[kwlug-disc] 8-bay OTA antenna - $50

[B.S.]

>________________________________
> From: CrankyOldBugger <crankyoldbugger at gmail.com>
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Wednesday, December 9, 2015 7:46 PM
>Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] 8-bay OTA antenna - $50
> 
>So my advice to you is that if you're going to go OTA, grab a compass and see how your line-of-sight is looking before you make the plunge.


Excellent advice.

Go to tvfool.com first, though.


And, I gave up on my compass. Too cheap to get something that really works. I put a few on my fence top while trying to aim the antenna, and the needle is just wrong or won't settle down. Even the gps & compass on my phone goes goofy. But if I step back a few feet beyond arms reach of the pole it works well enough - so check out the phone you probably already have in your pocket before you put out too many $$$.

What got me through this, though ... within TV fool is an ability to show a satellite map of your location, with lines for where the transmitters are. I was able to bring that up, then capture the image (sufficiently well). Then went into something like the gimp and rotated the image to a perspective useful when I'm in front of the pole. In my case, I made my fence line the horizontal - so I plunk the print on the fence top, alight it with the rails, and I'm good to go.

Suggestion: Print on card stock. You will be needing it again. And again. And again. Eventually though you will conclude that you've got as good as you can get in your environment, and can put it away. Even with seasonal change, I expect you're as likely to lose other channels as gain the one that won't quite stay.

Search the web and you can find out how to make a homemade antenna. In my case I found one to glue foil to a backing (binder cover, in my case), then cut the excess foil away.

If your TV has an ATSC tuner, or you have another to hand, you can use these to try to get a sense as to whether OTA is at all viable for you, without putting out any $$$. In my case, CKCO was coming in well enough, local news was what I didn't want to lose worst case - so I was able to determine that further time and dollars would not be entirely wasted.

I then picked up a cheap USB ATSC tuner off kijiji. Sadly, only works under Windows - if someone wants to borrow it to check out their own situation, they're welcome to do so.

As said elsewhere, ultimately I picked up a cheap Outdoor amplifying antenna from factory direct, and using Khalid's blog as a guide, spent $20 and put it up on a pole.

Ultimately I bought a Tivo off ebay, but that's an entirely different (PVR) story.


One caveat to Cranky's note, though ... you may get more OTA than you think / it doesn't have to be line of sight. There are transmitters all but sideways to my antenna that come in just fine. Multipath and bouncy reflective surfaces between me and it somehow allow me to get things I shouldn't. (Sadly, nothing US / Buffalo.) Definitely YMMV per your environment.

Sadly, evidently Cranky is SOL, but if you can check out your environment for little or no cost, you may find it worthwhile.

Note though: If you absolutely must have a turnkey fire-and-forget always just works solution for all channels ... OTA won't be for you. It doesn't get everything, like US networks, and even CKCO glitches out every now and again. If this is your situation, rather than futz with multiple incoming sources, you will only be happier with a Rogers / Vmedia / Zazeen / Bell purchase. Ce la vie.