superpeeve Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

[Lindal Kidd]

Well...OK. Just save the packaging for your antenna and make sure they have a return policy.

[Persephone Emerald]

14 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

 I live just outside a "major metropolitan area" and thought there would be lots of broadcast TV stations to snag. Put up an antenna to test that. Got maybe four stations, two of them strong enough to be watchable. Broadcast TV is dead as canasta.

You may need a better antenna. It might depend on your area, but I get around 30 Over The Air channels (in English, not just ads for product) with an antenna hanging in my window. I get almost as many with a coaxial cable used like an antenna.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Just now, Lindal Kidd said:

Well...OK. Just save the packaging for your antenna and make sure they have a return policy.

Um. They cost $15 - $20. You hang it in a window on the inside. 

 

[Arielle Popstar]

A good amplifier is a must to maximize the amount of channels with an over the air antenna.

https://www.thetechlounge.com/best-tv-antenna-amplifier/

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

Where I live, I'm on a digital antenna that hangs in the window and I get 20 -  30 channels off it. I'm 30 miles away from Portland. Great reception in winter. Not so much in summer/warmer weather.

It depends on how far away you are from the broadcast towers and what interferes with the digital signal between the tower and your tv.

We need a bigger antenna.

I also live about 30 miles from Portland (Oregon) towards the mountains.  The little window antenna I have is similar to the one you showed.  It is directional so it has to face in the general directions of the city, but I get all the network stations and maybe 20 other random ones.  If it is REALLY stormy, I might lose a few station signals, but it works well enough to watch a weather report.

[Rilee Dallas]

I didn't know tv stations still broadcast to antennas. They don't where I live.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Rilee Dallas said:

I didn't know tv stations still broadcast to antennas. They don't where I live.

Well, they are using a Digital Antenna and you can get them anywhere. I remember the old-school Analog antennas. But ever since signals got converted over to digital, they needed to find a way to broadcast to new types of antennas. So the High Definition Digital Antenna was born

[Rolig Loon]

25 minutes ago, Rilee Dallas said:

I didn't know tv stations still broadcast to antennas. They don't where I live.

Not in my part of the country either. There's no point in even trying to get a broadcast signal.  I haven't wanted to watch TV for at least 10 years, though, so I get anything I want on the web.

[Silent Mistwalker]

11 hours ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I also live about 30 miles from Portland (Oregon) towards the mountains.  The little window antenna I have is similar to the one you showed.  It is directional so it has to face in the general directions of the city, but I get all the network stations and maybe 20 other random ones.  If it is REALLY stormy, I might lose a few station signals, but it works well enough to watch a weather report.

You must be on the Gresham side. I'm the opposite direction. Almost smack up against the Coast Range. I can see the foothills from here. Out here the cloudier it is the better the reception. We're right on the edge of reception so even PBS can fade in and out during the day when there is more air traffic.

The windows I have to put the antennas in face north, so they are not really supposed to be doing as well as they do.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

13 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

Not in my part of the country either. There's no point in even trying to get a broadcast signal.  I haven't wanted to watch TV for at least 10 years, though, so I get anything I want on the web.

Our town is so small in the middle of nowhere it has like a couple stations.  But many areas in the US are migrating to ATSC 3 aka NextGen system which is a 2-way system and conditional access on some channels.  Think subscriptions.

[Coffee Pancake]

Derailing threads to get them locked. On purpose. Again.

[Lindal Kidd]

15 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Well, they are using a Digital Antenna and you can get them anywhere. I remember the old-school Analog antennas. But ever since signals got converted over to digital, they needed to find a way to broadcast to new types of antennas. So the High Definition Digital Antenna was born

Oh, now JUST a minute there. At one time I held an amateur radio license and know a little bit about antennas. There is no such thing as a "digital antenna". There are digital modes of radio transmission (and TV is just radio, for the purpose of this discussion), but they don't require any sort of special antenna. As long as an antenna is resonant in the frequency range it's supposed to transmit or receive (and sometimes when it's not) it will work. Broadcast television in the USA is still using the VHF and UHF bands that were used fifty years ago, so if you have an old antenna still up on your roof, it should work. You will need a digital decoder box (that's what the box from your cable company is), and you might need a preamplifier. Silicon Dust makes a series of decoders, including a couple for the new ATSC 3.0 UHD broadcast standard that is in the process of rolling out.

