HDTV via Antenna
 

Hello All,
Once again I come for your advice and guidance. I use our Lake Winni home on weekends all year long. Therefore we keep the basic Metrocast service which cost's $37.12 per month and gives me about 30 channels. I had a bit of insomnia on Sat PM and was up watching tv when I saw a advertisement for Clear TV antenna's (2 for $19.95). This was intriguing as it stated you would get 20+ channels for free via HDTV airwaves. Has anyone tried this? Or something similar?? I did do a Amazon search for HDTV antenna's and many popped up. I have internet via Fairpoint DSL that I need at the home and we have Netflicks for movies etc. So we don't watch a ton of tv as we should be out enjoying other fun things that the lake provides us. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Very tough area for reception, recent threads:

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...highlight=hdtv

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...ad.php?t=17487

In general you will need a high gain antenna on a tall mast.

Rattlesnake
 

At our camp on Rattlesnake we have an old external antenna with a pre-amp.

We get 16 Channels-- most notably 9,11,21, and 31. So we at least get coverage on ABC and CBS with some public television. We also use a rotor. Not the best but free and good enough for local news and something to watch during inclement weather!

Question:
Can you still receive the over the air HD channels "through" your cable line?

When we had cable, one of our tv's was on the basic (no box) cable. With the cable attached directly to a somewhat newer LED TV in the bedroom (4 years old or so), we had all the basic cable channels, plus about 30 HD locals in all kinds of languages and from different states. No antenna just the cable line screwed directly into the TV.

We have ZERO line of site, I look at the summit of two 3000' mountains from my deck, they are both within 2 miles (as the crow fly's) in relation to my yard, which is in a valley. Kearsarge is in the South-Southwest and Ragged is East-Northeast We are at 780' of elevation. This is also not taking into consideration Sunapee, Bald, Black and Cardigan that overlap the two closer peaks. The only open area is toward the Northwest, but my house is perched into a side hill that has an elevation gain of 85' from yard and completely blocks that direction even before adding the trees to that elevation gain.

The only answer to the "how" was that the cable line was acting as an antenna for the TV's with a built-in digital tuner. The LCD TV in the living room could not do this (early LCD from the LCD vs Plasma days), but the other LED downstairs could, which was the newest of all the sets (new as of 3 years ago).

Interesting?? I will look forward to peoples thoughts on this. Is it possible the cable company may have forgotten to turn off the service?

No, we only had this when we had cable. When we switched to Dish, the cable line at the house was and still is rendered dead. We paid for one Digital HD package on one TV, this was the result on the other TV's.

The standard basic cable was not in HD, just the locals. We had Cable 9 (SD WMUR), then 9.1 (HD WMUR), 9.3 (HD something out of Vermont) and one other, just for channel 9. This repeated for many channels.

The reason I asked is we are thinking of dumping Dish and going with basic cable, higher internet speed and adding to our online streaming. Which adds another question: Is there any way to get NESN in HD without a HD or Digital package, like via streaming? That is the only thing yet to determine. We use NBC LIVE for many out of market NHL games, but we NEED our Bruins!

We did this for about 2 years at the house. About 6 months ago this stopped working. The cable itself is not acting as an antenna, more so the cable company is broadcasting the signal and you can pick it up on the coax line to the house.

The "Clear TV" antenna (2 for 19.99) actually is 2 for $35.93 when you add "processing and handling". You can get a similar (RCA) antenna at Wal-Mart for for under $17. The are two problems with either antenna. The first is that it is an un-amplified indoor antenna and will work about as well as a set of rabbit ears. It will pick-up signals at 15 to 30 miles from the transmitter, assuming that you don't have a lot of buildings/trees between you and the tower.

There are also similar indoor antennas with amplifiers. These extend the reception radius, but not significantly. Your best bet is a big old Yagi antenna mounted on a tall mast with an amplifier and rotor. [We had one of these back in the 1960's so we could watch the Browns games out of Columbus; they were blacked-out in Cleveland.] No matter how "digital" TVs get, they still live off good-old radio waves.

If you have a decent, open location and spend a few hundred bucks, you can get a fair amount of broadcast TV, including the HD signals.

HOWEVER, after consulting the Metrocast Basic channel line-up, I can tell you that you will not receive any channel that is not included in what you already get. You will definitely lose NECN, 3 home shopping channels, 2 CSPAN channels and 3 "education and government" channels.

To get any "good" channels, you will need to bump up to Metrocast's "Expanded Basic" service. None of these can be watched via an antenna, although some may be available over the Internet.

Instead of an buying an antenna, you might consider "renting" one from Aereo (https://aereo.com). Depending on how their Supreme Court case comes out, you can rent a small antenna + DVR (physically located in Boston) and then watch all the "local" stations over the Internet (about $9 /month). This won't be an improvement over Metrocast's Basic service, but it is cheaper.

A high gain VHF/UHF antenna looks like this:
http://www.winegarddirect.com/viewit...7698P%29&post=

Good for all channels.

Now that channels 2-6 have moved to the UHF band, the VHF elements (behind the reflector) are not as long as in the past.

