anyone recommend a good OTA HD tuner/receiver/antenna?

I'm currently living in downtown Seattle on a block serviced by Millenium
Cable, which sucks major hemorrhoidage. Because the service is so horrible
(SD feeds on 'HD' channels, stuttering, dropouts, no on-demand, no premium
HD channels, etc), I was thinking about dumping them entirely and getting my
programming OTA. my situation is that I live near the water, have a lot
highrises between my place and all known transmitters, and am a little
concerned about signal clarity. I'll also probably have to use an indoor
antenna as my condo association is completely non-responsive when I ask if
there's a way to switch cable providers or put up a community dish/antenna,
so if you have any good recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd
also be appreciated. thanks, guys/gals.

khee mao wrote:
so if you have any good
recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd also be appreciated.
thanks, guys/gals.

I would recommend you go to your nearest Radioshack and pick up a decent
indoor antenna (Only UHF type is required for digital stations). Start
with an inexpensive one and take it home. See how it works hooked to
your HDTV (with built-in tuner), and your TV RF input set to "antenna",
NOT "cable". You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to
receive OTA HDTV. I am 30-50 miles away from the digital towers, and
can receive HD well on most stations with a minimum of antenna. If it
works OK, but still get some pixelation on some stations, return the
antenna and get an amplified version of the same.

Maybe there are others who could provide you with Radioshack part
numbers to make your life easier!

dan

khee mao wrote:
I'm currently living in downtown Seattle on a block serviced by
Millenium Cable, which sucks major hemorrhoidage. Because the service
is so horrible (SD feeds on 'HD' channels, stuttering, dropouts, no
on-demand, no premium HD channels, etc), I was thinking about dumping
them entirely and getting my programming OTA. my situation is that I
live near the water, have a lot highrises between my place and all known
transmitters, and am a little concerned about signal clarity. I'll also
probably have to use an indoor antenna as my condo association is
completely non-responsive when I ask if there's a way to switch cable
providers or put up a community dish/antenna, so if you have any good
recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd also be appreciated.
thanks, guys/gals.

Problem with the recommendation for the UHF only antenna. This year
all the digital TV stations in Seattle are on UHF. However, by or soon
after next February 17, 2009, three DT stations in Seattle will switch
to their current upper VHF analog channel: KCTS-DT PBS 9, KSTW-DT CW 11,
KCPQ-DT Fox 13. So for the long run, you need to get an indoor antenna
with rabbit ears for upper VHF or one that can work for upper VHF *(7 to
13).

With the buildings blocking the line of sight, signal clarity is not
the issue - it is multipath and weak signals.

What model HD TV do you have? If you brought it in the past several
years, odds are that it has an ATSC digital tuner. Look at the manual or
on-line manual at the manufacturers web site to see if it lists ATSC. If
so, you should not need to get an OTA tuner. If you do, then the most
widely available ATSC/clear QAM tuner STB and one that has excellent
performance for multipath is the Samsung DTB-H260F. Which unfortunately
still lists for $180.

As for recommending an antenna, if you could provide your zip code,
that would help. The key is how far you are from the broadcast towers
and whether they are all in the same direction. You can always start by
buying a inexpensive tabletop UHF loop and VHF rabbit ear antenna for
less than $20 locally. The Silver Sensor UHF antenna design is a
good performer - could try the Terk HDTVi if you can find it locally. If
you are within 5 to 10 miles of the broadcast towers, avoid the
amplified antennas with silly numbers such as 45 dB amplification.

websites to check:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ISSUES/erecting_antenna.html

Alan F

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:02:01 -0800, dan wrote:

khee mao wrote:
so if you have any good
recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd also be appreciated.
thanks, guys/gals.

I would recommend you go to your nearest Radioshack and pick up a decent
indoor antenna (Only UHF type is required for digital stations).

Uh...not quite. There are lots of stations broadcasting digital on
VHF, and even more will be doing so come next Feb. Some UHF antennas
do a good job with upper VHF--others don't.

wrote:
On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:02:01 -0800, dan wrote:

khee mao wrote:
so if you have any good
recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd also be appreciated.
thanks, guys/gals.
I would recommend you go to your nearest Radioshack and pick up a decent
indoor antenna (Only UHF type is required for digital stations).

Uh...not quite. There are lots of stations broadcasting digital on
VHF, and even more will be doing so come next Feb. Some UHF antennas
do a good job with upper VHF--others don't.

