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Austin recently added this "Cool TV" thing, and it will be on 54.2 which is a new subchannel. We lost RTN a while back and get Spanish subchannels and this. Not exactly a good deal if you ask me.

Sounds like as good an excuse to go out and get a DVR as any... :)

And it might not be only procrastinators. It sounds like there may have been a fair number of people who thought they were ready because they had an antenna and a converter box, but didn't realize they were going to start needing VHF antennas.

Good news for some Boston area folks who have "lost" WHDH: Enough people had problems receiving the signal on channel 7 that the station sought and received temporary approval from the FCC to also "simulcast" its programming on channel 42 (its previous assignment) as well as channel 7...

In general, higher is better but as in almost all OTA situations, it takes some trial and error to find the sweet spot, sometimes even to the point of doing things that seem counter-intuitive to better reception (such as lowering the antenna).

By the way, there really isn't a "best rotator" for a particular antenna. Some rotors may be better than others, but that's independent of your choice of antenna.

If all you're trying to do is combine input from a VHF antenna and input from a UHF antenna, you're using the wrong tool for the job. You want a UVSJ, not a standard splitter/combiner. A UVSJ should have about 0.5 dB of loss compared to something like 3.5 dB for a splitter.

They are temporarily operating under a lower-power facility after switching from channel 56 to 7. The full-power facility should be up by the end of July. I'm 60 miles from the tower, used to get a solid lock on 56 and now am near the "cliff" on 7, with a few stutters and breakups and...

Judging by the early anecdotal evidence I'm seeing, the main complaint is going to be, "digital reception on VHF sucks."

If you have a window roughly facing the direction of the signal, you might have a chance with a good indoor antenna. By the way, if the antenna can fit entirely on your balcony and not hang over the side, I believe the OTARD law is on your side -- you could use an outdoor antenna on the...

Just to add, when looking at an antenna you care about the FIRST "channel" column listed, under the "Real" category. For example, Channel 3.1 (corresponding to the station using legacy analog channel 3) has its actual digital signal on RF channel 28. So while you needed an antenna that could...

Looking at the TV Fool info, I'm not sure OTA is really all that feasible at all. According to this, the strongest UHF has a noise margin of -20! Other than the one PBS station, I wouldn't expect to get anything consistently based on this table, and spending money trying to pull in UHF might...

And in some cases the signal won't be stronger, but with less interference from analog signals on adjacent frequencies, the reception could be better even if the signal isn't any stronger. At this point I wouldn't recommend spending too much time or money try to "fix" marginal reception until...

So it's okay for one company to build a better mousetrap by using (say) 75% of their competitor's patented parts and adding 25% of your own, so you can pretend it's a completely "different" product? That's fair competition? I can spend millions and millions on R&D and someone else can just...

I think we can reasonably differ on the *degree* of the merits of the lawsuit and we can reasonably differ on what the remedy should be. I find it hard to believe, though, that someone thinks it's "economic terrorism" or "extortion" for someone to prevent their own property from being illegally...

I don't understand the logic that said a satellite TV merger between DirecTV and Dish was disallowed because it was "anticompetitive" while a similar merger among the two main satellite radio players was allowed. And I suspect that the people who warned against the Sirius/XM merger because it...

I completely agree, particularly if E*'s appeal for a stay is denied and they continue to refuse to make good on the legal rulings. If it comes to the "nuclear option," it's lose-lose-lose: lose for Dish, lose for TiVo, lose for customers. Lose for Dish is obvious, as is the lose for Dish...

In this case, why shouldn't they? TiVo's own patented technology is being used against them by E*. Everyone who signs up for E* and their DVR service is effectively a customer TiVo can't reach. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my own property to be used illegally against my own...

I would think it's in the best interests of most of these stations to be as close to the "cluster" of towers in a market as possible. That would help them reach OTA viewers who don't have rotators and aim to a fixed direction -- usually at the highest concentration of local network signals.

If you don't have a preamp, I suspect you'll be fine with any decent splitter if you also insert a preamp. If you're close to the signal but have a lot of obstructions, multipath could be a concern. If the splitter is old and has been exposed to the elements for years, I'd probably replace...

Down around -12, you're going to need the highest-gain antennas, perhaps separates for UHF and high-VHF, with a powerful preamp and maybe a little bit of luck. And even then, I suspect reception of a usable picture would be sporadic.

That totally makes sense. That's basically what I'd expect.

Isn't it an all or nothing thing with them? I can see in this case why they couldn't give the KC local for ABC, but if they couldn't do it for other networks when there are no "local" affiliates in the St. Joe DMA for the other networks, then the law is, IMO, broken. I always figured it was...

OK. But the bottom line is that the law apparently DOES allow KC locals where you live. Satellite providers tend to not bother with unusual situations across DMAs in smaller locations. You say you live in DMA X, and they provide DMA X or they provide nothing. I was pretty sure the cable...

Ah, yeah. That would do it. But that has nothing to do with the State of Missouri. These DMAs are administered by Nielsen and federal law "protects" the stations in that DMA through the FCC, I believe. The good news is that if you went the OTA route, it looks like a good fringe outdoor...