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What's the point of DTV antennas again?

phucheneh

phucheneh

Diamond Member
I just cancelled my cable and figured I'd DIY an antenna and see what I could get OTA.

I see so much choosiness among antennas. This works, this doesn't, this only gets me two channels, whatever. People pay a hundred bucks or more for the bigger ones.

Is there any point in this other than catching signals out in the boonies?

I ask because of my experience just now...I'm super cheap when it comes to anything I can improvise, so I just took some of the like 100ft of abandoned cable wire that comcast left, cut off about ten feet, screwed the end into the TV, and proceeded to start stripping a few inches off the other end to attach to some kind of homebrew antenna (buy a receptacle for a screw-in connection? Bah!). And I figured...hey, I wonder what will happen with just this three inches or so of exposed wire.

...I get just as many clear channels as anyone around me is getting with an antenna, that's what.

How do people fail at this? I'm not too far from most of the stations, I'm sure, but I'm certainly not unusually close.
 
I used to rig my own antennae back in the day(pre-digital), and it worked better than any of the fancy rabbit ears stores sold. Most of those were overpriced junk.
 
better antennas in the age of analog was about getting a better quality picture, in age of digital its about getting any picture - i.e. either you get a good enough signal and thus a perfect picture, or you don't get a good enough signal and the result is pretty much unwatchable.

You should be able to look up what channels you can expect from your area, and if you're not getting some channels you should otherwise probably be getting, then you know you need a better antenna (that is if those channels mean anything to you)
 
bunnyfubbles said:
in age of digital its about getting any picture - i.e. either you get a good enough signal and thus a perfect picture, or you don't get a good enough signal and the result is pretty much unwatchable.
Click to expand...

Digital anything sucks when the connection's sub-optimal. With analog you can get usable data, even if it isn't the best. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
 
Good antenna might allow you get some weak or far away channels you might not be able to pickup with your homemade antenna. Amp also helps as does height. Yes, my old rabbit ear antenna will pickup about 60% of the channels in my area. But my attic antenna will pickup all 100% of the channels. That's worth the $50 I paid for the attic antenna. 70 channels > 42 channels.
 
70 channels---50% of which are Hispanic, Religious, or Hispanic Religious.

I don't think there is universally one style of antenna that works better than another. It just comes down to what works for you based on terrain, distance from towers, etc.
I just have a set of rabbit ears sitting behind my tv. It works well enough that I'm not motivated to put a bigger antenna in the attic and run a line...especially in August.
I really don't watch much OTA. It's mostly Prime and Netflix these days.
 
twinrider1 said:
70 channels---50% of which are Hispanic, Religious, or Hispanic Religious.

I don't think there is universally one style of antenna that works better than another. It just comes down to what works for you based on terrain, distance from towers, etc.
I just have a set of rabbit ears sitting behind my tv. It works well enough that I'm not motivated to put a bigger antenna in the attic and run a line...especially in August.
I really don't watch much OTA. It's mostly Prime and Netflix these days.
Click to expand...

The Hispanic channel came in real handy during the Fifa World Cup as I was able to watch the games past the second round when the free internet streaming stopped. But I can pickup the Hispanic channels even with the rabbit ears. It's mainly three Korean channels I can't pickup along with one of the two PBS channels that prompted me to install the attic antenna. I didn't even have to run any new line. I simply plugged into the old Dish Network line and all the TVs worked as before from the same outlets. I didn't even have to bolt on the antenna. I simply laid it on the floor of the attic.

I never watched Prime or Netflix even when I had it for free.
 
ponyo said:
I didn't even have to run any new line. I simply plugged into the old Dish Network line and all the TVs worked as before from the same outlets. I didn't even have to bolt on the antenna. I simply laid it on the floor of the attic....
Click to expand...

Interesting. I can try an antenna on the 2nd floor at least. My lines were run from the basement up, so nothing in the attic. But it might be enough extra altitude to be helpful.
 
A while back out of curiosity I shoved a piece of wire in the back of my TV and I can pickup Global TV crystal clear in HD. I was actually quite surprised as I did not figure we got any digital OTA here, figured they got rid of analog and that was it.

There's two other channels but they're too snowy to make out what they are but I can hear voices. I imagine this is where a fancier antenna would help but they arn't really that complicated so no point in paying hundreds of dollars when you can make your own.

In my case it would be pretty easy since I have line of sight to the tower (I think it's that tower) so I could probably just make a yagi and point it to the tower. Might mess around with that some day just for fun. Though it could be the other channels I am picking up arn't off that tower and Global is off that tower.
 