Yea. The belief that all digital stations are on UHF is common and I
guess can be blamed that in many major cities all the digital stations
are currently on UHF because all of the VHF channels are occupied by
analog stations in that city or the nearby cities. A lot of people who
brought small UHF only antennas are going to be caught by surprise next
February. All of the top 20 DMAs will have at least 1 station on upper
VHF and 2 (Philadelphia, Phoenix) will have 1 station on lower VHF.

For the ~1800 full power stations in the US for the current digital
transition channels, 35 are authorized for low VHF and 163 are
authorized for upper VHF. After the February 17, 2009 analog shutdown,
there will be 37 stations on low VHF, 450 stations on upper VHF, and
1329 on UHF. So, the idea that all digital stations will be on UHF is wrong.

BTW, not all stations will wait until next February to shut down their
analog signal. Some will have to do it in advance to get tower work done
before winter, others have to put up new antennas; some will kill analog
next February, but may ask to stay on their current digital channel for
several months while new equipment is put in. All full power stations
were required to post a transition plan with the FCC by today. Those
should be on-line within several days and people are busy working
putting together a single public summary for all of them. Not a trivial
task.

Alan F

"dan" wrote in message
news

I would recommend you go to your nearest Radioshack and pick up a decent
indoor antenna (Only UHF type is required for digital stations).

============================
Not true!
There are DTV stations on the VHF band in many markets.
They may select which they keep when the shut-off occurs.
You need a combo VHF/UHF to be sure!

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:08:54 GMT, Alan F
wrote:

were required to post a transition plan with the FCC by today. Those
should be on-line within several days and people are busy working
putting together a single public summary for all of them.

I will be really interested in seeing that. There's been some
discussion on AVS for our area about the future of our nex Fox
affiliate KUQI. I know you looked that one up for me and said they
would have to do an analog-to-digital switch on the same freq. There's
a guy in AVS claiming he spoke with one of their engineers who said HD
was a few months away. Obviously they can't do that if they wait
until next Feb to do the switchover.

wrote:

Uh...not quite. There are lots of stations broadcasting digital on
VHF, and even more will be doing so come next Feb. Some UHF antennas
do a good job with upper VHF--others don't.

Whoops. I stand corrected. All of my digital stations are UHF now, and
I didn't know that may be changing. I would still recommend my own
advice, but get the UHF/VHF combo antenna.

dan

khee mao wrote:
I'm currently living in downtown Seattle on a block serviced by
Millenium Cable, which sucks major hemorrhoidage. Because the service
is so horrible (SD feeds on 'HD' channels, stuttering, dropouts, no
on-demand, no premium HD channels, etc), I was thinking about dumping
them entirely and getting my programming OTA. my situation is that I
live near the water, have a lot highrises between my place and all known
transmitters, and am a little concerned about signal clarity. I'll also
probably have to use an indoor antenna as my condo association is
completely non-responsive when I ask if there's a way to switch cable
providers or put up a community dish/antenna, so if you have any good
recommendations for a good indoor antenna, that'd also be appreciated.
thanks, guys/gals.

tivo hd has good ota hd tuners.

wrote:
On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:08:54 GMT, Alan F
wrote:

were required to post a transition plan with the FCC by today. Those
should be on-line within several days and people are busy working
putting together a single public summary for all of them.

I will be really interested in seeing that. There's been some
discussion on AVS for our area about the future of our nex Fox
affiliate KUQI. I know you looked that one up for me and said they
would have to do an analog-to-digital switch on the same freq. There's
a guy in AVS claiming he spoke with one of their engineers who said HD
was a few months away. Obviously they can't do that if they wait
until next Feb to do the switchover.

The key thread is "The official upcoming final DTV Table Of
Allotments/channel change thread" at
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=823166. Falcon_77 has
updated his spreadsheet for around 520 stations that posted their
Form 387 transition plan as of last Thursday. As of today, 827 stations
have posted a plan. Don't see KUQI yet.

If anyone wants to see directly what the transition plan is for their
local stations, go to
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/p...d/app_sear.htm. Select
Service: TV station, Form: 387. To cut down the response list size, you
can enter station call letter or a state or a date (02/15/2008) to see a
list of several hundred filings on that date. Have to read the form
carefully, for stations making complicated moves, the PDF letter
attachment is the only way to figure it out.

Alan F