Digital Antennas: Are they for real? (1 Viewer)

[jozo]

Mods: Please move this topic if it's in the wrong forum.


I am hearing more and more about Digital Antennas. Just seems too good to be true that you can dump your cable company and get free channels for a one time nominal fee. There has to be a catch.


Thoughts?

 

[David Norman]

The catch is it's the same stations you can get Over the air with any old antenna (an antenna is an antenna -- no HD or Digital magic needed). ABC, NBC, CBS, a bunch of independents, some low power stations, and all their subchannels assuming you TV will decode the new signals with a set-top Digital converter.


A lot of the digital antennas they sell are far inferior quality than the 1960's rooftop or even the better indoor rabbit ears of far yonder era.

 

[Carl Johnson]

Digital tv is more reliant on your proximity to the broadcast station than the quality of your antenna. My previous home was about an hour drive from the nearest ABC CBS NBC or FOX affiliate and no kind of antenna can pick up a signal from that far away. Now I'm less than thirty minutes from the broadcasters and old school rabbit ears will pick up all of the major networks plus a dozen or so alternate stations.

 

[jozo]

I kind of figured that the only stations available would be the major channels, CBS, ABC, etc.


Some of the ads are deceptive to the point that they imply you get ESPN, TNT, etc. with the antennae, and that's too good to be true.


We have a beach home on the east coast that's empty most of the year and I was thinking of getting one for there, since it doesn't pay to have cable there for a couple of months. The nearest broadcast city is around 30 miles away (Salisbury, Md. ), and if I could get the news stations for the weather report, it would be worth it.


Some of our neighbors do use the old rabbit ears, and I think one guy just runs a coax cable out onto his porch and he gets pretty good reception.


Thanks for your input.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Digital tv is more reliant on your proximity to the broadcast station than the quality of your antenna. My previous home was about an hour drive from the nearest ABC CBS NBC or FOX affiliate and no kind of antenna can pick up a signal from that far away. Now I'm less than thirty minutes from the broadcasters and old school rabbit ears will pick up all of the major networks plus a dozen or so alternate stations.

A good outdoor antenna and amplifier should be able to pull in a station from that distance. My parents live in rural northern Michigan and still have such a setup (along with DirecTV). They can get stations that are about 1.5 hours drive away without any issues. In the old analog days, the picture quality was quite clear, and it's even better now that everything is digital.

 

[Sam Posten]

I may still move this but I'm confused. Are you asking about antennas to get your own OTA transmissions or things like Aereo?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/business/media/supreme-court-rules-against-aereo-in-broadcasters-challenge.html

Aereo was ruled illegal.

 

[jozo]

I may still move this but I'm confused. Are you asking about antennas to get your own OTA transmissions or things like Aereo?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/business/media/supreme-court-rules-against-aereo-in-broadcasters-challenge.html

Aereo was ruled illegal.

No, just a simple way of legally pulling in stations without having to pay for cable, not so much for home, but for the place at the shore, where we are just a few months out of the year..


Just thought of this, though...........if we pay for Time Warner Cable, is there way to, for lack of a better technical term, "take it with you??" (I'm not tech-savvy). I thought there was a way to do that, "slingbox"????? something else, wierd name that starts with B.

 

[atfree]

No, just a simple way of legally pulling in stations without having to pay for cable, not so much for home, but for the place at the shore, where we are just a few months out of the year..

Just thought of this, though...........if we pay for Time Warner Cable, is there way to, for lack of a better technical term, "take it with you??" (I'm not tech-savvy). I thought there was a way to do that, "slingbox"????? something else, wierd name that starts with B.

How about seasonal status for the vacation home?

http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/faqs/faqs-account-and-billing/billing/what-is-seasonal-status-and-ho.html

 

[jozo]

How about seasonal status for the vacation home?

http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/faqs/faqs-account-and-billing/billing/what-is-seasonal-status-and-ho.html

No, that's not what I was asking, It's hard to explain. We already have the "Snowbird Plan" at the beach home with Comcast. They cut it off in November and turn it back on in May, for a nominal monthly fee.


What I was wondering was, is there a way to stream our Time Warner channels that we get here in Ohio to our TV in Maryland via laptop, or another gadget???


Sorry, this stuff goes over my head! Fortunately my 18 year old son will be life-guarding there in the summer, and while most kids his age refuse to help their old geezer parents with technology, they will certainly do so when it's for their own benefit!!

 

[Sam Posten]

Your cable company should have a digital DVR app, like this one from FIOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/verizon-fios-mobile/id406387206?mt=8

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

OTA DTV reception depends upon more than just distance. I'm about 18 miles from my transmitters, but they are up on a mountain about 5,000 feet above the valley floor here. I have direct line of sight and no objects to give multipath interference. For this reason I can get 35 OTA DTV channels with just rabbit ears, although I also have a large "rooftop" antenna up in my garage crawlspace to give best and most reliable results.

 

[[email protected]]

No, just a simple way of legally pulling in stations without having to pay for cable, not so much for home, but for the place at the shore, where we are just a few months out of the year..


Just thought of this, though...........if we pay for Time Warner Cable, is there way to, for lack of a better technical term, "take it with you??" (I'm not tech-savvy). I thought there was a way to do that, "slingbox"????? something else, wierd name that starts with B.

Yes, as long as you have internet service of some kind there is a Time Warner Roku app. Don't know anything else about it, we dropped cable a few years ago and do all of our TV from our Roku's, and about 5% thru an antenna.


https://channelstore.roku.com/details/23048/time-warner-cable

 

[bigshot]

I live in Los Angeles and we get around 120 stations over the air. Lots of great stuff beyond just the major networks