A high gain UHF only looks like this:
http://www.winegarddirect.com/viewit...P%29&p=SHD9095

Good for channels 2-6 (now in UHF band) and 14 - 83

These antennas are highly directional and normally require a rotor. Also a pre-amp on the antenna mast.

Need your advice - HDTV external antenna setup?
 

Need your advice and guidance about HDTV Anttenna intallation and setup.....

First the background... Have multiple new digital tv's with built-in digital tuners.
FYI, My location is Gilford.

I purchased a separate HDTV antenna, and connected to where the cable coax line was connected (external antenna jack).

Set my TV input source to 'TV'. No picture on any channels ! Only tried channels 1-99 so far.
I have tried connecting to 2 TV's so far, with the same results....
Also tried moving antenna in different directions, but makes no difference?

Am I doing something wrong or need to perfom additiaonl setup steps?

Thanks,
Bigdog

Sounds like you are doing it right...unfortunately, as others have pointed out, you are going to be hard pressed to pick up ANY digital signals with the simple antenna you have.

You will need to put it outside, or maybe even get lucky with putting it in the attic. I tried it a while back in Litchfield, which is closer to Boston, and didn't have any luck with the TV top antennas. I didn't want to be bothered with wiring to the outside/attic.

That being said, I use Hulu Plus, HBOGO, Netflix and Amazon Prime. No cable tv for me.

HBO without cable?
 

How do you get HBOGO without subscribing to a cable service? While you can get HBO over the web if you subscribe, I was not aware that HBO sold to customers that did not have a cable TV subscription.

If your TVs have a channel scan feature, use that. Some digital TVs require that a scan be performed before over-the-air channels can be viewed.

The interwebs.

You didn't say what kind of antenna, but I'm guessing an indoor one.

If you go to http://www.antennaweb.org/ and enter your address, they will indicate the location and distance of stations you can expect to receive. I moved the pointer around the Gilford area and got, at most, one PBS station. The main problem is going to be high ground between you and the station(s).

You might also try with the TV/antenna on an upper floor on the south side of the house.

Good luck.

^^This. I actually have a roommate who's parents have HBO and was nice enough to make his own login account. ;)

When you do a channel scan, there may be a choice that asks about 'cable' vs 'antenna' (or maybe broadcast) that you need to set properly also.

I tried over the air and could only receive two channels at the south end of Bear (9 and 11 if I remember correctly). I bought a new uhf antenna, ran new cable and even tried two different digital boxes. Connected to Directv soon after.

from the Onion
 

NEW YORK—Offering no justification for the action aside from their own desire to do so, executives from the nation’s leading cable companies announced plans Wednesday to take $100 from every one of their subscribers. “At midnight EST tonight, we will deduct exactly $100 from each of our customers’ accounts and, frankly, there is nothing that anyone can do about it,” said Comcast President and CEO Brian L. Roberts in a morning press conference, flanked by like-minded executives from Time Warner, Dish Network, Cox, and numerous other cable companies, all of whom confirmed the non-refundable $100 charge would apply to all subscribers regardless of service package and would most certainly not be applied as credit toward future charges to the account. “The bottom line is we want $100 from you, so we’re just going to take it. As a cable subscriber, you really have no other option here. And we’ll probably do it again in a few weeks, too.” The cable company CEOs added that any subscriber who was dissatisfied with the plan was more than welcome to call their customer service lines.

L-o-l
 

I needed a laugh today, thanks ...

Roku
 

We considered adding basic cable for our condo but after looking at the prices we decided to try Roku instead. We bought a Roku usb streaming device for $35 and have since added our amazon prime instant video and hbo go accounts to it. We also discovered that you can add ESPN & Fox channels for free if you log in through your cable provider. We also added History, A&E, PBS, and Lifetime channels to be able to watch a variety of programming. I don't recall if any of these required cable subscription but it's possible some of those channels did too. The channels don't necessarily offer the same programming as if you paid for them with cable subscription but there is quite a bit of content available to supplement HBO & Amazon channels.

Since we already pay for amazon & hbo there was no additional cost to add these to the Roku. There is lots of free content if you have amazon prime and we were able to set a pin to prevent accidental purchases. So far we've been very impressed, especially since summer TV is mostly re-runs anyway!

Roku
 

I recently reported that we got Fairpoint DSL out on Welch Island. The old phone wire can only support a little over 1.5 Mbps however we can still do a lot with Roku.
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...ad.php?t=17590

Most Roku channels such as History and PBS play fine with a minimum of buffering delays at 1.5 Mbps. We are especially pleased that Netflix works perfectly and has a lot of content in addition to the movies. In fact a few days ago we discovered that I could watch Netflix on the TV via Roku at the same time that my wife can also watch Netflix on her tablet sharing the 1.5 Mbps download.

So now we have a Roku 3 both at home and at camp. No matter where you leave off watching a movie or TV series on Netflix you can resume at exactly the same point on any device. We are back at the house now and my wife is just finishing a movie (The Factory) that she started at camp last night.