Here's an amplified antenna (it has a built in signal booster so that you don't have to pay for a separate one). It got pretty good reviews. https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Amplified-Antenna-Support-Channel/dp/B07GSCCJ9Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?&slotNum=31&imprToken=wvD-WTfZsnVEQf6EuqRx5w&ref_=nav_ya_signin&_encoding=UTF8&&linkCode=ll1&tag=longrangesign-20&linkId=d30b7d070d3009ee938811d3d5f0cbfa&language=en_US

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Oh, now JUST a minute there. At one time I held an amateur radio license and know a little bit about antennas. There is no such thing as a "digital antenna". There are digital modes of radio transmission (and TV is just radio, for the purpose of this discussion), but they don't require any sort of special antenna. As long as an antenna is resonant in the frequency range it's supposed to transmit or receive (and sometimes when it's not) it will work. Broadcast television in the USA is still using the VHF and UHF bands that were used fifty years ago, so if you have an old antenna still up on your roof, it should work. You will need a digital decoder box (that's what the box from your cable company is), and you might need a preamplifier. Silicon Dust makes a series of decoders, including a couple for the new ATSC 3.0 UHD broadcast standard that is in the process of rolling out.

Here's an amplified antenna (it has a built in signal booster so that you don't have to pay for a separate one). It got pretty good reviews. https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Amplified-Antenna-Support-Channel/dp/B07GSCCJ9Y/ref=as_li_ss_tl?&slotNum=31&imprToken=wvD-WTfZsnVEQf6EuqRx5w&ref_=nav_ya_signin&_encoding=UTF8&&linkCode=ll1&tag=longrangesign-20&linkId=d30b7d070d3009ee938811d3d5f0cbfa&language=en_US

We have them here in Canada. Lol. Canada went from analog to digital a few years back. So Digital Antennas are the norm over here. 

[Lindal Kidd]

Sorry, not physically possible. Even in Canada. (Find a local ham and ask them!)

Edited May 1, 2022 by Lindal Kidd

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Lindal Kidd said:

Sorry, not physically possible. Even in Canada.

Well, clearly it is if Canada is doing it. Rabbit ears and over the air antennas don't work here anymore. 

[Arielle Popstar]

29 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Well, clearly it is if Canada is doing it. Rabbit ears and over the air antennas don't work here anymore. 

They are the same as analog antennas. When Canada changed over I only had to add a converter to convert the new digitized signal back to an analog compatible one for that older TV.

[Lindal Kidd]

Hm, let me try it another way.

Radio is electromagnetic energy propagating through the air. These waves have a frequency. For radio, the frequency is much lower than the light waves we can see with our eyes, but it's still the same basic thing. Information can be imposed on these waves in many different ways. The very first way was Morse Code, which simply turns the wave on and off. Then there was Amplitude Modulation (AM radio!), which varied the strength of the waves based on an audio input. Or Frequency Modulation, FM, which does not change the strength of the signal, but its frequency. Analog TV is a form of FM too, except that a large part of the signal consists of visual information encoded by...nah, TMI. There are many ways of imposing a digital signal, a string of 0's and 1's, on a radio wave too...but it is still an electromagnetic wave.

Any antenna is a way of either putting electromagnetic waves into the air (transmitting) or snatching them back out of the air (receiving). It does not matter what sort of scheme was used to impose information on the wave. Getting  that out is the job of the receiver. The antenna's job is to capture a bit of the passing electromagnetic wave and feed it to the receiver. To do that job, the antenna has to be the right length for the frequency it's supposed to capture, or "resonant". And that is ALL. Oh, you can add other refinements like reflectors and directors to capture more energy, but a properly tuned antenna will capture ANY form of radio or TV at its design frequency.