Awhile back there was a site which taught you how to make those paper thin antennas with cardboard, tape, aluminum foil, and a balun. It was cool because it was thin and you could hide it behind paintings or picture frames. They worked as good or even better than the commercial ones. For some reason, the site was shut down and now we have a bunch of antennas sold by mohu or whoever that are the same type for 30-80$ a pop. Coincidence? 🙂
 
After cutting the cord myself 🙂 ..
the only reason to use OTA Digital would be to watch Baltimore Ravens games
otherwise can't understand why anyone would want to watch their own lousy team lose to us 😕
 
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Anonemous said:
Awhile back there was a site which taught you how to make those paper thin antennas with cardboard, tape, aluminum foil, and a balun. It was cool because it was thin and you could hide it behind paintings or picture frames. They worked as good or even better than the commercial ones. For some reason, the site was shut down and now we have a bunch of antennas sold by mohu or whoever that are the same type for 30-80$ a pop. Coincidence? 🙂
Click to expand...

this?
http://lifehacker.com/5919128/build-your-own-paper-thin-super-powerful-hd-antenna
 
You can actually make a kickass HD antenna out of some old wire clothes hangers.

It looks like hell though. I put something like this on a pole in the back of our house, then hooked up the power supply inside to a small UPS. That way if the power goes out, we can still get TV during storms (TV is on another larger UPS). It works really well- we get about 14 channels, and most of those have 3 sub channels.
 
lxskllr said:
Digital anything sucks when the connection's sub-optimal. With analog you can get usable data, even if it isn't the best. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
Click to expand...
This. When your signal isn't up to par, you see blocks.

Topography and signal interference make tuning digital antennas important for quite a few folks. This is especially for rural areas where you may be 50+ miles out of a typical viewing area. Digital waves have a shorter length, so they take more power to go the same distance as analog.
 
Scarpozzi said:
This. When your signal isn't up to par, you see blocks.

Topography and signal interference make tuning digital antennas important for quite a few folks. This is especially for rural areas where you may be 50+ miles out of a typical viewing area. Digital waves have a shorter length, so they take more power to go the same distance as analog.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is true. Digital signals don't seem to have the penetrative power that analog signals did either- things like walls and trees really screw things up. With analog you had a sliding scale of signal loss, so if only 75% usable signal was getting though, you could still see most of the picture (it just looked a little fuzzy). With digital, it's either a 0 or a 1, so it works or it doesn't. There is no two way communication between the TV and the broadcaster, so you can't add any error correction. Therefore, if you don't get all of the information transmitted, you get nothing. That's not good.
 
i made one of those 4 hanger bolted to 1x2 from instructables that worked way better than both the passive and amplified antennas (that was $99 on sale). Worked so well that i made another for my sister and aunt. All are located far apart and pick up almost all the same stations.

note: the tiny differences in prong length do make a difference, digital OTA is more acute.

never buy an amplified digital antenna, its a waste, you cant amplify something that isnt there and if you do pick up a digital channel it doesnt need to be amplified.

but as fritzo stated digital is beamed out in ultra high frequency which cant penetrate or propogate well through or around obstructions. So if you make one of the ugly homebrew antennas you can stick it in the attic or even outside somewhere.
 
RelaxTheMind said:
i made one of those 4 hanger bolted to 1x2 from instructables that worked way better than both the passive and amplified antennas (that was $99 on sale). Worked so well that i made another for my sister and aunt. All are located far apart and pick up almost all the same stations.

note: the tiny differences in prong length do make a difference, digital OTA is more acute.

never buy an amplified digital antenna, its a waste, you cant amplify something that isnt there and if you do pick up a digital channel it doesnt need to be amplified.

but as fritzo stated digital is beamed out in ultra high frequency which cant penetrate or propogate well through or around obstructions. So if you make one of the ugly homebrew antennas you can stick it in the attic or even outside somewhere.
Click to expand...

I don't find this true at all. Amp makes a difference and can mean the difference in picking up a weak channel or not. With the same indoor antenna, if I plug in the amp, I can pick up a channel I can't get in passive mode.

Sun radiation can make a difference with weak signals. If it's really sunny out, your signal quality will suffer and you might not get weaker channels during the daytime. At night, the same channel will come on crystal clear.
 
I'm in a huge hole. Even with an amplified antenna in the crawlspace above my house, I get shit for signal.
 
I got a decent sized one from radio shack and put in my attic. I then got a good booster (no the cheap walmart types) and used that before I split the signal to the rooms in my house. I get around 50-60 channels. I line in VA and get some from Baltimore.
 
Anonemous said:
Awhile back there was a site which taught you how to make those paper thin antennas with cardboard, tape, aluminum foil, and a balun. It was cool because it was thin and you could hide it behind paintings or picture frames. They worked as good or even better than the commercial ones. For some reason, the site was shut down and now we have a bunch of antennas sold by mohu or whoever that are the same type for 30-80$ a pop. Coincidence? 🙂
Click to expand...

Nice conspiracy theory, but they weren't shut down, a quick google will bring up dozens of sites:

http://lifehacker.com/5919128/build-your-own-paper-thin-super-powerful-hd-antenna
 
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