Multiple ways to signal to your TV

[hidden_waldo]

Multiple ways to signal to your TV

[Lowdown3]

We don't have any regular TV service. Would this work for us in an emergency?

[hidden_waldo]

The only way to know if it work in an emergency it to buy one and try it now.

[Lowdown3]

Yeah I kinda gathered that :) My point was it works without ANY source of connection, i.e, no cable no dish, etc.

Why aren't people using this for TV then and not paying outrageous amounts for cable bills?

(Keep in mind I haven't had regular TV since 1999)

Where do you find something like this.

[justanothergunnut]

Under federal law local regional tv stations are required to broadcast their signal over the air just as they always have. The difference. Is now it's digital. Part of the new HD or high definition requirements. You can still get oat or over the air signals for free you just need to buy the proper antenna and have a tv with a digital tuner Any tv after say 1999 should be fine lol

[tech]

Just don't fall for the "digital" tv antenna bunk. Digital tv operates in the UHF segment, so a regular vhf/uhf antenna will work just fine. The biggest problem is a digital signal requires a stronger received signal than the old analog system to prevent pixelization aka freezing.

About 10 yeas ago I got the largest antenna Radio Shack had, added a signal amplifier and a rotor. Dropped satellite and never looked back. Some newer services, such as WeatherNation provide a decent alternative to the Weather Channel and don't have all of the stupid programs (yet.)

You don't need a hi-def tv...some of the OTA channels aren't hd anyhow. But since 2009, all over the air (with a few exceptions in extremely remote rural areas) have been required to be digital. This means that either you get a digital converter box for your older tv or get a newer set with a digital tuner built in.

http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/dtvmaps/ will give you a good idea of what you might expect to receive in your area.

[miked2345]

Even an old set of "Rabbit ears" (Indoor antenna) will work on a digital TV, it just depends how far you are from the transmitting towers. We have Dish service hooked up to two of our TV's, but we have a 3rd tv on the other end of the house that I didn't want to run a cable to... I hooked up an old set of rabbit ears to it, and was able to get 10 of the local stations just fine. Then I bought a MoHu Leaf indoor antenna at Sams Club and put that on the TV... Now I can get 29 local stations.
However, we live in a suburban area, not far from the transmitters, so I don't know how this would work, if you're way out in the country.

[610Alpha]

If you have trees around your area you will need to put the antenna in the air. I tried one of the indoor antenna's and it wouldn't pick up a signal and it had a signal amplifier hooked up to it. We have a lot of trees between where we had the indoor antenna and the direction of the signal.

We would need to get an outdoor antenna and put it on the old tower. We dropped cable at the beginning of the year and went with a Roku/Netflix/Amazon Prime combination. Roku is pretty neat, lots of free stuff, tons of Christian channels, and was a one time cost. You should have a decent internet connection, 10 Mbps or higher download.

[Spock]

Amazon sells some nice data converters for $38-45 that can even be used as a vcr. I just bought an old 36 inch Toshiba for my new place....$25 @ Kiwanis club thrift store.

[rice paddy daddy]

Beware of Amazon Fire TV. It monitors and records your conversations. Plus, Amazon.com is building the CIA's new $600 million data center.
Connection? Read this link, the whole thing, and then decide

http://www.naturalnews.com/046009_Amazon_Fire_TV_audio_surveillance_perfect_spying_device.html#izzjmbaFvy

We have a Roku but barely use it. We also have a small antenna that gets one local channel from Jacksonville. Sometimes, anyway.
We cancelled Dish Network to save money, and cable does not come this far out.