Just a stupid rant about "cord cutters"
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Not really worth the $65 when I can get a 19' HDTV for a little over $100.
This makes me wonder what it would take to add an ATSC tuner to smartphones. It would be great for catching instant replays when you're at football games that happen to also be broadcast on your locals. And the screen would be much better than on this thing. Not to mention not needing to use data to stream the game through another means.
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Broadcast TV antennas aren't that often located in "the middle of the city". There are some instances, but usually they are located on a nearby hill that most have LOS to.
Probably around $30 if anyone were willing to put up with the increased acreage and power consumption involved. The problem would be the antenna as a relatively large antenna (larger than the old cellular antennas by a factor of two or more) has to be hanging off of the phone to receive the relatively low frequency signals.
And that's what I was curious about, how much bigger the phone would have to be to accommodate the antenna. I wonder if a functional one could be built internally into something bigger like a tablet.
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The issue with digital OTA signals is rarely signal strength. The biggest problem I have found is multipath issues. In analog TVs this meant a ghosting picture on your TV, but in digital it manifests itself as having a strong signal, then none, then a strong signal again. I find it easier to pick up OTA channels from a neighboring market than my local market strictly because of multipath. Being in the center of town, or in the shadow of a transmission tower is not necessary. Getting a clean signal is. I found that in order to get my locals with towers within 3-10 miles of my house, putting the rabbit ears all the way down and purposely getting WEAKER signal allows me to get all my local channels with no issues. In order to do this, my antenna is pointed 180° in the wrong direction which happens to be where neighboring market local transmission towers are located 40-50 miles away. So with RABBIT EARS, I can get 16 local channels (2 each ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, 4 PBS, 1 MyTV, 1 Independent., 1 TBN, 1 Daystar). Most of these have at least one subchannel, some have as many as 5, one has 6.
So cord-cutting is looking rather attractive to since 70% of the programs I watch are OTA.
So cord-cutting is looking rather attractive to since 70% of the programs I watch are OTA.
Cord cutter here and...am enjoying the extra 70$ in my pocket every month.....
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The antenna would have to be external as it must be several inches long; probably longer than the biggest phablet if they're trying to get into the low UHF range. The wavelength of channel 14 is about two feet.
But your average UHF loop or bowtie is not 2 feet long...
My laptop has a ATSC tuner in it, the external antenna it came with is about 5 inches tall.
I was just in the mood to rant and I had no where to go to rant, so I came hereI got an e-mail today saying my Time Warner internet monthly auto bill had been paid. I went into the e-mail and looked and my bill went up $5.00 a month. I will not get into all the specifics, there is no point. My mind just started thinking about all the people that use the term "I AM A CORD CUTTER", NO YOU ARE NOT!!!!!! There is no such thing as a cord cutter until you CUT the high speed broadband internet cable coming into your house. You have NOTHING without that cable, unless you go back to using a free OTA antenna, then you would be a true cord cutter. As long as the cable companies control the price of the broad band, you have NO control. If enough people cancelled cable and "STREAMED" their content the cable company could just raise their price super high for internet, or charge you per gig, wouldn't that be fun. There is no true "cord cutters" except those that use OTA antennas, and now my rant is over. Sorry for yelling
I always thought "Cutting the Cord" was a reference to ditching paid TV for streaming/OTA and not meant to be taken literally otherwise it would imply ditching electricity too thus a true cord cutter would either be living in a treehouse... or be Amish.
Everything has a cord mate including us so maybe its time you cut the umbillical cord?
I always thought "Cutting the Cord" was a reference to ditching paid TV for streaming/OTA and not meant to be taken literally otherwise it would imply ditching electricity too thus a true cord cutter would either be living in a treehouse... or be Amish.
Everything has a cord mate including us so maybe its time you cut the umbillical cord?
The new buzz word is "off grid."
You make your own electricity to run your stuff. While the envionmental impact involved in the manufacture off grid equipment is significant it allows some to give the power companies the finger. Some recycle B&W TVs from the dump, go figure!
Joe
But there's still a cord!
Looked into solar power once.. its quiet pricey. 1000$ set up might be enough to power up the microwave and hair dryer.
Truth be known, the wire involved in creating a middle of the band loop is about two feet long. Same with the bow tie. You surely don't want to have something like that dangling off of a twin-lead connected to your smart phone. Loading coils and multiple windings will still lead to something that won't fit in the palm of your hand.
Cord is a bad term as it implies something to do with power. Of course with a solar system, you may be able to make your meter run backwards.But there's still a cord!
It should be called cable cutting and IIRC, the DBS companies have used the term in this context at one time or another.
