[mythtv-users] Hardware for Over the Air Digital

[Jim Morton]

LuKreme wrote:
> On 16-Oct-2009, at 07:06, David Schmidt wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 6:35 PM, LuKreme <kremels at kreme.com> wrote:
>>> I was hoping to just use a basic indoor antenna. I'm pretty much in the
>>> center of the city and I don't think I need a rooftop antenna. Back 
>>> when we
>>> had a TV we got analog reception just fine on all channels off 
>>> rabbit ears.
>>
>> Only if you are VERY close to your local antennas.  According to
>> antennaweb.org, I'm 27-29 miles from the stations I watch, I got
>> analog fine with rabbit ears, but have to re-orient the antenna based
>> on which channel is tuned for digital.  That obviously doesn't work
>> for scheduled recordings!
>
> I am 12-15 miles away. I know there are people in my neighborhood 
> getting HD off their old rabbit ears, so I expect I will be fine with 
> any cheap-o indoor antenna.
>
>
I think you will be disappointed. To have 2 tuners means you split your 
signal in half, so you really need a better signal.
I am 14 miles away from our local antenna farm in southeastern Virginia. 
I started with a small antenna like this one 
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2253765&tab=summary 
mounted near the tv and reception was great a lot of the time but there 
was also frequent pixelation and sound snags so I moved it up to the 
attic. It got better but it still wasn't consistent enough. Then I moved 
it to the rooftop. Better again but still occasionally garbled a few 
important words in something we watched. Then I got of messing with it 
and bought this 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882790012 which 
was probably a little overkill but now I get perfect reception all the 
time. No more stutters.

Rabbit ears will get you going but down the road when you're trying to 
figure out what is causing the occasional dropout of sound and picture 
just know it is the antenna.

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 Jim Morton