Robin Gravel's Blog

Back in 2009-ish when the transition to HDTV occurred, I built a high gain UHF antenna and used it for a while. But once I got a Rogers HDTV PVR* there hasn't been any point - unless I want to watch the US Superbowl commercials. (I already subscribed to cable to get the premium sports channels.)

 

Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformation about HDTV and antennas floating around out there and a lot of "HDTV antennas" are more style than substance (i.e. they are good looking junk). However, while the signal has changed from analog to digital, radio waves are still radio waves - so the basics of antennas haven't changed in 80+ years of television broadcasting.

 

Reception follows some simple rules:

1. Height improves reception, outdoors is better than indoors

2. Bigger antennas have better reception, but are more directional

3. Better design, materials & build = better reception

Also, a good preamp (mounted at the antenna) helps with long cable & splitter loss & noise but doesn’t actually improve reception.

Some links to websites which help with getting more out of your antenna:

Reception info: http://www.tvfool.com

Map with antenna aiming: http://www.sjmillerconsultants.com/ota/

For all kinds of info on OTA, including building your own antenna visit http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=81

* I originally got the HD PVR as compensation when Rogers made my dual-tuner TiVo less useful by moving the majority of their SD channels to digital. Since then the majority of channels have moved to HD-only and I've bought three refurbished HD PVRs and added an external drive to one of them.

The reason I wrote this blog, I just watched a commercial program WatchTVfree.

 

They said using WatchTVfree antennae, you can say goodbye to cable/sattelite services by watching hd tv for free.

 

Actually they're acting like if nobody knows about what an antenna is.