No OTA HDTV For You

march 30, 2008

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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