I'm Impressed!

[airgator96]

I really didn't understand what OTA was for HD.

I went out today, and bought a LCD with HD tuner. LIke a big dummy I didn't think I could get local stations without some special antenna or something. Anyhow, I was disappointed at the way my FTA signal looked on the new tv, but my dvd's look pretty good.

Well hours later I wanted to see if the tv could pick up local channels. So I hooked up some rabbit ears, and BAM! I got my first HD channel of the day! I was amazed at how well it looked.

Once I did a full scan I ended up with just about 15 digital channels with plenty of HD broadcast thoughout the day.

This is sooooooooooooooo... cool.

 

[riffjim4069]

Yep, often the higest quality HDTV for the mere pennies per day (the cost of electricity).

 

[airgator96]

After seeing what I could pick up with some junkie rabbit ears... I would never pay for my local channels through one of the dish companies since I can already pick them up almost perfectly.

I'm off to the store today to find my a decent antenna!

 

[navychop]

DO NOT BUY TERK!

Good looking, overpriced, underperforming junk.

Inside- buy Silver Sensor/Sears-Zenith

Outside- buy Channel Master or Winegard

 

[mdovell]

Also remember that atmospheric conditions can effect things. I think it's better to do a scan at night to lock things in rather than the day.

www.antennaweb.org can be a good listing of things as well as titantv.com

I use a indoor cheap thing but on the other hand I have two positions to put it into to get most channels (pbs's come in straight rather than across). All in all I get nearly two dozen channels. I bet with a outdoor one and a different tuner I might get about 28-30 (granted much of them are just other affliates of major networks)

Also just to note it is a bit faster by a few seconds vs. cable or satellite I had two channels up and noticed the difference.

 

[bhelms]

I notice about a 2 second delay on my local PBS, OTA vs. over the sat. You can figure about a fourth of that is the uplink/down link time. I assume the rest is lost in additional processing time...?

 

[gjh3260]

DO NOT BUY TERK!

Good looking, overpriced, underperforming junk.

Inside- buy Silver Sensor/Sears-Zenith

Outside- buy Channel Master or Winegard

I agree.......stay away from Terk. I am 5 miles from the towers and I have an indoor Silver Sensor. Got it via amazon.com for about $20. It works great on all my locals.

 

[airgator96]

how will the antenna's that fit on the dishes do?

 

[texasbrit]

The antennas that go on the dishes are not very good but can be OK if all your stations are close. What's your zip code?? With that we can give you some idea how different antennas will perform.

 

[airgator96]

The antennas that go on the dishes are not very good but can be OK if all your stations are close. What's your zip code?? With that we can give you some idea how different antennas will perform.

64137

thanks for the help!

 

[digiblur]

64137

thanks for the help!

I'd also take a few minutes to read through this thread from the folks in your area. They can give you real world signal levels better than a website query can

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8878624#post8878624