[ale] [OT] DTV reception
Chris Kleeschulte
chris.kleeschulte at it.libertydistribution.com
Thu Apr 2 09:56:27 EDT 2009
I had the EXACT same issue about a year ago when I learned that my
charter bill was $175 for cable tv, phone, and internet.
Let me lay out what I did, because now my setup is ultra sweet. My
cable bill is down to $55 per month b/c I am just using the internet
service. I cancelled the land line and HD DVR service that they offered.
Now I use a myth tv setup with over the air HD and SD. I live very
near here (this is not my house, but in the same subdivision):
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=5733+Riverside+Walk+Dr.+Sugar+Hill,+GA+30518&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=us&ei=HcDUSeWMEM-Ltgehhd3iDw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1
as you can see, I am about 35-40 miles from the transmitters, most of
which are on Stone Mountain.
As a result, rabbit ears will not cut it. I needed a beefy antenna
with an amplifier. Seems like a hassle, but it was worth the effort.
Here is the antenna that works great for me:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_6594228HD/Channel-Master-4228HD.html?search=hd+antennas
the amp (very necessary):
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_6597777/Channel-Master-7777.html?search=Channel+Master+VENDORID659&searchdisplay=Channel+Master
Now, what is important is that I mounted this in my attic and not on
the roof! And it works GREAT. If you are interested, I can take
pictures and show you. The HD is MUCH better than Charter's signal
from the coax. I am the biggest sour puss when it comes to video
quality and even I was shocked at the difference. So that worked
EXCELLENT. The antenna was a monster and my wife thought I was the
biggest nerd when I was messing with it (like I was one of those ham
radio guys), but it worked. The antenna is omnidirectional so you can
just sort of point it toward Stone Mountain and all should be well. I
do not get channel 8 (PBS) very well, but another city's PBS works
fine, so I do not complain.
For the myth tv setup, I bought a HDhomerun, which takes the over the
air mpeg2ts signal and just dumps it on to my ethernet lan. So now I
have the tv signal on the lan and any device that can read mpeg2
transport stream (mythtv), just decodes it, no need to have a coax
terminal where the backend is.
If you should like to see the output (the video files that I am
getting over the air) OR the pictures of the antenna in the attic, let
me know where to send them.
Chris Kleeschulte
On Apr 2, 2009, at 9:01 AM, tom wrote:
>
> The thread on Comcast reminded me that I wanted to ask you bright,
> electronic oriented people something. Should individuals be less than
> interested, I hope that they will forgive my use of bandwidth.
>
> With the shift to DTV finally fully underway (should be over), I
> getting
> irritated with the quality of DTV reception here at the house when
> using
> rabbit ears. As such, I guess I have two options: pay for wired TV/
> cable
> which will play havoc with my income, or obtain and install an outside
> antenna. One time expense vs ongoing expense - hmmmm...
>
> Ok. For the real question. I'm pretty sure that I can put an antenna
> in
> the attic myself without major complications, but it it likely that
> the
> improvement in signal/noise would be good enough, or should I just
> bite
> the bullet and have someone put an antenna on the chimney as the best
> possible solution?
>
> Also, for some reason, I have the impression that DTV signals over
> the air
> and through an antenna have a limited propagation through the antenna
> cable, so to split the signal I need to arrainge for some
> amplification.
> If so, how does that impact the chminey antenna idea?
>
> Thanks to the whole list for the use and abuse of their bandwidth.
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
More information about the Ale
mailing list