Is there such a thing at Digital TV antenna?

I keep seeing people & advertisements talk about digital TV antennas. I think its non sense the TV antenna picks up the carrier wave frequency it makes no difference what information is on the carrier wave.

gary350 said:

I keep seeing people & advertisements talk about digital TV antennas. I think its non sense the TV antenna picks up the carrier wave frequency it makes no difference what information is on the carrier wave.

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That's absolutely true.
Advertising a TV antenna as "Digital" is pure advertising hype.

gary350 said:

I keep seeing people & advertisements talk about digital TV antennas. I think its non sense the TV antenna picks up the carrier wave frequency it makes no difference what information is on the carrier wave.

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It's a pure lie, and numerous dodgy dealers and aerial installers were fined during DSO in the UK for conning people in just that way.

There are commercials in the US that state something like "Congress has mandated that all TV stations broadcast a digital TV signal" with the implication that broadcasting a signal that anyone can receive for free is a new thing. I guess a large segment of the population has always had cable and never been up on the roof trying to get the antenna pointed in the right directon.

So to get this amazing new thing, all you have to do is send them some money for an overpriced antenna.

they trying the same stuff here..........

huge backfire

"tvtech in behave mode"

JonSea said:

I guess a large segment of the population has always had cable and never been up on the roof trying to get the antenna pointed in the right directon.

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That is true. For a while I was building 8 bay TV antennas 20 at a time to sell at my cost $20 to retired people on a fixed income that can not afford cable TV. I was advertising on Craigslist and the younger folks kept sending me hate mail telling me there is no such thing as free antenna TV. My CL ADs kept getting deleted from people complaining thinking I am scamming people. People under the age of 40 don't know about Antenna TV. I set up an antenna TV demonstration to prove to people there is free OTA = over the air TV at a flea market 90% of the people though it was a trick, I must have a hidden DVD player some where. There are 3 antenna TV forums all the new people ask, how to build a digital TV antenna, it is best not to try and explain there is no such thing as a digital antenna. Best Buy sells TV antennas and they insist you must have a digital antenna to receive digital TV. The whole thing makes me mad I wish there was a way to education people.

Young people are confused about antennas because they are not familiar with the language used. It's like telling them about a telephone with a "dial tone".


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And the digital antennas are impacting more than just humans...

Haven't paid the first nickel for TV ever (other than hardware $).

Years ago when Win7 came out, I cranked up Windows Media Center (WMC), got two Hauppage tuners (later a single unit with two tuners in one package - $73USD) and a decent antenna: like this one - $32USD...

(got mine from the local WalMart. Also sold on Amazon - same antenna, works great).

All 19 our local stations (VHF & UHF) are on a single tower ≈ 17 miles away. So multiple towers aren't an issue.

I can record two channels simultaneously, or just one while the other one we can watch live, which is also temporarily being recorded, so you can pause for a break (AND then skip the ads!). I now have almost 8TB of recorded shows (68 program titles and, for instance, 63 "Blue Bloods" episodes). Can binge watch at will... .

Several other useful features, like "record all" new episodes of a series (and you can program it to ignore repeats); very convenient icon based storage for easy retrieval; and an intuitive set-up. And if you've leave the computer on, but logged out, WMC will wake up everything and record according to the schedule you've set up.

Sadly (last I looked), Win8 & 10 not only don't have WMC, but also will trash WMC on a Win7 machine if you upgrade.

So, I have 2 Win7 machines dedicated to WMC only (one's a backup). You can get retro MS Win7 machines from (for example) Staples pretty cheap. And you'll need and internet connection for the station(s) schedules (MS provides those).

I don't know about availability of any of this outside the US.

cowboybob said:

I can record two channels simultaneously, or just one while the other one we can watch live, which is also temporarily being recorded, so you can pause for a break (AND then skip the ads!). I now have almost 8TB of recorded shows (68 program titles and, for instance, 63 "Blue Bloods" episodes). Can binge watch at will... .

Several other useful features, like "record all" new episodes of a series (and you can program it to ignore repeats); very convenient icon based storage for easy retrieval; and an intuitive set-up. And if you've leave the computer on, but logged out, WMC will wake up everything and record according to the schedule you've set up.

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Now you just have to figure out how to fast forward through commercials on live TV and you'll have the perfect system.

It reminds me of the situation, in the late 60s and early 70s, when the "new thing" was color TV.
The shops back then who sold color TV sets, would tell their salesman to pitch overpriced color TV antennas.

A decade earlier, it was FM stereo antennas.

gophert said:

Now you just have to figure out how to fast forward through commercials on live TV and you'll have the perfect system.

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Linux Mythtv has auto commercial skip for at least 10 years.

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythcommflag

gary350 said:

I keep seeing people & advertisements talk about digital TV antennas. I think its non sense the TV antenna picks up the carrier wave frequency it makes no difference what information is on the carrier wave.

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The only real difference in antenna requirements is the need for greater directional characteristics (radiation pattern higher F/B ratio, smaller side lobes) in some locations because of the ATSC digital modulation sensitivity to multi-path phase shifts (from just about anything including trees) vs analog transmission and CODFM (DVB-T) forms of Digital TV transmission. Even that requirement is less of a issue today with improved receivers.

A paper clip is all you need can't be more Digital LOL
My girlfriend got a so called digital antenna. The paper clip works just as good LOL

be80be said:

A paper clip is all you need can't be more Digital LOL
My girlfriend got a so called digital antenna. The paper clip works just as good LOL

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is the paper clip horizontally or vertically polarized?

Ylli said:

is the paper clip horizontally or vertically polarized?

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It's circular.

It works they test tv to see if it works before buying it LOL in about every pawn shop around LOL I got a samsung I still have the paper clip for when i want watch free tv LOL

be80be said:

It works they test tv to see if it works before buying it LOL in about every pawn shop around LOL I got a samsung I still have the paper clip for when i want watch free tv LOL

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It works but it's like a dog walking on the hind legs. It's not the fact it works perfectly that amazes, it's the fact it works at all.

nsaspook said:

It works but it's like a dog walking on the hind legs. It's not the fact it works perfectly that amazes, it's the fact it works at all.

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I guess. It's impressive. I just watched a guy make a diode with a pencil, razor blade and a flame so that's my standard lol.

dknguyen said:

I guess. It's impressive. I just watched a guy make a diode with a pencil, razor blade and a flame so that's my standard lol.

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I did that to 40 years ago it was about as fun as watching the Samsung tv come to life with a paperclip my girlfriend spent $80 and the paperclip gets the same channels LOL