Amazing Free TV Tech

I cut the cord a couple of years ago (DirecTV), but I have struggled with reception on key channels. Putting up a 40 foot tower wouldn't fly in my neighborhood (CC&Rs). Streaming doesn't get me everything I want, but I guess I get enough to get by. I just moved to a new house a couple of miles from the old one. Maybe I will try again, but there is no coax where my main TV is and there is no easy way to run coax to it (vaulted ceiling). Rabbit ears can be pretty marginal (I still have a few of them on a shelf in the garage).
 
Have you ever seen the commercials for dumb people to buy a "magical" device that delivers "dozens" of HD channels to your TV for the low-low price of $59.95?
The hilarious lies "just plug it into your TV and enjoy" always make me laugh. I have never heard a better sales pitch.

Us normals, we call it "rabbit ears" and we've known about this miracle for decades. But what do the dumb kids know? :)
 
I got a tv for the hangar, hooked up some old rabbit ears I found in the garage and have twenty channels or so, even in a metal hangar.

The "genius" who discovered antennas has an MBA:D:rolleyes:

Cheers
 
John221us said:
I cut the cord a couple of years ago (DirecTV), but I have struggled with reception on key channels. Putting up a 40 foot tower wouldn't fly in my neighborhood (CC&Rs). Streaming doesn't get me everything I want, but I guess I get enough to get by. I just moved to a new house a couple of miles from the old one. Maybe I will try again, but there is no coax where my main TV is and there is no easy way to run coax to it (vaulted ceiling). Rabbit ears can be pretty marginal (I still have a few of them on a shelf in the garage).
Click to expand...
I use the following: https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/. I have the HD HomeRun Connect, which takes in the TV signal via coax and places the video stream onto your local house network. This means the TV, with the appropriate setup can can get the OTA TV signals remotely from the coax.

My antenna is one of those flat ones enclosed in plastic and hanging on a bookcase in my upstairs office. The coax runs into the HD HomeRun, which converts the signal into an network feed. My TV is downstairs and I use my AppleTV and an app to get the signal to the TV and display local OTA programming. I can watch local programming on my iPad/iPhone/computer also. There are hardware solutions provided by other vendors as well.

That might provide a solution for you.
 
BigBadLou said:
Us normals, we call it "rabbit ears" and we've known about this miracle for decades. But what do the dumb kids know? :)
Click to expand...

I will quote from the Slashdot comments something that is very true and speaks to your comment...although you may be a Boomer in which case you're two steps removed, but I think it holds up.

Comment from Slashdot said:
Boomer here. You sound like a Gen X'er who's having a little difficulty with the generational succession thing; let me help you out.

On the plus side, your're older and wiser now. Congratulations. That's something you should feel proud of.

On the minus side you are no longer cool. You are the opposite of cool. It happens almost overnight. Yesterday you and your cohort were on top of the world, the center of attention, the apple of the media's eye; but when you woke up to day you didn't realize it, but you'd become the generational equivalent of a fish left out on the counter over a hot summer's night.

So the millennials have discovered something you've known all along. You laugh, and look around and notice nobody is laughing with you. That's because you haven't figured it out yet: knowledge isn't cool until someone cool knows it. And that's not you. Nor for practical purposes anyone else over 30.

Now I suppose you could console yourself with the idea that the millennials will learn this very same lesson, but I say wish them well and let them enjoy their fleeting moment as the center of the universe, because soon you'll be feeling the icy winds of mortality at your back. That's a reminder to focus on what's important.

And what people think of you just isn't very important. What people think of other people is even less so.
Click to expand...
 
Old enough to remember the days of black and white TV and the test patterns you saw when you turned on the TV before prime time. Back then even local channels were often snowy enough to drive your eyes to the state of rebellion even when that was then a state-of-the-art antenna on the roof. Golly gee! There were even live programs back then. Anyone remember The Ed Sullivan Show? Milton Berle?

Antenna technology has improved over the years and I am loathe to pay Comcast (AKA "Crapcast") for the privilege of watching reruns of "Gunsmoke" that have been, over the years butchered beyond recognition and no longer portray what the original episodes did. With luck you'll get fifteen or twenty minutes of program and the other forty minutes will be commercials.

My TV thinks I'm old and cranky, and it is right. I hardly ever turn it on and keep it unplugged to save the cost of electricity when I'm not interested in watching any of the drivel they have been offering for the last twenty years or so. One Radio Shack "Flying Saucer" antenna on the roof is all I need.

Off my rant. Yes, I took my grump pill this morning. ;)
 
mcdewey said:
I use the following: https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/. I have the HD HomeRun Connect, which takes in the TV signal via coax and places the video stream onto your local house network. This means the TV, with the appropriate setup can can get the OTA TV signals remotely from the coax.

My antenna is one of those flat ones enclosed in plastic and hanging on a bookcase in my upstairs office. The coax runs into the HD HomeRun, which converts the signal into an network feed. My TV is downstairs and I use my AppleTV and an app to get the signal to the TV and display local OTA programming. I can watch local programming on my iPad/iPhone/computer also. There are hardware solutions provided by other vendors as well.

That might provide a solution for you.
Click to expand...
I have one of these, which does the same thing
https://www.tablotv.com/
My problem was reception. I went ahead and bought basic cable for the upstairs TV, but can't do that for the main TV.
 
I have an antenna and tripod that I need to get mounted on the roof sometime soon and we'll dump Dish and $74 a month.
 
I bought a small TV to put into a library nook, planning on just watching disks and streaming. Got to wondering about hooking up an antenna to at least get SOME channels to it.

However, I collect old technology. In the same nook, next to an Edison wax-cylinder phonograph, I had an unusual-looking Tricraft TV antenna from about 1947. Hooked it up to my modern HD TV, and got 20 digital channels.....
tricraft.jpg

Ron Wanttaja
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top