So, if they are selling you a "digital antenna", they're spewing gas. Now, if the frequencies used for digital TV changed from those used for analog TV, you would need a different antenna, yes. But I checked, and it looks like Canada, like the US, kept its VHF and UHF TV channels when they switched to digital.

I'll drop the argument now and let the thread get back to peeves.

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

They are the same as analog antennas. When Canada changed over I only had to add a converter to convert the new digitized signal back to an analog compatible one for that older TV.

I mean unless you have a digital to analog converter. But this woman is arguing that digital television signals are not possible. But Canada changing to all digital August 31 2011 says differently. Lol 

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean unless you have a digital to analog converter. But this woman is arguing that digital television signals are not possible. But Canada changing to all digital August 31 2011 says differently. Lol 

You said: Rabbit ears and over the air antennas don't work here anymore. which is not quite right. They do still work with a converter.

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Arielle Popstar said:

You said: Rabbit ears and over the air antennas don't work here anymore. which is not quite right. They do still work with a converter.

I meant without a converter they don't. Lol 

[Silent Mistwalker]

18 hours ago, Rilee Dallas said:

I didn't know tv stations still broadcast to antennas. They don't where I live.

They never stopped. 

Quote

Rather than using a satellite or cable to pick up the signal, a digital antenna will use the over-the-air (OTA) broadcasts. Unlike cable or satellite, OTA broadcasts are transmitted in uncompressed, crystal-clear 1080i, which means you’ll experience HDTV in the highest quality picture and sound available.

 

https://www.angi.com/articles/do-digital-antennas-work.htm

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Our town is so small in the middle of nowhere it has like a couple stations.  But many areas in the US are migrating to ATSC 3 aka NextGen system which is a 2-way system and conditional access on some channels.  Think subscriptions.

More like sub channels. 

From link above.

Quote

One benefit of digital antennas that your typical cable or satellite companies won’t offer is the ability to pick up subchannels. Subchannels belong to the same station transmitting the broadcast but aren’t the main broadcast. 

For instance, you may find your local channel 8 also has 8.1 and 8.2. On these subchannels, you’re likely to find local sporting events or simple news coverage. It’s possible to pick up six subchannels per broadcast, though the network broadcasting typically reserves the .1 channel for a higher definition option of the broadcast on the main channel.

 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

Peeve: Companies using marketing spew calling antennas "digital antennas." 

An aerial no matter shape, size or form will receive any type of signal digital or ananlogue mode, like someone mentioned in an earlier post. There is no such thing as a digital antenna.

[Silent Mistwalker]

So, an antenna that receives a digital signal is not a digital antenna. Ok. I must have been watching a blank screen for the past 3 years then. lol

Edited May 2, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker

[Silent Mistwalker]

All kidding aside, straight from the FCC:

 

Quote

(Note: An auction of spectrum that had been licensed to broadcast television stations operating on UHF TV Channels 38-51 resulted in many TV stations on these channels transitioning to other channels. Almost all of the TV stations affected finished transitioning in July 2020.)

To receive DTV signals from all stations in the area, your antenna needs to be able to receive both VHF channels (channels 2-13) and UHF channels (channels 14-36). Some antennas only provide good reception of VHF or UHF channels, but not both. For example, indoor "rabbit ears" usually need to be augmented with an additional "wire loop" or "bowtie" antenna (see images in next tab) in order to pick up signals on UHF channels. Many of the antennas being sold as "HDTV Antennas" perform best at receiving UHF signals, but perform less well receiving VHF channels. Check with retail consultants and consumer websites to make sure that any antenna you choose provides good reception of both VHF and UHF channels.

Even if you use a digital-to-analog converter box, you will still need to use an antenna to receive DTV signals. Digital-to-analog converter boxes do not contain additional antennas or signal amplification.

https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/antennas-and-digital-television

 

"Digital" in this use case is a layman's term so while it is not accurate, it still distinguishes between an analog signal and a digital signal. Analog being reserved for military, police, fire and rescue such as ambulances. Us average Joes are stuck with digital even if we want analog.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Silent Mistwalker