atari2600land's Blog

Look up "spectrum auction" on wikipedia.

Digital TV rapidly degrades as the signal to noise ratio drops - similar to FM. You'll have a great picture, then very quickly you will lose sound & see video errors.

 

I recommend you check out tvfool.com to ensure your antenna is pointed in the right direction (and to better understand what channels are available).

 

Indoors (especially below ground level) is also a very bad for reception. The signal can bounce around or be blocked. If you can point the antenna out the window in the correct direction you will see improvements. Attics aren't much better than indoors.

 

You may also want to consider getting a better antenna (even indoors). Some suggestions:

• Zenith / Philips Silver Sensor
• Winegard Sharp Shooter
• Antennas Direct DB2e
• Channel Master 4220
• RCA ANT-751

Note: I'd recommend staying away from any "amplified" antennas (for indoor use). Amplifiers are useful for boosting the signal before splitting it for multiple TVs and/or for decreasing the impact of long cable runs. Otherwise the amplifier is just adding additional noise without actually improving the signal.

 

If you PM me your address, I can provide some more suggestions.

Yeah, the ATSC transmission protocol is deeply flawed, as far as I'm concerned. Even close, strong channels fail in bad weather, nearby traffic, etc. With NTSC, you pretty much always had decent audio, which is vitally important, and the video signal degraded slowly the further you were away from the source.

Digital TV does blow, though when you can get a good signal the retro programming is cool. It feels a lot like what cable television was like when cable first started. Tons of odd programming and people grasping at whatever they can to broadcast cheaply. Currently watching Doctor Who. Probably the first time since the 80's William Hartnell has been featured on broadcast television.

 

I use a Apex box with a Apex tuner, which seems to work well most of the time.

Digital is crap. The enhanced picture quality is of no use when it's impossible to keep the signal for more than ten minutes at a time. Analog had its flaws, but I'll deal with them any day over this ripoff.