills maybe?
Mar 30th, 2008 at March 30, 2008 3:42 pm
When we lived in San Jose, near Vally Fair Mall, I picked up a cheap rooftop antenna from Radio Shack. We were able to get every major network and a ton of PBS in HD (and all the espanol you can shake el palo at). If you’re able to do the rooftop thing, it’s a pretty good deal.
Mar 30th, 2008 at March 30, 2008 6:12 pm
Well, KQED-HD did not start broadcasting HD content until 5pm. That’s the only HD channel that I can get. I just tuned in and found some 1080i goodness. Oh wow, it’s very impressive. The quality of the picture is fantabulous.
Ryan, I think it’s because of the hills and because all the major networks affiliates have their broadcast antennas way up in the North Bay.
Bigmac, I’m thinking about it! after seeing the PBS HD stuff.
Mar 30th, 2008 at March 30, 2008 9:17 pm
What are you going to do with your old TV?
Mar 31st, 2008 at March 31, 2008 10:18 am
I bought a PS3 to use as my BluRay player. It works very well and is much quieter then the XBox 360.
Then made use of the my discount at Warner Bros to augmented my collection of movies.
Apr 6th, 2008 at April 06, 2008 2:47 pm
Try the silver sensor antenna (small/indoor), or better yet, a big antenna in your attic (if you have an attic).
Apr 9th, 2008 at April 09, 2008 1:46 pm
Your not going to get HD channels over the air with a regular rabbit ear antenna. You have to buy a HD antenna and have a HDTV.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=abcat0107006&type=category
Apr 9th, 2008 at April 09, 2008 2:00 pm
Chuck,
“HD antenna” is actually just a marketing ploy — there is no difference between a regular antenna and an “HD antenna” since they both do the same thing: Receive signals off the air (UHF and VHF). So, the argument that rabbit ear antennas will *never* work is not true. Like Ryan observed, if you’re close to your broadcast antennas, a pair of regular rabbit ears will work just fine — heck, there are a few rabbit ears listed in that Best Buy link you put in your comment, and again, the “HD” part is just marketing.
-Mookie
Apr 11th, 2008 at April 11, 2008 11:23 am
With OTA HD in mind and that we will have to get a box for them, I haven’t been able to find a OTA HD box with component outputs. I have an older Panasonic HDTV (without the tuner but with component inputs) and don’t want to crumbup the HD quality with composite or RF hookups. Any ideas?
May 21st, 2008 at May 21, 2008 8:42 pm
Chuck: not true. HDTV signal can be and are broadcasted on the same frequencies as analogue TV. More than this - politicians are talking about
freeing up some frequencies, by moving all the HDTV broadcsts down to the frequencies where all the phasing out analogue signals lives.
I build myself an antenna from a beer can and it works just fine for all the Toronto HDTV signals.
http://diyfreetv.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-build-tv-antenna-from-beer-can.html
So good-old rabbit years should work as well. Especially after Analog shutdown in US.