any HDTV savvy people here?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Yesterday, we bought a big 40" LCD HDTV with built in TV tunner. In my town, all the channels broadcast in digital format. I think all the broadcast antennas are about 20 miles from my house.</p>

<p>I want to get free HDTV broadcasts.</p>

<p>I did buy an HDTV antenna, and I receive most of the channels. The reception is fantastic. However, the reception ‘freezes’ intermittently. The freezing is more pronounced on low channel numbers (2-11), and I do not get channel 8 (PBS - the most watched channel).</p>

<p>When I use the same antenna in analog mode, the reception is crappy.</p>

<p>Any suggestions?</p>

2

<p>Did you buy a directional antenna? It is possible that your PBS station broadast tower is in a different location and direction from the other stations.</p>

<p>To fix the freeze problem, you might try a signal amp for your antenna. Or a different antenna. Freezes and picture breakup are almost always due to weak signals from the antenna.</p>

3

<p>why don’t you just pony up the money and get digital cable (which is practically the same price as regular cable)? it seems silly to me that you would spend $1000 on a tv and only watch 5 channels.</p>

4

<p>That happens with cable too. Live sports can be really bad but it is getting better.</p>

5

<p>

Or, if you’re in an area that doesn’t get cable, get satellite TV. </p>

<p>With digital TV, if the signal is poor quality, you can get ‘freezing’ or ‘pixelation’ due to lost information in the signal. On an analog TV, this would show up as just a ‘poor’ picture with snow, ghosting, etc.</p>

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<p>"pony up the money and get digital cable "</p>

<p>Too cheap to pony up :)</p>

<p>Solved the problem. After trying about half a dozen antennas, found one. The one that works is the cheap one - un-amplified model.</p>

7

<p>The cheap one is no doubt omnidirectional. You probably started with an antenna that had a directional reception pattern and did not turn it closely enough to the antenna direction, which can vary for each station. Make sense?</p>

<p>Directional antennas have their use, particularly when multipath distortion is a problem (remember ghosting? That’s multipath), but make life waaay too complicated when a simpler antenna will do.</p>

<p>I agree about digital cable. Or even regular cable. We’ve never had cable. Never had it. Never will. Why pay for commercials? (of course, we didn’t even own a TV before DD was born. Bought one so we could get babysitters.)</p>

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<p>You may be correct. I think it had more to do with gain. The expensive models had electrical amplifiers. Didn’t need one. </p>

<p>Also, this model (looks like a space ship) is easier for adjusting spatial orientation. </p>

<p>Something FCC did in our favor is that they required all the digital transmission to be located at the same place (in most citites). One can very accurately check their location with relation to their home (<a href=“http://www.antennaweb.org)%5B/url%5D”>www.antennaweb.org)</a>. Type in your address and it will give all the locations (ask for digital only) and their distance, angle, and UHF or VHF assignments.</p>

<p>I don’t pay for any cable either - too cheap for that too :)</p>

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<p>Simba,</p>

<p>Same location? Not in the DC area. I counted ten different directions, based on your link, for digital alone!</p>

<p>Oh well. Most of them are close.</p>

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<p>In Houston, they are all between 20.8 - 21.3 miles from my home and are between 146 - 149 degrees.</p>

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<p>In Pittsburgh, towers are in all directions. Also, no one should assume that they can get the HDTV version of their local stations from satellite; availability is on a market by market basis.</p>