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It is surprising to realise that this is not more common. In Japan, basically every home and apartment comes with rooftop antennas and coaxial connections in multiple rooms. No need to pay for cable TV (BS and CS) unless you want to get more channels.
A lot of places in the US are too far for using antennas. In my area all you can pick up is a religious channel and a channel named infomercial tv.
80% of the US population lives in urban areas. An amplified antenna can pick up channels for many of those further out. Won’t work for everyone of course.
I live almost exactly 20 miles from most of the towers in my area, if I got rid of all the trees and buildings in my way I might even have line of sight to the towers
Unfortunately my main TV is in the basement, and even with an amplified antenna I can’t quite seem to pick up more than 1 or 2 channels, and I don’t quite care enough to put up an external antenna on my roof.
Well… You could, you just have to get it as high as you can manage. Lookup a radio horizon calculator as most broadcast antennas are 400+ feet above ground.
It’s one of those weird things that a massive amount of people in the world use but not Americans, so it ends up in articles about this hot new gadget that will change your life.
btw have you ever heard about heat pumps?
Careful, you’ll summon the Technology Connections guy.
Pls
there’s not too many ota viewers here even i personally use telia
I have an antenna and a self-hosted DVR and it’s awesome. What’s not awesome is that networks are attempting to weasel DRM into ATSC 3.0 broadcasts and get rid of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts to eliminate third party tuners: https://www.techhive.com/article/2009693/nextgen-tv-drm-puts-future-of-the-over-the-air-dvr-in-doubt.html
Yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see how that pans out. DVR manufacturers got thrown through a loop with the DRM changes, and LG just announced it won’t sell TVs with ATSC 3.0 anymore due to patent issues. Maybe it will just be thrown out entirely like 2.0.
Good point about cabilization, seems like every service evolves into cable
They’re the crabs of technology.
It is if you’re in spitting distance of a major city.
60 miles away from the broadcast center, but luckily in a very flat area. I still have an old-school antenna set up on a tower and rotor, and can pull in between 25-30 stations if you include the digital substations.
I got this set up from Radio Shack in the early 80s. Cable made me regret it for a long time, but let’s hear it for laziness allowing me to get good use out of it since I clipped all but internet service.
Bonus: you can split out the signal and hook the antenna up to home stereos, and get TONS of FM stations that even my car won’t pick up.
Old stuff gets useful again! Yay!
If you’re talking about more than a 50 mile radius, then yeah it’s probably not realistic. But I’m watching and recording from stations 50 miles out with no issues.
Edit: Just for reference I’m using a passive antenna https://www.amazon.com/Antennas-Direct-ClearStream-Multi-Directional-Adjustable/dp/B00SVNKT86?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1
Those of us who live in valley’s outside of major cities are not as fortunate.
I know that not everywhere is going to be within 50 miles of a broadcasting tower, but it doesn’t hurt to check. https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html
“Valleys” was the key word there. Even if the distance isn’t bad, a mountain between you and the broadcast tower can make 20 miles look like 70 in terms of signal
Source: am Appalachian resident
With ATSC 1.0 channels this is generally true, with some exceptions, but ATSC 3.0 channels use OFDM to circumvent a lot of interference. There’s no real way of knowing whether or not it would work but Amazon has a 30-day return policy.
in the town of Appalachia there is a pbs station that cannot broadcast ota because of the mountains
Especially with an hd home run and Plex. With a cheap tablet and phone tether I can watch my live tv and DVR recordings anywhere while camping in the van.
Anyone want an old HD homerun prime? It’s just collecting a lot of dust. Not sure if I still have the PSU but i think it’s just a standard 12v. I’ve had it utilize a cable card before no prob. But I don’t use it, never have.
Model is HDHR-3CC
IPTV probably easier though.
This is cool. I didn’t know about it but I’ll certainly look into how to set it up
I’ve had some bunny ears for about 20 years now and they still work fine for the local channels. Never really need or watch regular tv unless it’s the Super Bowl or Olympics or a storm is coming.
But it’s nice to have.
I don’t watch TV for more than 15 years. I just don’t see a reason to not to be in control of what, when and how I want to see it. Also I don’t see a reason to pay dozens of £ for X streaming services when they are not able to have all content at one place. It’s just easier, cheaper and more convenient to be a pirate, download a file and put on to my NAS (what I do since age I couldn’t even afford to think on spending on some digital content) and see it through Kodi with Netflix like skin all at one place whenever I want, without adds and offline. And when I want to support a movie, I go to watch it in cinema…
Is this another thing that the rest of the world didn’t know the US doesn’t have?
